You’re young, free and… living with your parents. Or in a crappy apartment with seven roommates. Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s D.O.A. Ok yes, that’s from the Friends theme song—but boy does it ring true. And the Friends were living back in the 90s – before the housing bubble burst!
Everything is terrible.
Old people are always saying that our generation is lazy and entitled, as though their generation didn’t ruin the economy and the planet in the first place.
Meanwhile, you’re applying for unpaid internships (you can’t get hired to work for free). Or you’re busting your ass for minimum wage to pay off your astronomical student loans. Or you’re an office drone and everyday your soul is being chipped away, bit by bit. Also, how do taxes work??
You look at cats and babies and feel a little jealous. They have it so easy.
Plus, you’re starting to just accept that you’ll die alone. Or worse, you’ll have to tell your kids that you met their father on Tinder.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
You knew you wouldn’t stumble into your dream job right out of college, and you didn’t expect to meet Mr. or Mrs. Right right away… but you thought you’d have more figured out by now. Instead, you don’t know what you want, let alone how to get it.
Sure, you knew it was a little unrealistic to think that you’d spend your twenties traipsing barefoot through the streets of Paris with a handsome stranger… but you hoped it would be a little more glamorous than binge-watching Say Yes to the Dress barefoot in your bed with General Tso’s Chicken.
BUT it’s okay to feel lost.
You’re anxious, unsure, heartbroken, and lost? Good. Your early twenties is not the time to feel contented. It’s the time to feel hungry and dissatisfied. That’s what drives you onwards and upwards.
So many people just say, “Meh,??? and stay right where they are. They hardly ever change or grow or quit their day job in a fit of anger. You’re not that person, though—you know you want MORE out of life, like all the Disney princesses at the start of the movie (not counting the ones who were already fantastically independently wealthy).
So maybe right now life is garbage and all your goals are just out of reach… but freaking out over your lack of direction just means you’re working your way towards having a direction.
It’s only for now.
Well, everything in life is only for now… but all your confusion, your seat on the struggle bus—it won’t last forever. You’re going to keep on struggling and changing until you’re a completely different person. No matter how bleak things might feel right now, you’re going to keep making progress.
It’s not such a bad thing, anyway, to totally panic and reevaluate all your priorities every once in a while. Chances are, whatever you can pull out of the wreckage is what really matters.