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I turned 25 last month and its not often that birthdays make you
introspect so much. Sure, you might have a quiet moment or two
every birthday when you think about how far youve come and
how short youve fallen in terms of your own expectations. It
usually lasts a few minutes before you get drowned by the
adulation and good wishes pouring in and eventually fades away
into the background. But this year was different. Something about
the number 25 makes it much more significant than it is.
Approaching this age is either magical, exciting or plain dreadful
(was mostly dreadful for me) depending on your current mood.
Ok, maybe magical is stretching it a bit (PLEASE CONTACT ME
IMMEDIATELY TO OFFER SAGE ADVICE IF YOU DISAGREE).
A lot of people I know, who have crossed this number are either
indifferent or have at least a tinge of sadness on getting old which
I thought was completely normal based on what I was
experiencing this year. I was going through an existential crisis.
Most often we tend to have a narrow outlook of life (at least where
I come from), for various reasons good or bad. Study hard, get
into a good college either home or abroad, get a job, get married,
have kids, raise those kids as you were raised, get your kids
married in time, retire and then peacefully die in old age
surrounded by grandkids. Its a grand self-sustaining ritual. Im
not suggesting that this is a bad way to live your life but we are
taught to be this way by our society (parents, teachers, relatives
etc). We hardly have time to think it through let alone question it.
Even if youre convinced that this is an absolutely rubbish way to
lead your life and bold enough to revolt against the establishment,
the treatment youre meted out is an absolute joke. To give an
example of what its like in my place to go against the normal, in
extreme cases your parents think the nuts and bolts in your head
need tightening. Amidst this almost robotic process, we try to
squeeze in as much of our personal desires as possible. In fact, its
such a struggle to rebel against this way of life that most people
just give in. Its easier that way and you really cant blame them.
I really wanted to get this off my chest and I think Ive come a far
way in overcoming my existential crisis and my fear of time
running out because ultimately, in the eternal words of a personal
hero of mine, Chester Bennington, In the end it doesnt even
matter .
Peace.