25 - An ongoing quarter life crisis?

Weeee, another milestone this year. I'm now officially a quarter century! This is also the second (and hopefully the last) birthday during the pandemic. Anyways, let's get onto the post.

When I was in primary school and looked at my older cousins and people on television, I thought that by 25 I would have everything figured out. I imagined I would be working on something I love, start paying for my first house, have the ability to splurge for my family and already in a stable relationship. Little me was pretty much like this: 

But who am I kidding, there are still so many things I don't know and reality is almost the exact opposite of my childhood expectations. 

Let's start with the main source of my predicament for the past year: work. For more than half of my life, I've always thought that my work will have something to do with science - dealing with beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks and micropipettes on daily basis. But life does not always go according to plan. Accounting, the one I thought the most science-y out of all finance/business-related majors, ended up being my endgame. With that, my year as a 24-year-old was spent processing invoices. At first, it was okay, great even! I make a pretty penny with a good work-life balance. And then around Q2 of this year, something changed and work soon turned into toil. Sometimes, it gets me going like this: 

In theory, this hard time will pass soon and I'm looking forward to that! Hopefully, my life as an employee, while being a 25-year-old will be much better. I really hope for an opportunity to learn more exciting things in my daily work! Learning Korean and Python using the company-provided resources will also be one of my goals for the year to come. Wish me luck on this one 😁

On to a broader topic, with this milestone birthday I almost feel like I'm running out of time. There are still so many things I have yet to complete on the unspoken life checklist:

• Being successful in my job (what is the definition of success anyways?)
• Being a filial daughter and sister (occasionally bringing family to eat out definitely doesn't cut it, right?)
• Being a good friend (when was the last time I truly listened in conversations with any of my friends?)
• Being in a loving relationship (instead of giggling over rom-com dramas, you know?)
• etc

I still wonder how similar-aged friends and acquaintances look like they have everything figured out. They just take everything in strides: career change, moving out and even marriage. While me, I'm not even 100% sure I like my job!

Then again, I'm sure they have own dreams and worries. We may share the same age, but still at different stages of life. And as someone said, there are thousands of ways to Rome, so we may even are on completely different, incomparable routes (must make a mental note to remind myself this!). 

Guess no one will ever have his/her life completely figured out and that's okay. From time to time, give yourself a little pat in the back and a little reminder that: 

 

*As usual, what's a birthday post without songs mentioning the age?

** This post is really mostly a ramble. I don't even know what I'm talking about. Urgh, this post in itself is a crisis.