Some days I wonder what the rush is all about. Days like today. I wonder why I am so intent on ‘making it’ and making it now. What’s with having it all now? Now. Why the pressure to be all I can be at this very moment?
I can say it has something to do with the widespread Gen-Z success rash—that definitely exacerbated it for me, but it’s been in me for a long time. This constant worry. This constant hurry. This constant need to prove something. That I am smart. That I’ve got it all figured out. That I am talented.
I was fortunate to be born into a family that lets you breathe and allows you to find your path without a ticking clock. To be born into a family that would have been okay if I had decided to pursue music or dance or acting or even anthropology as long as I was happy and it was my choice.
But I wanted to be a doctor. Not a common general practitioner (I looked down on those for haughty reasons), but a cardiothoracic surgeon. Sounded complex and posh—everything I wanted to be. I stayed home three solid years after secondary school because I was chasing this profession.
Thank God that didn’t work out.
When I found myself a midwife who preferred to write—like she’d done since she was a lanky girl with words for days—I asked myself why I chose to pursue medicine. Because you see, I really didn’t need to. Heck, in year two of my wait, my father told me ‘I don’t think you want to study medicine. Don’t you think you should study music or dance? You know I’ll support you.’
I was vexed. Vexed because I thought he did not believe in me and was willing to substitute my ‘passion’ for medicine with my hobbies of dancing and singing. I was vexed because I assumed he was saying what every other naysayer said: ‘you’re not bright enough to study medicine’.
Of course, I know now that he was being an amazing father who understood that my pursuit was mostly hollow and that my strength laid somewhere else. He missed it with the singing because, fam, you do not want to hear me sing. But he was up to something with the dancing, and he didn’t know I wrote then—he would’ve offered even that.
So, why was I intent on studying medicine even when I had no pressure from anyone else? See, I already answered that. Medicine was shiny, complex and posh. It was for the smartest people in the class. I had that bias of science students being smarter than arts students, and somehow medicine was at the top of the science hierarchy.
I passed my classes with ease, I understood the concepts, I was one of the smartest in class, so naturally, I should be a doctor. It didn’t help that I fantasised about holding a beating heart in my palm. Don’t ask me why, but that image was… strangely intriguing. Anyway, I put that pressure on myself because I wanted prestige.
I wanted to prove that I could do it. That I could be that daughter smart enough and so thick-skinned she was a surgeon. But prove to who, exactly? No one was asking, no one was demanding anything from me but happiness. And I was moving away from happiness with each day I pined for something I didn’t need nor truly want.
Now the cycle is repeating itself, but stronger this time because of social media and because I keep telling myself I do not have time.
A friend and I were talking about my dreams, he asked about the timeline I set to achieve them and I said, ‘before thirty’. He screamed, and for a fleeting moment, I thought it was because he didn’t have as much faith in my abilities as I did.
It was not until much later I realised that may have been the case, but it may also have been because he didn’t have as much delusion in my abilities as I did.
Delusion, because you don’t have the right to call it faith when you’re pressuring yourself to succeed because you see others succeeding.
Also delusion because you don’t have the right to call it faith when you want something larger than life but live in a series of unplanned days and naps. This isn’t what we’re talking about though.
We’re talking about the pressure to make something of myself as soon as possible. It’s everywhere, you know, and there’s a thin line between working for your future and working like you’ve been told you have no future.
I keep thinking I’m working for my future when my actions are driven by a fear akin to that you’d get if you were told you only had this year to succeed. I don’t do the things I need to do: get up early, get in sweet hours of deep work, exercise to exorcise this belly fat, learn something every day, show up like this blog is an actual job (because it is), talk to family and friends, touch grass.
What I do is wake up after days of binge-watching YouTube videos telling me to do just this, watch one video about a 20-something year-old who is gettin’ the bag and looks like they have their life all figured out and enter into panic mode, scrambling to write something, hating myself for wasting time and counting the years I’ve ‘lost’ doing nothing.
This is a reflection post. And I’m leaving this here to help you if this is you right now.
Dear 20-something, life doesn’t end at 30. Unless you work yourself like a donkey and end up burnt out and sick by 30, then yes, life will end at 30.
Slow down.
You can have it all, best believe, but not all at once. What in the world would you be doing with the rest of your time on earth if you suddenly have the very thing you’ve built your life around pursuing?
And if you, like me, tend to think you’ve been wasting your years because you cannot point to any grand material or career success before now, here’s a nugget from my father that I only turn to when I’m forced to be introspective: ‘Even while you have goals you are looking to achieve, be happy where you are at right now. That’s the only way to ensure you’ll be happy when you finally achieve your goal.’
Because, let’s be honest, the more you get, the more you want, and if you never stop to smell the roses where you are, you’ll keep chasing happiness in the form of goals and look back when on your deathbed to realise you never really lived.
Here’s to hoping we actually listen and practice this.
Have an amazing week where you are happy and present!
