2020 is the year of doing things, it seems. As we say goodbye to January, the ghosts of people’s resolutions might be drifting away, as someone who committed to being vegetarian slips back into old habits or your gym gear starts gathering dust. New Year’s resolutions aside, I got the sense a lot of my friends have goals they’re committed to and won’t drop over the course of the year.
This sets off a simultaneous reaction in me: on the one hand, I’m really excited for them and think something along the lines of: “Oh wow! You’re going to buy a home this year, that’s so great!” This is a genuine reaction, but gets complemented by a sense of inner dread unfurling, which sets off a small alarm somewhere in my mind, accompanied by the word ‘F*ck’. Like Pavlov’s dog, my brain instantly starts comparing my life to my friends and an insidious voice whispers to me that I’m behind in life. And so the instant comparisons start, as I think of my friends who’ve been working longer than I have, who have jobs, pensions, and more, whereas I feel like I can’t picture my life more than two months in advance.
As someone who is a self-proclaimed type A, I don’t like this feeling of uncertainty. I like to have a game plan, have goals, and be able to picture my future, but this is easier said than done, thanks to the mysteries of the world. This fits into the general trend of your mid-twenties - at least that I’ve found - of finding yourself in flux, surrounded by uncertainty. This hit me hardest when I graduated university and suddenly found myself goal-less. For the past ten years, my goal had steadfastly been ‘go to university and graduate’, something I held onto especially to make secondary school bearable. And yet, once I finished, what was left? Get a job? Work towards a promotion? Both these goals felt far too vague and microcosmic at the same time.
The issue always flares when a friend or loved one moves forward in life, be it in various ways. They might be getting a huge promotion, finish saving up for a deposit on a home, or getting married. For some, even the prospect of everyone else getting into cuffing season (when usually single people feel the need to be ‘cuffed’ or tied down in a relationship....when it’s cold outside) whilst you remain perpetually single might be enough to set off a mini panic.
Is this unique to millennials? Probably not, but it’s certainly one of the main characteristics of the millennial generation (alongside too much avo on toast, of course). Our economic situation is so much more different to that of previous generations and, as the first generation to have their formative years moulded by social media, anxiety is a huge and common companion in life. Social media is the key term here as social media, for all its positives, also breeds a certain sense of comparison and pressure. Instagram is a platform where its users show off their best lives - curated feeds show selected happy moments, whilst the move to depict more of a reality on social media remains drowned out by these images of perfect lives.
Social media exacerbates the issue of feeling you’re way behind your peers in life and contributes to feelings of isolation. And in the context where you might feel like you’re not anchored to anything in particular, this can be especially stressful. But just how our twenties seem to replicate some of our teenage woes, it’s worth casting your mind back to your teenage years (using that beautiful old notion of hindsight) to find the solution.
At school or university, it is safe to say that everyone felt the need to compare with each other. Fretting about how much you studied or wrote in an exam was part and parcel of life. And therein lies the solution - there is no general benchmark to compare yourself against, as everyone moves at different paces. So your friend might need to start studying months in advance or write an essay with the upper limit of the word count, but this doesn’t mean you have to do the same. Perhaps you’re more succinct and need fewer words to express a similarly thought-out point of view.
The same goes for progressing in life. You don’t need to race your peers and feel like you have to have certain goals reached by a specific age. In terms of buying a property, it depends on your goals. What if you don’t want the commitment of having a property tie you down to a particular location? It’s definitely not a groundbreaking or new statement to make, but there isn’t a set path to life. It’s worth remembering that every once in a while and also taking a healthy attitude to things that might set off panic - whether that’s a social media sabbatical or remembering that for every friend who seems to have their life together, another friend might feel similarly panicked by whatever you’re doing in life, we don’t have to constantly compare ourselves to the progress of others.
----
Nathalie Lodhi is an editor and translator for RTL Today.
Do’s And Don’ts: Persevering With Pesky New Year’s resolutions
