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are people lying to me when they say I have a lot of time left?

· 2 min read

Have you ever had someone tell you?

Don't worry about [insert problem], you are so young

Or

You deserve time off... [some variation of the world is your oyster]

Or

There are no wrong choices. You have a lot of time

And do you ever think? Hmm. Is that true? .... or is that just bait.

Well. I have thought about this, and I will say: the bait is very tempting. Truly. But isn't it also somewhat true?

As someone who graduated college almost 2 years ago, it feels as if I have time, but I don't. I have just started my career, but I've also already lived a quarter to a fifth of my life. It feels like a substantial part of myself has been built out already, my degree, my skillset, my friends, but I still technically have a lot of time left? Strange.

I thought about it, and I formed a few opinions.

  1. The world is not my oyster. The world is more like a maze of oysters. It's pretty easy to get lost, especially when there are oysters everywhere
  2. Time is long if your work compounds. They say you are an expert at something if you spend 10,000 hours working on it. That means I have the opportunity to be an expert at 5-15 things in my life if I keep working on them everyday
  3. I like music, but I'm currently not the greatest at piano. One day if I have grandkids, I would love to jam out with them

In conclusion, they are lying. But only if I stop consistently pursuing what I am interested in, whether it's music, a new subject, friends, family.