h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been thinking about this a lot lately - maybe its because I'm entering the last stages of my 'late twenties'. I'm going to die.

I will only be in my 20s for a few more weeks, so I think I know how you feel!

Yeah its a powerful feeling. Three years ago, I felt invincible. I could take on anything. No matter what happened, or what I did, I could always assure myself that theres plenty of time in life to amend things. I can always go to grad school later, I can backpack across europe later, I can spend my time painting or drawing later..now it feels like I'm behind on things

Hmmmm.... I think I felt that way about a lot of things a few years ago -- from about 25 to 28, maybe. Recently, I've really come to realize that there is absolutely no way I could ever do or accomplish all the things in my life that are important to me -- there wouldn't be enough time in 3 or 4 lifetimes, truthfully. And that it's really okay for me to slow down and really spend time enjoying the things I am doing, rather than always stressing over the things I haven't been able to get to yet.

One thing that really made a difference was about a year ago, when I was looking at a list of my "life goals". I was trying to figure out why it was that how I had prioritized things in that list was nothing like how I had tackled things in real life -- and it suddenly clicked that I what I *said* were the most important things to me, and what really were, were not necessarily the same things. Where I was actually choosing to spend my time said a lot about what I really valued, rather than what I thought I should (which is what was driving my list of goals).

I love writing -- but if writing was really the most important thing to me, I would have found time to finish that novel by now. The fact that I haven't is pretty clear proof that it wasn't as important to me as I thought it was -- which I wasn't so happy to discover, as it didn't quite jive with how I liked to think of myself. Now, I haven't given up writing -- no way, no how! -- but I've finally stopped beating myself up over not spending enough time on it. I've suddenly hit a point where I feel like it's okay if I want to spend a Sunday lounging on the sofa reading a book, or playing video games with a friend, and not doing anything "productive" or "goal-oriented". For the first time in my life, I really feel like just relaxing and enjoying myself is a worthwhile way to spend my time -- not that I didn't do it before, but I always felt like I was cheating or something, and felt guilty later.

Sorry for rambling on so long!

-- Mikey