Your 20s! The beginning of a new journey. A brand new embarkment that will predict the rest of your life.But with it comes the looming shadow of ‘what ifs’. what if you don’t start it right? What if you’re still undecided about what you want to do? Where do all the promises leave you if you fail at the onset of this expedition? I might add stories of my own, theories that worked for me. But the extraordinary fact is this, you have to figure this one out on your own.
Most 20-something people I know, which is to say, my friends, go through the grief of a failed life even before they’ve lived. Right at the cusp of adulthood, society hands you an enumerated catalog of achievements you have to accomplish before you’re even given the title of a promising member of it.
Life is like a cycle of moments and happiness that traces back to the beginning; little things that are meant to teach and shape you into who are meant to be. Walter Mosley, in his book when the thrill is gone writes : “Many & most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage. But love & hate & fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider’s web holding fast to a doomed fly’s wings. And when you’re caught like that you’re aware of every moment & movement & nuance.”
So think of every misstep and failure as little stages of progress.
You never could have learned how to ride a bike on the first day. Okay, maybe you had your grandpa push you from the back and make sure you didn’t fall to scrape your knee. And now you may not have someone to prevent the fall but you’ve also had two decades of practice on our own backbone and that’s feat enough to get the courage from.
Doing it alone might seem to make the situation a big feat in itself because you will lose friendships and relationships on the way and as nerve racking as it is to fathom the pain before it even happens, I guess I should remind you that that too will pass. That’s how the universe works, after all.
People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.” – Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin.
Are you ready to say yes to life?
Retracing life 