Learning How to Stop and Smell the Roses at 23

By Isabella Basco on March 31, 2017

I’m 23 and I am confused. Actually, let me correct myself: I am currently at a crossroads. At an age where I am supposed to be an adult, sometimes I could not feel less like one. Granted, I know how to make money, pay my bills, clean my apartment (for the most part) and make myself dinner. I can network like a boss, manage my time, balance my checkbook, and dress for the office.

I can do all these things and tenfold. In fact, I manage two jobs while going to graduate school full-time and making time for a social life. Granted, I get less sleep and “free time” than I want, but if anything, I know how to multitask.

Still, I struggle with the perpetual feeling of never feeling like I never do enough. My mother consistently tells me I need to slow down, my friends tell me I “overdo” and even my colleagues wonder how I have enough time. Still, I feel restless.

It’s a syndrome all recent postgraduates struggle with. For 12 years, we are stuck in a classroom learning about subjects we do not like before we are shipped off to university where we are asked what we want to do and what we plan to do with barely any work or “real life experience.” We pick majors we might feel unsure about, struggle to find those internships, and enter a job market that can be unpredictable and unsettling in today’s economy.

Many think being 23 is footloose and fancy-free. In many ways, it is. But in many ways, it is not. We most likely make low-level salaries, sacrifice our paychecks to make the rent, constantly have to network and bounce from place-to-place, friend-to-friend, and apartment-to-apartment.

It is not easy being 23. Luckily, I would feel a lot worse if other people felt differently. One friend plans to leave a lucrative corporate job for law school, another hopes to become an actor if law school does not work out, and the majority of former classmates I have kept in touch with don’t love their jobs. Dating isn’t exactly like “Sex and the City” and relationships can be difficult to maintain when not living on a college campus.

It’s a time of confusion, of movement, of change, and of turmoil. It’s going out too late and waking up too early, choosing the wrong people to date, and picking the right people in your life. It’s sometimes tragedy, sometimes glory, and sometimes boring. It’s wondering if you picked the right career, contemplating whether you should move cities or apartments, and comparing yourself to people who are living their lives at a lightning-speed rate.

I would be crying a lot more in my shoebox apartment if I wasn’t sure others felt the same. The truth is, if you are 23 and have it all figured out, you are an exception. In fact, you are an alien because we are supposed to feel like this in our twenties.

Oprah Winfrey once said: “When I was in my 20s, I was a lost soul. Your 20s are about finding your soul.”

We haven’t had much time to explore, to experiment, or to figure out what we want because we have been in classrooms for so long. If you are like me and stressed about the next step, the next answer, or what is around the corner, stop and smell the roses to contemplate this fact: You have the rest of your life to accomplish what you need to accomplish. For now, we might have to put our heads down, complete the grunt work, and prove ourselves like crazy but remember, we are just at the start of this crazy journey called life.

In order to grow, we need to learn, and in order to learn, sometimes we have to make mistakes. It’s okay to pick the wrong job, the wrong person, the wrong roommate, or the wrong city. After all, that’s what these years are for. Don’t waste your life away but give yourself the chance to stop and smell the roses and appreciate your circumstances. Your 30-year-old self will thank you for it, and sooner than you know it, that crossroads won’t look so daunting anymore.

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