This Is For The 20-Somethings Who Feel Like They’re Failing

I don’t know you, and I don’t your daily life. But unless you’re reading this coked out on the floor or in prison, then I think you’re doing just fine.

Raise your hand, if you’re one of those kids who used to look into their future and picture your 20’s being the time when you had it all figured out. Are you raising your hand? Same. 

When I was little, I used to look into the crystal ball corner of the brain and picture my 20s being filled with success, happiness, and utter confidence. That’s how we were raised; with the mentality of, ”You can do anything you put your mind to, you are special, you are going to accomplish so many things.”

Harry Potter killed a giant snake, drove a flying car, swam with mermaids, and saved the Wizarding World all before he was 18, so I don’t blame you for feeling like a failure. Now you’re in your 20s, waiting for something special to happen, hoping you didn’t miss it between your mental breakdowns, or at the bottom of the sweet chili heat bag you just demolished.

What I’m trying to say, is that if you are in your 20-somethings reading this then you were probably told you were special at some point in your life. Now you’re in your twenties, and you’re waiting for something special to happen, and it hasn’t happened.

Now is the time that you stop, and tell yourself you are NOT failing. We are a generation of instant gratification and we put a little bit of effort into something, and wait for the mountains to move.

But it doesn’t work that way.

All the successful ’50-something’ parents you see out there with their pretty stucco houses, and their vacations 3 times a year didn’t acquire these things at 25. My mom is living the best part of her life right now, and if she had the option to go back to her twenties she’d probably tell you no.

You are not failing. (If you got lost in all of that, I thought I’d remind you again.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t have proof that everything is going to be okay. But for some reason, I just know it will be.

You think this is supposed to be the best time, but I think it’s actually meant to be the worst. There is so much pressure to be successful, but there is also so much pressure to still be a kid. Where do you fit when you are fresh, but you have no experience? Where do you fit when you’re not ready to be an adult, but you’re done being a kid? Well, I don’t think there is a need to fit anywhere, but I think there is a need to be happy.

And if you can wake up every day and find something to be happy about, then I do not consider that a failure my friend.

Social media also doesn’t help. We are constantly bombarded with fitter bodies, more interesting lives, and the influencers who make money off of teeth whitening, so I know it’s hard to stay happy. But it’s also easy to find small bits of happiness. So maybe you aren’t traveling the world taking pictures for Instagram, maybe you’re working a 9 to 5 job, that is okay. It’s okay to have health benefits, and a consistent income, and job security that is not reliant on life-long beauty, or interesting internet content.

Look at it this way, at 22 years old JK Rowling was broke, Oprah had just been fired as a TV reporter, Tina Fey was working at the YMCA, and Walt Disney had just declared bankruptcy. We are going to be okay.

You don’t have it all figured out right now, but I think that’s normal. If we spend every day desperately trying to find happiness, and desperately trying to figure out our life path then we forget what is right in front of us.

Do you have a passion for something? If you do, follow it because you’re one step further than a lot of us. But the one thing you can’t do is try for a while and then give up because it didn’t happen for you right away (this is going to be hard, because we are programmed for instant gratification).

But we can break the mold.

Have you ever bought a book, started reading it, and then half way through realized the rest of the pages were blank? Me neither. Our book just started, don’t let it go unfinished because you’re scared of a bad ending. You are not failing, you just started, and you can’t have a good book without a few “rise and falls.”

And I think Harry Potter would agree.