So I am returning to
the topic that started this whole blog.
Saturn’s Return:
The point in a person’s
life when you suddenly start to look back at what you’ve accomplished, what you
wanted to accomplish and how much time to have left to get shit done…
They say that adolescents
is the hardest time in a person’s life.
The period when you’re trying to find your identity…when you find
yourself feeling helplessly caught between child and adulthood.
Yes, this is a very taxing
indeed. What people fail to tell you or
what people fail to acknowledge is the fact that when you get to your late
twenties you get to go through this whole “identity discovering” cycle yet
again.
Think about it...
By twenty six…twenty
seven…twenty eight…you are suddenly caught between young adulthood and full-
fledged adulthood, the point in life where you are suddenly expected to
gracefully give up the fun carefree days of your early twenties and suddenly
within a few short years you are suppose to have a nice, neat, perfect little
compilation of accomplishments. These accomplishments
and expectations differ from culture to culture, but I feel like in American society
some of the main entities, both materialistic and non-materialistic include:
-A Degree of some sort
-A car
-A well paying job
-A spouse or
significant other
-Children
-A House
-An Apple computer
-Money…money…money
Anyone else agree? Wanna
add to the list? I love feedback.
Well in retrospect, I
could have accomplished a good amount of things on that list, Sure, I could have gotten a degree, met a
guy, gotten married, knocked up and maybe we could have bought a house…maybe. My life didn’t work out like the above scenario,
not exactly. I got my teaching degree,
got married young, divorced young and I live in an apartment I can barely
afford, I teach at a non-profit school: and I am hardly making enough to live. Not what I expected eight years ago, that’s
ok. The life I have lived…the good…the
bad…the ugly…my life experiences have taught me everything I have needed to
level up, to make it through this game we call life at my own damn pace. It wasn’t until last year that I discovered
that once you stop caring and comparing your life and your accomplishments, you
level up at a much faster pace in the exact direction you need to go. No lie.
If there is are
lessons to be learned by the time you turn 28 they include: #1
“When it comes to life’s
accomplishments, the only opinion that truly matters is yours and YOURS alone”.
Had I followed the first life scenario I could have been
happy…yes…but I also could have ended up being a struggling single parent and
in massive debt, it could have gone either way which leads me to the second
most important lesson you should learn by the time your 28…#2
“People accomplish things at their own pace”
Yeah I know…it is that lame and simple, but hey, even the
most basic sounding concepts are the hardest to grasp sometimes. I think what causes us to become so far
removed is the simple and innate concept of GREED.
Buddha…a guy who I felt
really knew his stuff, once said that suffering was caused by: Ignorance, Hate
and Greed.
How friggin easy is it to look at what someone else has and
not think “I want that too.” We do it
all the time, I straight up admit I do it, when I visit friends who have babies
I always think how I want a family too…someday. Like anything in life, when
something becomes unbalanced…we have problems.
When we start both wanting and then comparing our lives with other
people’s life…we get that little seed of greed planted and suddenly you’re not
happy with what you have. No bueno
because that seed makes you lose sight of reality and what you have at this
moment is reality. Want more…who doesn’t? If you want more, then work on, plan it,
budget it… live it. I don’t have a kid,
a house, a husband a well paying job…but damn I got to travel to thirteen
different countries and I work at a great school, I’ve done good.
In order to not go on rambling I am going to tell you all
the other lessons you should learn by the time you’re twenty eight. These
lessons helped ground me, because I am pretty certain I am not the only 28 year
old who is feeling out of sorts.
#3-We find ourselves caught in “cycles” when we are failing to learn a
lesson. What do I mean exactly? How many times have you found yourself in a
situation where you thought…oh crap, I can’t believe I am in this situation
again!? Yup, I’ve been there and done that.
There’s a reason for this, the universe, god, whoever makes this planet
we live on so damn amazing will continue to create events and “tests” in life
in order for you to come to a higher understanding. These tests aren’t meant to make your life
harder exactly, it’s a way of making you learn something about yourself, your
life, the reality you create for yourself.
Don’t believe me? Go back and
look at a certain repeating event in your life…dig deep and see if you can find the
root.
#4-What we THINK we create-Don’t think thoughts have much
power? Think again. This was HUGE lesson for me. For awhile I got very caught up in focusing
on the things that I have not accomplished in my life instead of things I
have. This negative thinking was
bringing me down…pretty much in EVERY aspect of my life. That was until I decided to switch it up,
yeah I may not own a Apple computer but hey, I do own my car, I also have a job
that doesn’t pay much, but I sacrifice money for a job where I feel like I
better humanity…boom…good karma, and yes, someone drives the karma bus and you
do get what you put out…times three.
#5-ALWAYS….and I mean ALWAYS go with your GUT. Gut, conscious…guardian angel…6th
sense…call it what you want, but deep, deep down we all have that something
that tells you when something is not quite right. It’s there for a reason, it tells us to avoid
things we don’t want to, to step back from people we don’t want to, to do down
paths that are dark and scary and riddled with the unknown. It tells us EXACTLY what we need to do and
when we need to do it. You all know what
I am talking about and if you don’t find it…dig deep down and listen. Take a few moments each day to simply listen
to what your gut has to tell you. It’s
ALWAYS right.
#6-CHANGE is INEVITABLE
so learn ride the current. This was and
has been another huge thing that I have learned to deal with. I’m sure I’m not the only who fears change…mostly
it’s because I’m a control freak and I hate sudden changes because it throws my
plans off. Sometimes I think God laughs
at how seriously we take life and how we are convinced that we can control everything. Give it up people, once you acknowledge how
little control you have over life and decide to start riding it out…something
magical happens…things suddenly start to fall into place…usually in ways you
didn’t imagine.
#7-lucky number seven…the
final and most important lesson you should learn by the time you turn twenty
eight is…LIVE the here and NOW...there
is one thing in life that we can say we know for certain and without a doubt
and that is that… we are all going to die someday and no one can foresee the
exact moment…well maybe if you were on death row but that’s not the point (was
that too dark? I sometimes take it too
far…feedback please). My point is, when
you learn to stop living in the past, to stop daydreaming constantly about the
future, when you learn to focus all your energy on not only enjoying but being
as productive as you can in the PRESENT,
then your time stretches and all that little shit adds up and you suddenly
accomplish things you want to. Try it…these
things don’t happen overnight but every moment counts.
I wrote this for anyone who is in their late twenties and
feeling like your stumbling around on an unfamiliar path…don’t worry apparently
it’s suppose to be this way:
But like everything
in life I am confident that this too shall pass.
-Paz
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