For the first time in my life I feel my age: I’m not ahead, nor behind. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be for my mid-twenties; I don’t mind growing up, nor do I mind getting older. But there’s this persistent disappointment that haunts every age I reach. For every achievement I get, I criticize myself for lacking something else.
I’m 25 this year, and while I’ve never been older, I’ve never felt younger. It’s so funny to say that, as if I’m centuries old, but that sentence reveals exactly how I feel right now. However, I can’t help but feel stagnant; there’s so many opportunities and activities that I need to take advantage of, yet I’m rotting in one place. So far, my remedy for this has been change, but this time I don’t think I should go for that: I need a new kind of motivation.
I suppose he biggest task in my twenties is to focus on finishing my character development before I enter my thirties, because then I probably won’t have as much opportunities to change, as I do now. I’m running out of time to experiment, to error, to learn and to be right or wrong. Four years will pass by like a bullet train.
10. Do I finally feel the pressure of aging?
Although I didn’t use to feel my age, and perhaps feeling a couple of years ahead mentally, I’ve never had an issue with maturing. I’ve always been fascinated by growing and have been very excited to do so. But I keep seeing how scared my friends and family are of getting older. Shouldn’t I be afraid of it too?
9. Have I started to settle down?
I’ve always been an adventurer. My worst fear is living an ordinary life without ambition, without discomfort or worries, without a self-defined purpose, without excitement or without advancement. It sounds like living in a room with a beautiful skylight, yet no door.
8. Have I moved out for good?
Maybe my interests have always landed in the mainstream categories, but I’ve always felt like a castaway where I live. Access to modern global culture makes me stand out of the local crowd, whether I like it or not. It has been my dream to leave my home country since I was a kid and move to a place where I’d finally blend in, since people wouldn’t have time to pay attention to me.
7. Am I done learning?
Making mistakes means that there are lessons still unlearned. And even while I keep committing error after error gives me more knowledge than learning by heart ever will, which sets me quite ahead of every other conformist around me. But sometimes it feels embarrassing to learn something later in life than you should have. It seems that many people stop learning after a certain age. Will I?
6. Have I finally eradicated my need for solitude?
I’m currently on my path to reform my extreme self-sufficiency, which has kept me away from building trust in others. It’s an unhealthy habit that has it’s deep roots in my childhood and it prevents me from forming close relationships, because I don’t feel the need of having someone in my life. It’s a vicious circle of wanting a person by my side then immediately pushing them away. I might have to find a way to maintain balance between socialization and independence.
5. Have I finally fallen in love?
My biggest issue so far has been my inability to date and fall in love. As shallow as it is, I can’t help but constantly think about it, which distracts me from almost anything I commence.
4. Am I still an asshole?
In order to gain more confidence, I had to inflate my ego to an unimaginable size. And instead of pure confidence and slightly larger ego, I ended up becoming extremely egoistic and yet, not confident at all. As I desperately try to fix that, I keep realizing that others are just not worth prioritizing and this brings me back to starting point. Hopefully I’ll find a cure for my entitlement before it’s too late.
3. How do I manage stress?
Unfortunately, my life has been nothing but stressful and I feel scared that it might take a toll on me physically at some point. I had extreme stomach and digestive issues that were caused by stress, but ever since I finished my bachelor’s, they have disappeared. But I don’t feel like I’ve gotten stress under control just yet.
2. How has my creativity evolved?
Going through my intense teens filled with hostility, I had to let go of my perfect memory, fantastic imagination and brilliant creativity in order to fall in place within the group, because I had to forget all the bad words anyone has ever said to me; my fantasies were incompatible with school’s material and there was just no time for me to create. And now that I actively participate in the making of art as a sound editor, I need my imagination more than ever.
1. Am I still resilient?
Even though I’ve never felt like fitting in, quickly adapting to my environment has been one of my strongest traits. It has helped me endure any hardships I went through, despite the fact that standing out calls for the complete opposite. I want to conserve this skill, but I may have to choose between blending in silently or standing out loudly.
TOMMY EXPLORES THE WORLD 