A Quarter-Life Situation

A colleague of mine is turning 25 next month. I teased her about it the other day to hype up her upcoming milestone. Instead of submitting herself to birthday exposure, she responded with a rather serious question, "In this age, have you ever looked back and regretted the things you haven't been able to achieve?" She quickly added, “I’m a bit stressed every time I remember the failure list.”

Well, suffice it to say that the confession took me off guard. "I have no list. I have no goals. I'm just going with the flow,” I said. While it was more of a spur-of-the-moment answer, I was stunned by the undeniable honesty. Do I really have no goals in life? Should I have a list of things I aim to achieve before I turn 30?

I mean, obviously, I have wishes (and the idea of a genie lamp hidden in the attic sounds marvelous to me). I wish for everything to go well. I wish I could travel the world with my family. I wish for more exciting experiences in the future. I wish this blog would attract a larger audience and become a positive online community. I wish and wish and wish…

Is it bad if I don’t set a target for a certain extravagance by the time I reach a certain age, though? In my opinion, there is no point in driving oneself crazy over a specific grandeur. If I’m all for celebrating everything I’ve accomplished instead, does that mean I lack motivation, thus making me a procrastinator?

In my defense, I’m not trying to sabotage my chance—I consider it important not to waste my potential and to hone what I do best. And I think I’m quite far from being lazy either—if anything, I’m a perfectionist who takes a great deal of pride in giving my best. My life might not be perfect—there are still many things I have yet to achieve—but I feel like I’ve reached a point where I just want to be grateful. I value all the blood, sweat, and tears I have shed to become who I am today. I romanticize even the smallest things, and I actively search for something productive to do in my spare time. There is a liberating feeling in the air once I start being grateful for where I am.

Well, you might wonder: does being grateful stop me from having a goal? Or does it stop me from being too hard on myself even when I haven't reached a my goals? I have wishes. I have desires. I just don't set a deadline, so the latter one it is.

When all is said and done, I wonder if it’s still so bad to have nothing in particular binding you to a straight path. If I retain the freedom to explore every intersection on the street, stopping for a cup of ice cream or two, do you think it’s okay if I don’t set a target to buy that big house around the corner by the time I turn 30?