Life is a Beautiful Mess – 20’s Edition
Post Updated: June 27, 2023
Life is a beautiful mess… there really is no better way to describe it.
I want to especially write this one for all the people who think they should have their life together in their 20’s and don’t.
Everyone lives their life at a different pace. Everyone has different desires, wants and needs.
Everyone’s life is different and that’s what makes it unique.
As one of the greatest rappers of all time said,
“No such thing as a life that’s better than yours.” – J. Cole
The generic timeline society created
- Finish high school ✅.
- Go to college ✅.
- Graduate college at 22 ✅.
- Start your career ✅.
- Get married ✅.
- Purchase a house ✅.
- Have kids ✅.
- Live happily ever after ✅.
OH! And my absolute favorite: Accomplish said list by 25. HA! Umm.. Yeah… I don’t know about you, but my life has NOT played out like that!
I see people my age who have graduated college, have wonderful careers, have settled down, gotten married and have kids living in their beautiful houses, driving their fancy cars and life just seems perfect for them.
I’m a college graduate with no career, not married and I have a child. I don’t own a home, don’t drive the fanciest car, life isn’t perfect but I have everything I need.
Please don’t let anybody tell you that you are moving too slow or too fast in life.
Everybody is going about life at their own pace, some faster than others, some with more help than others. But whatever it may be, it’s not a competition and we should stop making it one.
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
[Related Post: Dealing With Unsupportive People]
The beautiful mess I Call MY life
It took me longer than the average four years to finish college and I finally graduated at the age 25 with a bachelor in public health.
I was always told by peers that having a degree was key to being successful in life.
“Get a degree so you can find a good job” or,
“You HAVE to have a degree to make it in this world.”
I really believed that crap!
I went most of my 20’s telling myself that if I didn’t have an education, aka a degree, I would be nothing.
Yes having a college degree is a nice piece of paper to have and hang on your wall, but what good is it if it doesn’t get you anywhere and most importantly… You’re not happy?
Working 9-5 or Lack There Of
Not finishing school in a “timely manner” was the least of my worries. I graduated college and moved back home and started looking for a job and I could not find one.
I did a year long paid internship through AmeriCorps and that was the extent of my “career” life.
To this day, I still don’t have an established career in public health because it requires a masters degree that I don’t want to get, but I do have a steady full time job with benefits and a 401K!
Get this – I’m making more money with my current job than I would with a masters degree working in public health. HAHA! What a joke.
At this point, I don’t know if I will ever work in public health. The Covid-19 pandemic made me lose hope in humanity.
Looking back, I wish I had taken the time to figure out what SOFIA wanted to do instead of wasting time in school.
My parents never allowed me to take a semester off and explore my options then had the audacity to get mad at me when I was failing all my classes and told me I was wasting their money on tuition.
We will work on that part of childhood trauma in therapy.
And this is just my 20s! I still have 30s and beyond to experience!
Life Is A Beautiful mess Nonetheless
Looking back, 25 was such a crazy time in my life.
I thought it was going to be a major turning point but it just felt like a mid-life crisis. This idea people have that if you don’t have your life established by 25 or even 30 is just nonsense.
I do wonder, those of you who did follow that exact timeline, are you truly happy? Would you have done anything differently?
Did I think my life was going to turn out THIS way? No, but have I come a long way from a few years ago when I thought I needed to get my life “together”? Absolutely!
I used to often question where I went wrong because I felt I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life. And that’s when you have to stop yourself, snap back out of it and realize that life is not a damn competition.
The only thing I did wrong was compare what I was doing to someone else and that robbed me of A LOT of time, energy, and joy.
I have reached a point in life where I am grateful for what I have and I stopped comparing myself so much to what other people are doing or what other people have that I don’t.
Everything happens the way it’s supposed to for YOUR life! Everything that happens is either a blessing or a lesson, or sometimes even both!
Live YOUR life at your own pace. Don’t try to follow what everyone else is doing. Don’t try to rush things.
Take your time!
There is no right or wrong standard of how we should live our lives. There is no written law that states that by a certain age you must have those generic items checked off your list.
Let’s be honest, sometimes things don’t go as planned no matter how much you try because that’s life and shit happens.
Life isn’t meant to be the perfect fairy tale that society has painted. It’s not meant to be what you expected at all!
This !! It’s so right. Who is it to say what speed ourlives go? It’s up to us and asking as we are good people and doing the best we can we will get to where we are going when we get there. Gosh I love this so much ♥️