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Five years ago, a naive and nervous 21-year-old version of myself walked through my office’s front doors for the very first time. Fresh out of college, wearing an ill-fitted suit and a bad haircut, I couldn’t have been more clueless about the life I was about to begin. What followed that fateful day has been years of meetings, emails, Excel spreadsheets, procrastinating, and quite a bit of growing up. Through it all I have become a functional, albeit boring and somewhat jaded, adult. As I look in the mirror at my now 26-year-old face, I’m not upset with how it all turned. I enjoy my life thoroughly. Yet I still worry an unhealthy amount. Not about the past or even the present – but about the future. About my future as an employee, an adult, a boyfriend, a son… about who the hell I am going to become. I spend endless nights tossing and turning just thinking – is it time to start trying?
Let me elaborate. My job is steady, money is okay, and my personal life is perfectly healthy. I am not fat, while also not skinny, and if my overall well-being was being graded like a research paper, I would be a strong C+. All in all, things are fine. If I just put my life on auto-pilot for the next five years nothing remarkable nor horrible would happen – I would probably just wake up holding a middle management position at my current company with a wife and kid on the way. This is all well and good, but what if that isn’t what I am destined to do? Or, what if this isn’t even what I WANT to do? What if I put the pedal to the metal and just gave a shit about anything but beer and sports? What if I just tried harder at life?
The fear I have is not really about failing – it’s about succeeding. Grinding it out and being a normal dude with a normal life doesn’t scare me at all, what scares me is just blindly accepting this fate. As college posters and motivation speakers love to say – it isn’t the “what if I hadn’t” thoughts that keep me up in a cold sweat. It is the “what if I had?” ones. What if, at 26, I decided to go get an MBA? What if I focused on writing and pursuing hobbies that I actually enjoy instead of watching TV every night? What if I went to the gym more, or picked the guitar back up, or just spent a few more weekends improving myself instead of boozing? There isn’t anything wrong with striking out, but I think need to take a few good cuts first.
I realize I won’t be promoted or get shredded overnight; these things take time. The problem is, the clock feels like it is ticking faster and faster. Every day I don’t do something productive is another day closer to accepting mediocrity. This all could be part of a quarter-life crisis brought on by an incredibly slow work week, but it feels like something more. Something deep inside is telling me to go down swinging, invest in myself, and quit blaming other things and people for not going for what I want.
I know I am not alone. In fact, I imagine most people my age think the same thoughts too. Is part of growing up just learning to repress these thoughts? To ignore them? I am sure once people get a family or advance to a better position in their career these long nights filled with uncertainty ease up a little bit. But they likely won’t go away completely. I don’t want to be that 40-year-old guy stuck in traffic on his way to some job he hates, thinking about what might have been if he just tried a little harder when he had the time and energy. I guess it is like they say, there is only one way to build a brick house: one brick at a time. I don’t know about anyone else, but I think it’s time I start building. .
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Listing lunch options in Excel and then ranking them is my favorite hobby.
Fuck
I was right where you are three months ago. I was just cruising. I finally got tired of waiting for things to happen, the big opportunity that you’re supposed to get, the genius business idea. So I decided to turn it up to 11, just for a few months, and see what happens.
I just got accepted to a (admittedly middle-tier) MBA program, am on track for a promotion within a month or so, and even though I still don’t know where or what or who I want to be in five years, I am at least giving it my best, and it feels great.
It’s not perfect. I still make shit money, am still not in great shape (PGP), and I’m tired all the time. But at least I am giving myself a chance of living the life I want to live in 10-20 years. So give it a shot. Go balls out for a month and see what happens. It can’t hurt.
Good work!
All I want to do is raise cows on 600 acres but I don’t know a goddamn thing about cows and sure as hell don’t have 600 acres.
Alright, I lied. It’s not an actual horse. It’s just my dog, a Bernese Mountain Dog, that is the size of a mini horse
We’ll take anything as long as it tastes good.
I work for Monsanto, and have been in the industry for awhile. What do you want to know?
I’m not feeding them your mutated GMO corn bruh. Grass fed, massaged, and treated like kings. Through our mobile app, customers will be able to purchase and match with a cow based on a variety of factors and have the option to pay extra to treat them to the finer things in life (special food, massages, etc.) before they are butchered in the most humane of methods. Further, we will have a full service patio and bar where members will be able to come and order 100% fresh steaks, burgers, and tartare while watching their cattle roam the hills. It will be called the “Cow-Op Ranch.”
Corn fed cattle get a lot fatter than grass fed, gotta love that marbling son.
Correct, but the fattening before harvest will be done without the use of GMO feed corn. Production of the necessary non-GMO grains will be time-staggered in greenhouses so that fattening the selected portion of the herd before culling can be done 100% on-site and organically.
Why stop at cattle? An entire farm to table luxury restaurant/farm is something I could see myself spending a considerable amount of money at. Everything from fresh vegetables and meat to brewed on site beer and wine. Let’s start a business
We could make millions.
Flora’s farm in Cabo is doing something along thise lines. Check it out, it’s such an awesome place.
I like the way you think
This sounds awesome. I have $84 dollars in seed money
What do you do for Monsanto?
Agriculture consulting, increasing private farm profits
I’m in. I have a horse that I can bring to the table
Horses will not be allowed inside the restaurant
Is it a mini horse? Would add a lot to the instagramability of the experience.
If he’s anything like Lil Sebastian he’ll be the main attraction.
Fuck horses.
“Every day I don’t do something productive is another day closer to accepting mediocrity.” It’s scary how relatable this is right now…I can’t decide if I feel better or worse after reading this.
This reminds me of a quote I read a few months ago. “Someone once told me the definition of hell: the last day you have on earth, the person you became meets the person you could have become.”
Really lit a fire under my ass.
This one, of all the great comment here, really nailed it. That is an insane way to look at things but probably very telling.
I think you grading your life as a “C+” should be all the motivation you need to start trying more.
I view my life as an ‘Incomplete.’ #thinkaboutit
There’s always time to pull an “A”
This hits home hard, my biggest problem is I don’t know where to begin or even what to start trying at.
Exactly. I make shit money. By some miracle have a wife that doesn’t think I’m a loser. A kid on the way. All I want to do it quit my shitty job but have no idea what I’m qualified to do other than this. I hear firemen have good benefits…
Same man. I have some vague notions but none of the finer details.
Been struggling with something similar recently. My dad sent me an email and ended it with this Plutarch quote. Hope it helps.
“No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.”
Fuck
Me every fuckin day and night. Seriously considering going back for an engineering degree now, since my biology degree seems to be pretty useless (thanks for that, RecruitmentChair).
If you can get into a professional program that would be solid in a place with a good market for it. (Pharmacy, PA, etc.) I got a Biochemistry degree had slacked off on grades and was worried about my acceptance. I debated engineering, but thought about at the end of the day you are going through hell again, will spend 3 years doing it again, and have to start over again in a new field. It seriously takes some soul searching after I talked to family about that career change. Thankfully I’m in pharmacy school and couldn’t be happier besides my transition to studying all the damn time again. The time and money and energy is a lot to go through if you start all over again. Hell I has family convince me to study for the LSAT. At least you would be pushing forward rather than going back to undergrad. I can’t imagine what it would be like for me to do that again with pple 5 years younger than me..
Welcome to the Sunday Scaries. This is one of the realest articles I’ve read on this site.