"am I wasting my 20s?"

my dreams are growing larger by the minute!

"Sunset" by Felix Vallotton via @VividVoid_

Being 20 something in a big city is both agony and bliss. Everyone is lonely, everyone is obsessed, everyone is hungry. A collective era of being lost, hopeful, and distracted. Being overwhelmed with options, feeling unsure about choices. Feeling like everything matters and nothing matters at all.

Your 20s is probably the only time in your life you have the specific, glorious combination of agency and few commitments.

You could theoretically change your life at any moment. Move here, date that person, work on that startup, write that blog, dye your hair, adopt a dog. Of course it’s never easy — but it’s possible to uproot yourself, become a new person. Should I stay, should I go? I don’t know if this agency is freedom or burden. Perhaps all the best things are both.

I imagine one day I’ll look back and say: I was so young and lived in san francisco — on weekends, I ate cheap al pastor burritos in dolores, sinking in the warm grass. Painted on friday nights instead of going out. At some points I was heartbroken and jaded. Other times I felt euphoric, immortal, like time would never pass. I didn’t have to sacrifice anything, everything was inherently sweet and possible.

But lately, I’ve been feeling responsible for choosing carefully. Choosing well. After all, as my friend a A wrote, too many lives to live, too little time.

I think we should make active choices (I want to be here) rather than passive ones (I will stay because leaving is complicated and painful). I’ll accept any consequences if I’m able to say, I chose the best I could. I didn’t let my life slide by.

Do you feel this way too? Maybe you’re asking yourself the questions I’m always asking: Am I working on the right things? Should I be ‘living’ or working more? Am I surrounded by the right people? Will this make me happy? If I’m too comfortable, am I reaching my potential?

The hard truth is that no one can tell you what those ‘right’ things are. Or whether your north star is any good.

It all comes down to paying close attention to what you value. Observing how you feel when you make a choice. Does it feel expansive? It should. Even if it is difficult. Sometimes the best choices are ones that break you open so light can flow in. Every choice teaches you about yourself. You have to be willing to learn.

Every choice will change you and you can never go back. But it opens up a set of possibilities each time. I think of this image often:

Tim Urban

We stop being afraid of something when we are able to see it with perspective. What goes too long unchanged destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives (Ursula Le Guin). Change is inevitable so I hold my selves lightly.

I am 20 something in a big city. Just reckless enough for novelty, just pragmatic enough to grow roots. I am stretching toward something real, true, beautiful. So close I can almost touch it. My dreams are growing larger by the minute. I can’t see the future but I trust in it anyways.

-N.

PS: if you liked this, you should also read what I wrote in April <3

I deeply believe in owning your decisions and moving with lightness. To know you made a choice for yourself. Even if it means leaving an imagined self behind, even if it means grieving the ‘potential self’ in order to make room for the present one. No nostalgia, no expectation.

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Quote of the Week

I have led a toothless life, he thought. A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on—and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone.

— Sartre

Books I enjoyed recently

Reread The Secret History by Donna Tartt (psychological thriller - an easy read and truly gripping), Bliss Montage by Ling Ma (essays about madness, loneliness, very fantasy/dreamlike), Stay True by Hua Hsu (a heartbreaking memoir about friendship, grief, the transition into adulthood).

French Song of the Week