I've been trying to do the best I can, but my best hasn't been good enough. We, the millenials, were told from early on that if you go to college and stay out of trouble then you'll be able to live the great American Dream and live a life of picket fences, seven day vacations, and upward mobility. But for most of the people I know, our twenties have been a revolving door of disappointment cause by a volatile job market and the changing landscape of the economy. For many of us who've endured the workforce since the almost collapse of civilization as we know it economic meltdown of 2008-2009, the world of the working is almost a dead end. Fewer full time jobs, greater wage to cost-of-living inequality, and fewer firms willing to take chances on new hires hasn't been the bed of roses that we were promised upon graduation.
I've been blessed enough to have found employment and opportunities for advancement but I haven't found upward mobility. I feel as though I'm muddling and stuck in idle. To spin the title of a Royce Da 5'9 album that I enjoy, success isn't certain. And this idleness has done a number on my confidence.
I feel like a passenger of the Oceanic Flight 819 from "LOST", but instead of an island of smoke monsters and electromagnetic energy, its as if I've been returned to the isle of awkwardness and anxiousness that I inhabited as a teenager. The fears and the nervousness are the same, yet, the problems are now more complex. The island of awkwardness and anxiousness is man made, however, and may very well only exist in my mind. Fear and self loathing in Baton Rouge accompanied by regret. Regret for not making better choices. Regret for not taking risk. Regret for living this life. As if I know what this life is. Most importantly; regret for not knowing what to do next or why I'm on this island.
I've been blessed enough to have found employment and opportunities for advancement but I haven't found upward mobility. I feel as though I'm muddling and stuck in idle. To spin the title of a Royce Da 5'9 album that I enjoy, success isn't certain. And this idleness has done a number on my confidence.
I feel like a passenger of the Oceanic Flight 819 from "LOST", but instead of an island of smoke monsters and electromagnetic energy, its as if I've been returned to the isle of awkwardness and anxiousness that I inhabited as a teenager. The fears and the nervousness are the same, yet, the problems are now more complex. The island of awkwardness and anxiousness is man made, however, and may very well only exist in my mind. Fear and self loathing in Baton Rouge accompanied by regret. Regret for not making better choices. Regret for not taking risk. Regret for living this life. As if I know what this life is. Most importantly; regret for not knowing what to do next or why I'm on this island.
For weeks, I've been a flurry of thoughts and ideas; a dichotomy of emotions incapable of being articulated aloud. Grappling with writer's block and a lowered ambition, I've been lost in, what many of my friends and family refer to as, a quarter-life crisis. A crisis of ambition and of opportunity. It's as if I can't figure out the right next step for life and I couldn't buy a clue on how do fix it. And while this isn't uncommon for people who are my age and who are new to being "full-fledged adults", I feel as if I am in a period in my life where something's got to give.
When do you reach the point in life where you realize that you aren't the person you dreamed of being? When is it that you realize, your dreams of greatness, where just that: mere fantasies that you used to preoccupy your time?
When do you reach the point in life where you realize that you aren't the person you dreamed of being? When is it that you realize, your dreams of greatness, where just that: mere fantasies that you used to preoccupy your time?
Hopefully, when you look in the mirror, time has not completely eroded the mountains of potential and possibility that you possess.
Hopefully you remain optimistic. And that's all I really can do.
1 comment:
B. I truly understand how you feel!!! Cause this life is not the one I imagined. I have faith that things will work out for you. They may require some decisions that you aren't fond of but the best ones usually are!!! I believe in you!!
AND your writing never ceases to amaze me. Keep ya head up!!
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