To the all the young who got lost when 20 arrives

Original article:

I never thought I would open this blog to get back to writing again. Writing used to be my favorite thing to do in life for the past 4 or 5 years. But after all, I’m the one who needs to write. And I don’t think I would ever stop doing so. Writing is one of the most effective procedures that guides me through the void that is waiting for me to dwell in.

I turned into different persons – different personalities from time to time (I guess that was the effect of quarter-life identity crisis). Spent days to re-figure and re-think about my further study plan and career path, to breathe the peer pressure out, to wake up and start another day questioning “so what really is the purpose of my life?”. Sometimes I wish I had a “skip” button to see how I would be living in the next 10 years so that I could ease down and continue doing my work. I felt 3 years of university were like a blast. I don’t have as many friends as I thought I did. I didn’t have great memories, wonderful trips, remarkable journeys, or these exciting reckless night-outs as I imagined. All of this time got me to the conclusion that “it doesn’t matter how fun the activities are or how far the journeys go, what matters is the people I spent time with”. But before I understood the very meaning of this conclusion, I had questioned myself a million times where the fck is my twenty-dream? where the fck is the fire of youth? where the fck is the wonders that everybody keeps rambling about? Twentysomething is attached to a “reckless” cliches, like the book “The Defining Decade” (Meg Jay) once stated:

But at the same time, society, as well as the youth ourselves, start questioning the values we create, and we got stressed when comparing our ability to others. I had a great academic performance at university, a good start for my future career, an open mindset, and great resilience that never stops making effort. But sometimes the peer pressure that they always talk about got my Achilles’ heel. The feelings that I have never tried hard enough, that I never made sufficient effort, that I have not made all the best out of my time… These feelings are only good when they made me be disciplined on the days I feel idle and motivated me to be more efficient with my resources, but if I do not manage them well, they start exerting me and dragging me into endless exhaustion.

omg. that’s brutal.

Anyways, the good thing is, this phase has passed, what I have left is growing up.

I want to tell all those who have the feelings of being left out from youth’s excitement, who make efforts every day for their academic performances or career path, who never stops working on themselves while they are hurt by a thousand cuts, who still views life as an intriguing journey and these things are just crazy storms in a few days – all the young who got lost and challenged by the quarter-life crisis – that everything will pay off. And we will all learn so much from it, as “Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.” (Karen Horney, psychoanalyst)

Stepping to 20 (a few months ago), I learned that:

- The glorious scenes about the youth were sometimes overrated. Youth is about experiencing and growing and getting hit by the brutal and blooming with all the efforts.

- The power that fertilizes the growing process is the ability to focus on working one oneself – immensely focus on watering your own grass that we don’t have time searching for everyone whose grass is greener.

- Trading off health is never a priority.

- People come and go. The worthy ones stay. So when losing someone, it’s not the end of the world. The worthy ones who stay are those worth the time.

- Having plans are always better, but we couldn’t plan everything that happened in life and these plans would be twisted several times. So just keep some options open and keep on observing every opportunity.

- Be immensely grateful for everything we’ve already had.

- A vision board (that visualize vividly who and how we want to be in a specific time) really helps.

It does not stop at “doing what we love” or “getting a job that we are good at”. It must hit at “developing a career or designing a work-life that you both love and excel at the same time”