Have You Ever?
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- 25
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Have you ever thought about who you’d be if you weren’t who you are?
Have you ever thought about what you’d be if it weren’t what you are?
Have you ever thought about where you’d be if you weren’t where you are?
Have you ever thought about when you’d be if you weren’t when you are?
Have you ever thought about why you are who you are, what you are, where you are, when you are?
Have you ever thought about how you got to be here and now and you?
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Do you ever think about these things or am I the only one? Who are you? What are you? Where are you? When are you? Why are you you? How did you get to you?
Everyone struggles and...
Dear Aidan,
Your post today could not have come at a better time!
Lately, I’ve been thinking about these things constantly. I’m fresh out of graduate school and have started my first job, a fellowship, in a place very far away from home and from everything else that is of comfort to me. I’m alone and terrified. I left the security of my family and friends, from school, from a routine and a life that I was good at. EVERYTHING (more appropriately this thing people call adulthood)is new to me and each day a challenge.
I feel like I’m living to work. Every moment that I’m not working my mind is cluttered with thoughts about work. At this point in my life, maybe this is the right thing to do? My parents certainly think so but I’m not so sure.
I find myself asking how did I get here? Did I make the right decision? What else could I or should I have done? Is this going to be worth it?
I hope that I’m not the only twenty five year old asking herself these questions…
You are definitely not the only 25-year-old asking herself these questions! And I’m with you on thinking about work all the time – it’s really invasive and I find it difficult to enjoy my free time sometimes.
I’m still in graduate school, and every day I ask myself why am I doing this? is this worth it? should I have done something else with my life?
I suspect I would be feeling the same way if I were trying to figure out my career path through my first job instead of graduate school.
Holly – Thanks for chiming in here. I am beginning to think that this question about how much time we think about “work” might warrant its own blog post. Often, and certainly recently, I find myself thinking about my next book, and career, all the time. So often that it drowns out other things, profoundly important things too. I hate this, but I also wonder how much we can control what we think about? I just had a blissful prenatal massage and the whole time I was thinking about my manuscript. Not the worst thing in the world and perhaps a sign that I am existentially invested in my writing, but I wish I could have had a little time off, you know?
KL – There is no way you are the only 25 year old asking these questions. In fact, I often think that age has little to do with all this. In my estimation, asking these questions is a good and healthy sign, an indicator of self-awareness and consciousness. I hope I never stop asking these questions. Thank you for your comment today!
Aidian, I concur. I say, life is a fractal, ever-evolving, so the questions will continue.
Thank you.
Myra
…and whoops! on the spelling. Revision: Aidan.
“)
KL in SC ~ you are NOT the only 25 year old with these questions. It’s called the quarter life crisis and me and all my friends are going through it too…
I am thirty-two and often feel as if I am mid-crisis. Maybe it is not the quarter life variety though. That would make my life VERY long. You never know with modern medicine
I think about those questions ALL the time! I think a lot about what I am going to be. I know who I am. I know I want to be a mommy more than anything, and it just isnt happening. I know I just need to be patient and it will happen, but if it doesnt, what will I do? It is something I think about daily.
This comment really strikes something in me. A couple of somethings, actually. Confidence and guilt. Confidence because even though I don’t know you, or your situation, I feel like you will become a mother. I know so many people who have struggled to become parents and I have seen a happy ending 100% of the time it seems. Even when things didn’t look promising. And guilt because here I am pregnant with #3 and, yes, there have been some hurdles along the way, but for the most part it has been smooth sailing. I feel very lucky to be where I am today. Thank you for reminding me to not take it for granted. (And good luck!)
I think about some of these things often and others not as much. I think about the “where?” question all the time. The answers range from New York to Geneva. The other one that I bounce around from time to time has to do with my marriage. We met in college and certainly never would have if either of us had picked a different school. I wonder how my life would be different based on that one decision. Other than those two things, most aspects of me were intentional, so I feel good about them.
Move here to NYC!! IEP and Baby could be little playmates! I sometimes play that mental game, too. What if I wasn’t in that darkened bar on Columbus Ave that Husband wandered into? What if we never started talking? Who would I be today? Ah, the dance of choice and chance…
I love these questions and think about them often, especially the last one. In order to answer them, I think one has to understand and accept the past.
I actually just blogged about the topic of how I got to be who I am today.
@ KL in SC: I can relate to what you are going through. Life as a corporate lawyer was too consuming for me. I just recently quit and am trying to figure out what I want to do — what I want to be.
I agree that in order to answer these questions (or try to as I am not sure it is possible to answer them), we must work to understand and accept the past. My question though is how we do this if we are not privy to the entirety of our pasts? Memory is limited and isn’t it possible that there are things that happened in our lives of which we are less than conscious but still affect who we are and who we become? Interesting to consider, I think…
Thrilled to have encountered another soul-searching lawyer of latter day
Look forward to checking out your blog! (Love the name!
Great question re. the fallibility of our memory. I have been thinking about this very question lately as I read Daniel Gilbert’s “Stumbling on Happiness”. (I haven’t finished the book yet as I have been distracted by “Life After Yes”!).
I personally believe the objective truth eludes us. Everything we experience is subjective in a way — an interpretation of our mind that is influenced by our preferences and past experiences. (Just like no two persons read the same book and leave with the same impression.) But just because our interpretation is subjective doesn’t mean it is not truthful. The book can still be enjoyed and judged even if we don’t fully understand the intention of its author, right?
So, I think within the realm of our conscious awareness of the past — including its limitations — we can still examine, confront, make sense and ultimately accept it. The acceptance part is often difficult — facing the hard truths/insecurities and be honest about them. This is why I am a fan of your blog!
Good news ladies- it doesn’t end when you are 25, 35 or 45. You will spend lots of time asking questions about who you are and how you spend time.
And in truth, there is nothing wrong with that. Those questions help to drive us to make changes in our lives. They push us to reach a little bit farther and to try a little bit harder.
I agree with you that so little of this has to do with age. I also think that asking these questions is only a good thing. Every now and then, I encounter someone who seems to not ask these questions AT ALL, who just accepts life and the present moment and it baffles me and makes me a bit sad. And then I take a step back and realize that I really don’t know what goes on in the mind of another, even someone whose exterior seems to suggest a lack of searching.
Your sign post makes me think of Europe and the way the street signs are there, especially in Ireland where we’d see many towns nailed up with arrows at each fork in the road.
I feel like there are different ME’s at each fork in the road I encounter. Every time I take one path, I am saying “no”, or at least “not now” to another. I cannot simultaneously taste many lovers and monogamy. I must choose one road.
When I get to pining over the ME I wish I could be, I try to remind myself that there are benches over on that road as well where I would sit and wonder what it’s like over here. Choices merely determine the bench I sit on to occasionally wonder what life is like elsewhere.
Don’t ya think?
Ah, the choosing of roads and the concomitant not choosing of others. I love the imagery of the benches alongside every road, the reality that we would (and should) wonder wherever we are walking. What is life like elsewhere? Is this just another way of grasping for identity? Determining what we are not to ascertain what we in fact are?
(Thanks for making me think.)
I think about these things all the time.
We are the sum total of our choices.
But I know that I can’t dwell on choices that I made long time ago. I can make different choices to put me on a different path. And while I may not be pleased with all the choices I have made, think I could have/should have made better ones, they are part of who I am.
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
Enjoy the day!
Erin
Love that quote. And I agree wholeheartedly that we are the sum total of our choices. What fascinates me is that some of our choices are less than conscious and yet they still inform who it is we are and who we become. I also find it compelling to acknowledge that each time we make a choice – big or small – we are shaping our own identity. There is something amazing about this when you really stop to think about it.
I often wonder about this. What if I’d joined the Peace Corps after college like I’d planned? What if I’d chosen the other boy? What if I’d said yes to such-and-such decision instead of no? It’s just idle curiosity, because I’m so very content with the choices I’ve made. But part of me always wonders what if … Maybe it’s the writer in me, always looking for a new story to tell.
What if? These two words float through my head sometimes and it really rattles me to think how different things could and would be if I made different decisions along the way. Choices that seemed small or instinctual at the time formed the lives we have come to lead and love, but they have also determined what our lives are not and might have done. I do think there is something about being a writer that makes us ponder these scenarios of self and story… and I think this is only a good thing.
I don’t think of these questions in terms of where I’ve been, but in terms of where I want to be. I use this conversation in my brain to keep me looking forward. There will always be choices to make and I think you have to come to an acceptance that the decisions were made at the time with all the best information (or not).
I’m 40 now and recently entered into my fourth career (if you count what my degree is in). None of the choices I made were bad, but that doesn’t mean they worked out or necessarily what I was “meant” to do either. Each had valuable lessons, and that’s made me a little wiser.
I love the idea that these questions, these signposts of identity, can be used to chart our futures. It is not always about the past, is it? Obviously, I don’t know your story, but still I think there is something incredible that you are onto career #4. To me, this evinces flexibility and loyalty to yourself. Who says we are meant to stand still just because that means stability and consistency? And yes, it is all about the lessons we collect along the way.
I think I must ask myself these questions every day. I am a senior in high school and feel like I am in a state of perpetual ignorance about my future. Or at least until April arrives and the college acceptance (or rejection) letters make their way into my mailbox. I keep leaping ahead, making millions of plans which all seem to rely on going to one school or another. But the roads seem so numerous and overwhelming that I wish I could stop thinking about it just for a day. At least for now
Enjoyable post as usual!
Welcome, Mary! First of all, I just felt a stab of age envy. A senior in high school! Okay, onward. All I can tell you is that I think it is a wonderful thing that you are asking these questions, that you are squinting at the landscape ahead, the infinite roads. April will come and go, you will march on to some good place. I don’t know you, but I know this. But promise me one thing: Never stop asking. Never.