So, Friday is my birthday. I hate it. Every birthday after 21 has been terrible: I see all the opportunities I didn’t take, all the naps I did take when I should have been out living or loving or dear God graduating. It would be so nice if I could manage to graduate from undergrad in less than four hundred years. I turn 23, and while 23 might not sound like much, it is seven years away from 30! That’s all—just seven. 30 is no longer a distant dream, it’s just around the freaking river bend and believe me, I am not tan enough to be Pocahontas. Even a talking tree/grandmother could not turn me onto the idea of being 30.
I have seven years left of my long, slow march towards turning 30, when I probably will still not have that v-line under my abs (or abs quite frankly), won’t be in a stable relationship, won’t be Anna Wintour’s replacement at Vogue, but probably will have added another three cats to my collection. Sometimes it feels like the biggest step I’ve made towards actual adulthood is getting my own Netflix account. Oh, wait. Sorry Sam, I promise I’ll get my own soon. I’m being melodramatic for (hopefully) comedic effect, but some of this sentiment still stands.
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this fear, this pressure. Any young adult attending college—after freshman year anyway—feels it. We all want to succeed, we all want to have not just wasted four years and $70,000 just to not get a job after graduating and end up as a barista. No offence to baristas, I love and respect your art, but it isn’t why I went to college. We just want to do well, and don’t want to waste what every movie keeps insisting are the best years of our lives. We don’t want to live a life we’ll regret at the end, and with 23 looming near, I personally feel my life slipping through my fingers.
It’s silly, I know, but it can also be a good thing. Maybe it will motivate me to not sleep in quite so late on Sundays. I mean, probably not, but maybe. It would be nice. That’s what I’m getting at in this piece. I know we all have this anxiety—maybe not to my degree, but we have them—and I don’t know that there’s much to do about it, other than use it constructively.
So, this birthday, I’m making resolutions. I’m not waiting for New Years to make these promises to myself I probably won’t keep, I’m doin’ it up early this year. I’m going to go to see the inside of the gym at least three times a week (I know, I know, piece of cake for some of you crazed zealots that actually enjoy exercise). I’m going to write more, not just for Odyssey, but period—if I’m going to be a writer I need to actually write. I’m going to try to procrastinate less. I’m going to graduate by the end of next December, come hell or high water. Basically, I’m just going to put in more of an effort. I am going to try in my own life instead of coasting.
That’s what we should all do. If you don’t want to regret the life you’ve lived, then don’t. Log off of Netflix, stop putting off that thing you’ve been putting off since last month, and go live. The new episode of Arrow can wait. You want abs? Get them. You want a date? Go ask somebody. As the Legendary Miss Britney Spears once said, "you wanna hot body? You wanna Bugatti? You better work b*tch".
Make 20 or 23 or 31 your year. Own your life, and rock your youth. I know success is different for everyone and I’m not saying we should all wear a suit and work in Don Draper’s office looking at sales reports, but be successful at whatever you want to be successful at. If you want to design, then start sketching, get Periscope and watch the runways live. If you want to DJ, then pick a name and buy some equipment. Personally, I like DJ Jazzy Jeff, but I think it’s already taken. If you don’t know what you want to do, then start exploring ideas. The point is, just try to be happy with your life, and if you aren’t—if you feel dissatisfied and scared—change that. I’m going to.
Maybe I’ll also try to chill out a little, too.
