the morning after

So, yesterday I kinda touched on the whole quarter-life crisis thing that 20-somethings go through, the whole concept of middleness and feelings of inadequacy that can come when you've graduated from college, but you haven't quite gotten to the next stage that you envisioned coming next. It's actually a pretty piss poor time of life if you focus on the negatives rather than looking at it as a time for some real self discovery, soul searching...but you know, with the way society works, it's no surprise that rather than enjoying our time out of school and learning what we really want to do with our lives, we're flipping out about why we haven't landed the dream job, why we aren't in a serious enough relationship--or if we are in a serious relationship, why we aren't engaged yet--it's just one thing on top of another and yesterday the icing on the cake was the whatever number engagement that I saw via Facebook...make no mistake, I'm super happy for this girl--I've known her since our freshman year of college, but it's a bit discouraging for me to see someone my age engaged (she is just one of many) while I have nothing to show for it.

Then comes the whole, why hasn't my career kicked off the way I want it to? Why are some of my classmates already slaving in these terrible areas reporting and I'm in this big city just being a production assistant?! I phrased it like that to remind myself how stupid I sound right now.

Yesterday was rough.

However, before I went to sleep, I hit up a good friend of mine and we talked for a little bit and he gave me some real encouragement. After the talk I had to play some thoughts in my head, just a few reminders to myself: I am only 22, I do have my entire life ahead of me, and focusing on others will only further hinder me. So I'm doing exactly what my dear friend Lo told me to:

Just be you. Stop comparing yourself to others, stop bothering yourself about what others are thinking or doing; you're holding yourself back. You can do great things and achieve what you want--pursue it wholeheartedly and you won't have any regrets.