On Turning 25
Today is my 25th birthday, marking the fact that I have been on this earth for a quarter century. 25 is a beautiful number, isn’t it? We often call the number a quarter or a fourth. It’s a perfect square. If you double the age, it’s middle-aged. If you triple it, it’s about the end of age. While many birthdays may seem to be arbitrary pomp and circumstance, somehow turning 25 calls for additional introspection.
At 25 years old, I am certainly no longer a boy, not that I was a boy at 24, 23, etc. However, I sense that the age demands a new identity, that I am a young man and that there are no excuses and no handicaps to lessen the burden of my own destiny. Who I will become, where I will go, and what I’ll do were always my responsibilities. Though now, the certainty that all these rest predominantly in my hands brings greater anxiety, fear, and hope.
Over the past couple years, one potential future of my life has become clear, as if I can see my future quality of life and day-to-day through a window. Assuming a relatively steady state of the world—and America’s position within it—like the past 50 years has been, I can see salaryman and manager Jordan. He has paid his dues and now works in higher positions of responsibility and compensation. He works hard, maybe too hard. He is respected at the company, and he is valued. Because he’s been in the business for many years, he knows things, so the company pays him handsomely. He has a family, a beautiful wife and precious children. Perhaps he lacks passion and fulfillment from work (perhaps we all do) but the simple pleasures of life and family keep him content. Yes, he is content as I’m sure I would be if that were me. His life is comfortable. His life, I dare say, is easy too, for it came to fruition because he simply endured, that he stayed in the business and within the corporation, putting in the majority of his waking hours into this enterprise. I question whether I want his life. To question such a life is a privilege. I am lucky for that and do not take this fortune lightly.
I yearn for something else, and I yearn for it deeply. I seek a work-life imbalance, a life that is so consumed with interest and passion that I don’t view weekends and the time back from the office as me time. I want to love what I do, and I want to be the best at my job. However, I currently do not have love for my job and therefore, I will never be the best at it. At many times, I feel as if I am in limbo, between two worlds: that of paying the bills and that of ideals. I wish to marry these worlds.
There have been two ideas that I have been chewing on for some time. 1) Life is too short to live someone else’s life. 2) In your twenties, you make your habits. After that, your habits make you.
All else equal, nothing changes unless there is an applied force, a vector of energy. I am 25 today and the life that I foresee is more likely to happen should I keep the status quo of my energies and their direction. To pivot and to find myself where I want to be, I need to start small. I must keep my calendar honest, efficient, and intentional.
