I was thinking about my teenage years some time ago, and I remember that I used to be a thousand percent sure that by the time I turned 25, I would have my entire life figured out. I even set a timeline: when I graduate at 21, I will work on my blog for 2 years, make a full-time income remotely, travel everywhere, meet someone at around 23, get married at 26, and have kids by 28.
But… here I am at 25: trying my best to be consistent with my blog, working full-time in sales, living abroad, not dating, having no savings, and not having time to travel a lot. Do I sometimes feel completely lost? Absolutely yes. Am I disappointed in how my life turned out? Not at all.
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me to feel lost at 25. Because if you’re not, it means that you’ve planned your life, which in some ways puts a limit on you.
At 25, you’re just starting your life, experimenting, growing, testing what you like and don’t like, what works for you and what it something you’ve been doing just because of peer pressure, knowing what are your values and what you’ve been conditioned to believe, understanding that a partner is not just someone who makes you laugh, losing friends and making new ones.
How are you not supposed to feel lost?
I now look at 25 as the start of my prime years–it’s the start of me leaning into who I truly am, not what my family hoped I’d become, or what the world conditioned me to want to become when I grew up. I look back at what “the perfect life” used to look like to me a while back, and I currently don’t want anything to do with it.
What changed is letting go of expectations and “I should be”, and instead leaning into what feels right to me. This doesn’t always mean being comfortable all the time, or not continuing things that make you feel anxious, because it doesn’t make you at ease.
Building a beautiful life–a life that resonates with who you are, can sometimes be a very uncomfortable thing to do. We’re conditioned to look for what’s familiar, to find comfort in what we know, even if it’s not right for us. So how can we change that without feeling uncomfortable?
A beautiful life is not found. It’s built, and it’s built by knowing what is worth being uncomfortable for. And that’s the best thing you can do in your 25th moving forward: do uncomfortable things that resonate with who you are.
These things don’t have to be moving across countries, it could be as simple as questioning things you’ve always thought to be right your entire life. It could be realizing that you don’t actually want to have your own company, and you’d rather have a stable 9 to 5 but social media convinced you that this makes you unambitious and boring.
It could be realizing that you’re not an outgoing person and that’s totally fine, you don’t have to pressure yourself every time you go out. It could be realizing that you don’t even have an issue to fix, and there’s no point in trying to look for traumas.
There are so many reasons we feel lost at 25. That’s why a lot of people call it a “quarter-life crisis”. Everything around you is changing: your friends are having different lifestyles, you are transitioning to adulthood, you’re moving out and paying your bills, you’re moving from academia to work, and you’re facing shifts in relationships whether friendships or romantic, and that’s all completely normal.
So, instead of looking at your 25th as one of your worst years because of how lost and unsettled you feel, shift your perspective. When again will you have the chance to explore things? When again will you be in the process of knowing who you are, and leaning into that life?
At 25, I choose to allow myself to create a life that feels right to me, not to my friends or family, not to society, and not to social media. This kind of life could look very boring and could also be a very exciting one, or a mix of both.
What do you choose to do at 25?
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