My little sister asked me the strangest thing; “What would you tell your future self?” Now, in our twenties, we are surrounded by moments we know are going to impact our future. Scary thought, right? The anxieties of stability scare us to the point of picking the wrong majors and suffering through the worst jobs of our twenties. Our personal anxieties are endless, but these three below are possibly the most common.
- Money
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When you are going out with friends it is easy to get caught up in spending the same amount as the next person. However, when stressing about money we either think about the future or we go out less. Thank goodness for those coffee shops and Tuesday movie deals.
Some believe money is not everything, it’s just something to help us through our journey. Oprah Winfrey says the best thing about money and identity is “if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”
Ever heard of ‘if you do the thing you love you would never work a day in your life?’ So why is that not our goal? To live a life full of passion instead of greed. We look at money to enjoy life but what if we could enjoy life without stressing about money? This may be one of our biggest dilemmas in our twenties.
- Identity
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Who we are right now may determine who we will be tomorrow. We fixate on new trends and new clothes and try our best to be someone we might not be. Thinking of this brought me back to one of my favourite childhood films, What A Girl Wants. It always comes to mind when I think about Identity. Right before the teenage couple falls off a baby canoe in London, the boy says, “why do you try so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out.”
To discover who we truly are we should remove ourselves from what society says and look at what we value ourselves to be. This includes our greatest hobbies, our favourite songs and most importantly are we a Trekkie or whatever the Star Wars people call themselves. All I know is I am definitely a Swiftie when Shake It Off comes on the radio.
In our twenties we have the freedom to choose what we would like our image to be. Where I believe we are getting it wrong is, we pick either to embrace what people believe us to be or we rebel and go into a completely alternative direction. Our image is not necessarily about how people perceive us, but it is equally important to how we see ourselves. What we value needs to be the foundation of our identity.
- Relationships
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Between our friends and our dating life, on paper, we should be having quite a blast. So why do we feel discouraged or anxious because of what the rest of the world is doing and how their relationships are looking?
Daniel Sloss says, relationships should be about finding that perfect puzzle piece for our own picture. The Scottish comedian also notes that this puzzle of ours lacks any instructions and comes with no picture but our very own imagination. We get to decide who our puzzle piece gets to be. Our puzzle may not look like the Beckhams, but we can ignore all those irrelevant pieces and believe in our own choices. Who knows, we may find ourselves building one awesome looking picture if we just learn to listen to our own opinion.
In our twenties we feel the need to be perfect all the time. News flash, we are living in the most insane time of our lives and we are not alone. Certain anxieties do not have to take over our lives. We can either live life to the fullest like most travel advertisements tell us to, or we can take a step back and take our time in discovering life’s greatest treasures. We made it to our second decade, and it is time for us to explore our own kind of love, success and happiness.