Your twenties are a weird time. You enter into them as an ‘adult,’ thinking you know it all, you have life figured out, and you are ready to conquer the world.
As the real world starts to hit, and the days of classes and tests and Tuesday night parties subside, you realize just how much of a misconception that is. You feel lost. You feel stuck. And you feel a bit hopeless that this is all life has to offer. How can the next 40 years of your life be spent doing this, feeling like this?
Days of living for the weekend and dreading Monday, counting down the minutes until you can log off, and savoring those few evening hours you have before you have to wake up and do it all again. You want to believe there is more to it than this, but when every other influence in your life is complaining about the exact same thing, you start to adjust to the feeling of dread and despair at the bottom of your heart that says that this really is all there is. If this is how everyone else feels, what makes you think that you are any different?
The more you deprive yourself of true joy, the more your thoughts start to spiral out of control. The daydreams of quitting it all and moving to Bali or packing your life up in a van and taking on Central America start to become increasingly prevalent. You never wanted to live in a van before, but with the suffocation pressed upon you by a life that doesn’t satisfy and a set of rules that you don’t want to agree with, the extremes of van life start to seem all the more tantalizing.
Similar to an addict and their temptation of choice, you don’t just want one sip, you want the whole damn bottle, and the longer you go without it, the more your brain latches on.
This daydream becomes your own drug when you learn that your detestation for each present moment of your life is only growing. You escape the pain that you are told you are supposed to ‘get through’ by living in a glorified fantasy of quitting it all and running away. This is the drug that provides momentary relief when the pain hasn’t let up.
But this is the end of that era.
The end of living in your head to escape the painful present. The end of pretending that running away and living in a van will forever fulfill all your desires. The end of letting society’s rules of how we should be living our life be the dictation of how we actually live it.
Rather than fleeing the scene for a vision you aren’t even sure you want, why not start to eliminate the things you know are wrong right now?
If the job is sucking your soul and not feeding anything else, then quit it. If the relationship is average and doesn’t make you ask yourself how you got so lucky, then leave it. If where you’re living feels like a prison, then move. And if the friendships make you wonder why you always give more than you get or feel guilty for living your life the way you want to live it, then end them.
Create the space in your life to sit in the in between, and listen to your body in a neutral state rather than one of dread and paralysis. The beauty of stillness is that you are present in every way, and this is when your ability to actually listen to your intuition will arise and your true callings will become clear.
Life is not meant to be lived in your head, only to escape the pain of the reality in front of you. Your truest source of happiness will come from being present, listening to yourself, and making decisions that truly align with who you are and what you want, rather than drudging through the mud or fleeing the scene.
This is the end of that era, and this is what we are opening our eyes to now.