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As I sat down to write today, I realized this was something I randomly ponder upon and today was one of those days.
These are just some of my thoughts about the way we’ve been conditioned to think and live by.
Ever wondered why you can’t seem to make rational decisions, figure out your interests, or stay financially stable and debt-free?
The system is set up in a way so that we make mistakes and fail for its own benefit.
We were raised to believe that 18 is when you hit the mark. This is the age when you’ll start having to make the most important decisions of your life. This is when you can participate in certain things, move out, start college, etc.
In the past, this age was set to 21 and later on to 18. This was for getting to make decisions such as marrying without parental consent and voting.
What I’m referring to here is the idea of what makes an adult in terms of the expectations placed on you to be fully responsible and settle down with everything figured out and lined up somehow.
What exactly constitutes us as adults at 18 years old? Eighteen. You’re still a teen.
Ahh the critical years (18–21). From the pressure of figuring out what to do with our lives to student loans and everything else that has to do with “adulting.” And being expected to have been settled down by 23–24. It’s so unnatural.
Your life has only begun.
These are the years when instead of feeling like we need to be going straight to college, we should be exposed to real-life education.
We should be looking at other options such as attending vocational schools, volunteering, shadowing professionals that you find interesting, completing financial literacy education, and traveling.
These years should be filled with experiences, achievements, mistakes, and lessons that shape you into who you are today.
But this seems like a luxury, doesn’t it? After all, not everyone can afford to travel or “slip up” by risking a different path taken from the rest.
Even those of us who had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we started college, we went anyway. Because that’s just what we should do. We’ll figure it out anyway, right?
It’s not surprising when at 18 or 19, you don’t know what you don’t want to do with your life or what to major in. When you’ve stayed in the same matrix since elementary school, it only makes sense and seems the safest to continue to the next level.
It’s go to school and then get the experience. And then get the job. And then settle down and have a family.
What if it were to get the experience, and then go to college having a more confident and mature mind?
I know what you’re thinking.
“Well, you could have done it that way. No one stopped you.”
That’s true. But again, back to my point. That was the time when I was lost but couldn’t dare to do anything differently than the people around me and the advice and pressure I got from teachers, my parents, and peers.
I find it interesting that there’s a claim that once you reach 25 years old, your working memory and learning ability are not at peak performance.
But in reality, you haven’t finished developing yet. Your brain’s frontal lobe — specifically the prefrontal cortex — hasn’t fully matured.
The development and maturation of the prefrontal cortex occurs primarily during adolescence and is fully accomplished at the age of 25 years. The development of the prefrontal cortex is very important for complex behavioral performance, as this region of the brain helps accomplish executive brain functions. NIH
As you near the age of 25, you’re more likely to make the right decisions for yourself. That’s why sometimes it’s around this time (mid to late twenties) when we realize what we wished we had done or what we actually wanted.
I question the status quo, the way we’ve always done things, and why it couldn’t have been another way. Because “we’ve always done it this way” doesn’t cut it for me. It doesn’t mean it’s the best way.
It’s weird to think of how something that we’ve always known to be could be different and what it would’ve been like if it had been different.
There’s nothing wrong with questioning these things. After all, societal norms and set up systems were created by people.
You’re also a person that can choose to conform to it or choose another path that’s more aligned with how you feel and where you’re at in life.
No matter what your age is, it’s never too late to embark on something new or make a change.
But I have to admit that once I turned 25, there was a huge difference and shift in my mindset, values, and goals. It’s like almost everything became more clear and made more sense. I thought back and realized how drastically different I used to think and how lost I felt.
It’s like a peak moment in life when you feel more ready to make a change according to your needs. When reflecting on the few years before that, you realize what you could have done differently with an innate belief that it would have made you feel more confident and successful at the time.
But now that we’ve reached this point and beyond, we can still use this to live up to our best versions of ourselves.
Keep your head up, smile, and make every day count.
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Previously Published on Medium
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