In the 1920's, America and parts of Europe experienced a blissful change in society, culture, and the arts. Women and minorities were making significant strides towards greater independence and equality, new technologies were surfacing, and fashion, jazz, and other art forms were blossoming like bossoms on pubescent girls. Not to mention, economic prosperity filled the air as more people were working and new consumer goods were constantly hitting the shelves to meet accelerated consumer demands. The people were entering a new age - breaking from traditions and being introduced to a wide array of new things and ideas. These were the "roaring twenties" and the spirit of these golden years was marked with exuberant optimism, excitment, and joy.
Some say your 20's should carry the same spirit the 1920's did. When people find out I'm 23, in addition to telling me how young they think I am, they always say something to the effect that your 20's are the best years of your life and that I should be "living it up". I don't disagree that I should be "living it up" (I think you should "live it up" at any age), but are they really the best years of your life? Let's think about this...
At the start of our "roaring 20's" most people are in college, typically within their last few years, right about to turn the ripe, legal age to drink.. Pretty good year - minus the waiting 'til 21 part. For most of us, we graduate college at or around 21 and then get violently introduced to reality AKA "The real world". Sure, for most of these years, we can get away with the skimpy dresses and getting wasted on Taco Tuesday, Hump Day Wednesday, and Thirsty Thursday nights - along with the usual Friday-Sunday weekend- but then when we wake up in the morning with throbbing headaches, something tells us we're not in college anymore, toto...
We realize we're actually adults with responsibilities that consist of more than just "Monday night meeting", lecture on Monday-Wednesday-Friday and a discussion sesson in Thursday. We find we've got mounding debt, either because we only got to go to college through student loans or we were persuaded into getting a credit card from a bank when we turned 18 and didn't realize we actually had to pay back the credit card company for all the cool things we used that tiny, paper-thin plastic card for, and to top it off - most of us have work Hmm.. exciting, kinda cool.. Scary? YES! Maybe I have a scewed perspective because this economy is almost as bad as the great depression that followed the 1920's, but is it 100X harder than you thought it would be to get a job these days? And, if you're one of the lucky ones that has a job, you're probably one of the only people actually working because you're the youngest and newest person on the "team".
Ugh.. these twenties sound horrible! Ha. But, despite it all, I guess we must appreciate the twenties because while we're still trying to figure it out, we make our own decisions, and we are allotted the chance to make our own mistakes. I'm 23, almost 24. I haven't lived most of my 20s.. but even in these 3 years, I can say it has been some of the most unmistakenly difficult, crazy, unpredictable, trying years of my life. (And we thought our teens were tough!) I realize it's all a process.. a developmental, learning process.. but when does the roaring begin?
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
This thing called "Life"
When I was younger, I thought of my life like a movie and I wanted it to be this box office hit with me as the leading lady. As a result, I tried to plan out my life minute for minute. I wanted my life to be perfect so when I looked back at it years down the line, I could play it back to myself like this picture-perfect movie. For a while, I would say I was pretty successful.
Ultimately, I decided I did not want my life to be this scripted, well thought-out story board so I told myself to be a little more spontaneous and exciting and a little less planned. I started to take risks, like move to New York City and date people I never thought to date because they didn't fit the typical "leading male" role. I thought I finally had it down, but then I realized I was doing only what I thought would be considered "spontaneous" when in fact they were actually very premeditated, really thought out, over-analyzed and assessed multiple times to account for the range of outcomes, benefits, consequences, and potential margin of error.
A few months have passed and many things and aspects in my life are no longer "perfect". At first, I panicked because I thought EVERYTHING was falling apart, but then I realized not EVERYTHING had fallen apart, just a few things had been shaken up. At a time when nothing seemed to be going right, I finally acknowledged that this was and is life - my life. Nothing is ever really going to be absolutely perfect, and if they are (or seem to be), it is unlikely and unnatural for it to be perfect forever. Things will happen - some things we plan for, others we don't. Events will take place that will stir our emotions and, good or bad, all we can do is accept them.
I've decided to start blogging and actually proceed to publish the posts (I used to just type them up for my own self gratification, save them, read them over to myself, and delete them) so when I read them back to myself years down the time, or maybe just a few months, weeks or days, I can really appreciate this thing called "life". I am excited, yet scared for what's to come. For once, things in my life are not exactly as I would like or as I imagined they would be and I am not frantically trying to "fix" it. I accept that there are things I am not in control of and life, unfortunately yet fortunately, is one of them. So here I go.. this is my life in progress.
Ultimately, I decided I did not want my life to be this scripted, well thought-out story board so I told myself to be a little more spontaneous and exciting and a little less planned. I started to take risks, like move to New York City and date people I never thought to date because they didn't fit the typical "leading male" role. I thought I finally had it down, but then I realized I was doing only what I thought would be considered "spontaneous" when in fact they were actually very premeditated, really thought out, over-analyzed and assessed multiple times to account for the range of outcomes, benefits, consequences, and potential margin of error.
A few months have passed and many things and aspects in my life are no longer "perfect". At first, I panicked because I thought EVERYTHING was falling apart, but then I realized not EVERYTHING had fallen apart, just a few things had been shaken up. At a time when nothing seemed to be going right, I finally acknowledged that this was and is life - my life. Nothing is ever really going to be absolutely perfect, and if they are (or seem to be), it is unlikely and unnatural for it to be perfect forever. Things will happen - some things we plan for, others we don't. Events will take place that will stir our emotions and, good or bad, all we can do is accept them.
I've decided to start blogging and actually proceed to publish the posts (I used to just type them up for my own self gratification, save them, read them over to myself, and delete them) so when I read them back to myself years down the time, or maybe just a few months, weeks or days, I can really appreciate this thing called "life". I am excited, yet scared for what's to come. For once, things in my life are not exactly as I would like or as I imagined they would be and I am not frantically trying to "fix" it. I accept that there are things I am not in control of and life, unfortunately yet fortunately, is one of them. So here I go.. this is my life in progress.
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