I was sitting on my bed, trying to recover from a cough, when one of my classmates texted me about her courses.
After filling me up with the lectures I had missed due to my illness, we delved into deeper conversations about our rationale behind enrolling in our chosen programs.
“I don’t know why,” she said. “I cried to my mom the other day because I felt behind. Some of my friends my age are already moving out, traveling to different countries, and exploring the world. But I’m just here stuck in school.”
Her statement seemed familiar to me somehow. As a mature student going back to university, I’m constantly surrounded by people who are younger than me. But it never seemed much of a concern because I was so focused on performing well in school. I thought that anybody could learn at any age until I heard more similar thoughts from others.
I remember finishing up some accounting homework and then hopping on a phone call with another friend. Then, I decided to outline my future ambitions, to which they replied with:
“Well, time is running out. We are getting older, and we have to make money quickly,” they said. “Or else we won’t be able to afford anything in this world.”
Everywhere I go, whenever I see others around my age in post-secondary, it seems they want to rush out of school and enter the workforce immediately. Their thoughts and actions have affected my decisions; sometimes, I would stay up wondering if I should try to complete my degree quickly. Or if by the time I complete it, I’m perhaps way too old to start working.
I vented out my frustrations surrounding the subject to a friend. And he told me “to listen to my own heart. And to not follow what others say.”
When I told him I was concerned about the timing, he replied, “You do what’s right for you. And don’t listen to anyone else. There’s always plenty enough time because you have a whole life ahead of you.”
After hearing the last sentence, I realized that it is true that, as young adults or any-aged adults, we still have many years ahead of us to explore or fix our habits. We don’t have to rush and settle into a job immediately; we can take as much time as we want to develop our skills.
But as twenty-somethings, we often get caught up with constraints that aren’t constraints after all.
We think that time is a constraint, and it limits our potential. And what makes it worse is that being surrounded by instant gratification affects our perspective on time. We need to rush, get things done, and be ahead of the game because we must achieve a certain goal by a certain age.
However, there’s more time in the world than anyone can imagine. There’s much more to explore, and many of us can develop different skills throughout our lives. This also means there’s more time to fix our past wrongdoings, work on our future selves, and rebuild our characters.
So, in the end, timing shouldn’t be an issue for anybody after all. There’s always an opportunity somewhere, regardless of when. And there is always room for improvement, regardless of age.
Instead of viewing time as a timeline, we should think of the life ahead of us. With time, many opportunities will present themselves, and with time, we’ll be able to grow into better relationships with ourselves.
After all, there’s no point in rushing when there will always be a whole life waiting to unfold in front of us.
Featured image via Muhammad Rifki Adiyanto on Pexels
