soos_mite_ah

I find this topic interesting because I feel like the expectations people had for things such as parenthood and even weddings has changed so much since social media and influencers started posting things. I feel like a lot of these things were much simpler in the past whereas now on the internet, they look like larger than life spectacles. I know it would be pretty chronically online to assume that everyone is having over the top weddings and are giving their children over the top childhoods but I do think that this type of content does affect what standards are seen as aspirational and even normal.

@mydiamondsandpearls Thank you so much!!! I hope you enjoy the posts lol.

Yikes

100% agree. It still doesn't hurt to stay informed and advocate for things if necessary for the sake of optics and not backing down.

How I'm feeling after the debate, people trying to get Biden to stop running and replace him (as they should), everything that is happening with foreign policy and the culture war, and the most recent supreme court decision:

If the Stars Align After the previous 2 therapy sessions I found my feelings around motherhood temper out a bit more. For example, when it comes to why I don't want to be a mother such as the struggles people go through with the pregancy and post partum, the concerns I have with the world around me being chaotic, the unequal distribution of labor, and the possibilities of accidents and special needs, they all still seem like perfectly valid concerns like before but after therapy, they also feel like me carefully considering the side effects in fine print. Like birth control has pages and pages of side effects that can really fuck someone up but not everyone has to deal with (I personally don't have issues with the side effects, just the occasional nausea) even though it's a very real concern. And even if people deal with it, there are ways to tackle things and alternatives they can explore. I believe motherhood has as similar dynamic as medications that have a lot of side effects but are still good however, I do recognize that unlike medication, you can't just stop being a mother so it's important to take the fine print and side effects of motherhood more seriously through a fine tooth comb before jumping to any conclusions. Nevertheless, while I still feel scared, I feel less scared because I don't entirely know how things are going to turn out for me (and it could turn out positively) and I know that even if I'm intimadated by the challenges ahead, that doesn't mean I won't acquire the tools over time and step up when the challenges are presented to me. After all, I'm not planning on having kids for another 8-10 years. Alternatively, when it comes to my feelings regarding wanting to be a mother, I think it's great that I'm thinking through this carefully to make sure my desires are coming from a good place and I think it's been nice to unpack this with a professional. I have very valid questions for myself and I'm glad I explored those and came to the conclusion that I have my head screwed on well regarding wanting a kid. I feel more self assured when it comes to making this decision because I think I have my head screwed on well enough to be able to challenge my thinking and be self aware in my decision making if I do decide to have a kid. While there is a part of me that doesn't want to have a kid and a part of me that does want to, there is also a third part that is kind of in the middle where I'm like *I could have a kid.... but only under specific conditions.* I feel like this is more of a middle ground compared to the other two sides in that it keeps the possibility of having a kid or not open ended. I'm not super attached/ desperate to the idea of having a kid because I can envision multiple ways I could still be happy and fulfilled in my life if for whatever reason having a kid is just not in the cards for me. I don't want to have a kid because it *will* make me happy and fulfilled. If I have a kid, I want it to come from a place where I'm already happy and fulfilled and I want to share that and the life I have built for myself with that kid. I also know there are other ways of satifying my maternal urges to guide and nurture from volunteering with kids, being a part of the community for my friends who decide to have kids, volunteering for a pet shelter, or having a pet or two. As a result, if I do end up on the road to being child free, I don't see this being a source of a gaping hole in my over all life satisfaction. And of course, I don't want to have a kid unless I'm sure that I can give them the life that they deserve. That goes beyong giving the bare minimum of food, water, shelter etc. but also includes being able to afford a good education, travel, and extracurricular activities. At the very least, I want them to have the same quality of life materially as I had growing up if not better. So here are some scenarios that I can see myself having a kid in addition to having an exceptional partner and community around me: A. My husband and I both make decent money and are able to move to New Zealand to raise the kid. B. There are serious changes that have been made in the U.S. government (reforms in health care, education, cost of living, parental leave, gun laws, child care etc.) C. My husband is absolutely loaded to where we can afford to give the kid a good life and have the means to make good decisions despite being in America in the occasion that America doesn't change. If I don't meet the right man in time (say I'm like 37 and still single with no signs for worthy prospects) and if one of the following scenarios doesn't come true, I'm just going to say that having a kid is just not in the cards for me from the universe and just call it a day. There is also the possibility that I am still unsure in my late 20s but my thing is, if I'm putting this much thought into this decision only to still be unsure at like 28, at that point the indecisivness isn't coming from wanting to see all possibilities rather it's coming from a place of probably deep down inside not wanting to do this. I agree to a certain extent that if you're not sure, the answer is no, if being unsure is coming from a place of hesitation rather than justified scrutiny. So then the next question is, what does make a man worthy of being the father of my potential child in addition to simply being a good spouse?: Doesn't see child care and taking care of the home as a gendered activity. Enthusiastically and diligently wants to be an active role in the child's life and has thought of the reprucussions of having a kid as deeply as I have Is willing to take time off work to take care of the kid until they reach school age and I am willing to We have an exceptional, healthy, and fulfilling relationship that can deal with the challenges of parenthood effectively. We need to model a healthy relationship for the kid, he needs to be a good role model, and he needs to be a good team member when it comes taking on this project together. Is incredibly supportive of what I may go through physically and mentally in this transition, carries the load of being a parent with me, and is trusted to take care of the kid if for whatever reason I'm not able to. Has similar philosophies on the topic of raising kids (i.e. not super relgious in the upbringing, doesn't believe in hitting kids, understands what healthy parenting looks like, emphasizes educational achievement etc.) Is capable of supporting a family montetarily Has a good amount of family support and comes from a healthy household (optional but highly preferred).

Therapy Notes 2: Green Flags and Beige Flags The last time I discussed motherhood in therapy we focussed on all of the reasons why I'm hesitant to be a mother. This time we explored the part of me that wants to be a mother. My main reasons why I want to be a mom include wanting to watch someone grow and develop and be the guiding role in that, how I can be easily satiated with my life to where I can see myself building a happy and fulfilling life for myself that I would want to pour into a child, and to an extent how I want to raise an emotionally healthy kid to flex on my parents lol. I have expanded on the first two points in this journal so I'm not going to repeat that. It was nice to be able to explore in a therapeutic setting though because I feel like I got to unpack these reasons with a 3rd party who has professional experience and education to suss out warning signs. I really focuseed on the last point about wanting to raise a healthy kid because my parent's sucked at raising me. I saw the potential of this being a red flag because it could be interpreted as me wanting to have a kid to resolve my own trauma and give them the childhood that I didn't have. I can see on how this can come from a place of selfishness and unhealed issues that can signal that my decision to be a mother isn't coming from a healthy and authentic place and how that in turn be projected on to the kid and fuck them up. However, upon further unpacking in therapy, I realized that for me at least, it's not coming from that toxic place. It's not uncommon for people to have adverse childhood experiences that can in turn result in them being a good parent because they know what not to do and how to respond to various challenges. The first thought I have is Dr. Doofenshmirtz in Phineas and Ferb and how he had a shitty childhood, thus causing him to be a super villain, but he's also an amazing dad who always goes the extra mile for his daughter lol. Then there is the whole generational trauma thing. I feel like I have worked through a lot from the stuff that got passed down to me in terms of mental health, bad relationship dynamics, unhealthy ways of coping due to things like child marriage, wars, genocides, famines, etc. And I have created a beautiful life for myself and I'm just getting started. It also gets me emotional when I think about the life I had and the priviledge I had when it comes to doing this work because a couple generations ago, my grandmother was married off at 14, didn't get the chance to complete her education, and basically had her whole life chosed for her. And here I am. I'm well educated. I got the chance to travel. I was raised in a stable enough environment to develop myself. I have a job and I'm financially secure. Sure, I didn't have an easy time in terms of family and mental health but I still got through to the other side of it. And I can only imagine what I would be able to provide for my future kid from this place and I want to see the amount of progress that would take place in the next generation. Just because part of this decision comes from past hurt, doesn't automatically mean that I'm going about this in an unhealthy way. In my fears about it being a red flag that I want to have a kid to give them the childhood I didn't get to have, I wanted to explore how I genuinely cannot picture having a boy. Ngl, part of me would be a little disappointed if I found out at the baby shower that I was having a boy instead of a girl. I genuinely cannot picture having a boy, I just draw a blank. And in being able to identify this tendency in myself, I wondered if I wanted to project onto a kid or if this is just coming from a place of not being able to picture boyhood since I only have experience with girlhood and the challenges that come with that. The last thing I want is to be one of those parents who is pissed off at the gender reveal because they have internalized misogyny or misandry that they didn't unpack. Upon exploring this, I think it's a beige flag that I cannot imagine having a boy. I think my dad went through something similar where he was a little disappointed when he found out I was a girl. The reason he wanted to have a boy was because I wanted to see boyhood in a different time and environment through his son's eyes and be able to connect to his son in that way. But he thought to himself *well you know what, at least my wife gets to have this beautiful experience.* This conversation happened in the context of me talking about how I don't have a good relationship with my mom and how we're not that close. And he explained that it breaks his heart that my mom took that for granted and has such a bad relationship with me because he wouldn't have squandered an opportunity like that. But he's still grateful that we were able to have such a close relationship and that he was still able to have that close relationship he wanted to have with a son with me even if he doesn't understand everything I deal with fully. I think I find myself in the same dynamic as well in relation to wanting a girl. I also think that since I grew up as an only child, girlhood is the only reference to childhood I have in a family structure and as a result, it's easier to imagine. It also adds to the learning curve if I end up having a son because there is only so much I know about the male experience since I don't have direct experiences of it. Which is why having a solid husband is all the more important because he needs to be able to model a healthy form of masculinity and relate to the challenges that can come up when a boy is growing up on a more personal level. I also know that I will need to alter my parenting style based on the type of kid I end up having and their unique needs. I can't just be the parent that I wish I had because what I need and what my kid needs can be two totally different things because we're totally different people. I also know that my skills as a parent doesn't determine the outcome of who my child becomes. It most certainly plays a large role and I'm not denying the responsibility of that. But they are also their own person who will respond to their own environment and life circumstances accordingly. I think that's important to consider because there are many times in my life where my mom saw my actions and performance at school as like a reflection of whether or not she was a good mother based on what the other competitive South Asian moms were doing. The other South Asian moms had kids who were valedictorian and who got into super prestigious school. I got decent grades and got into a good school but I could tell that at times my mom felt the need to pressure me further and have that manifest in really negative ways because she felt insecure, because she felt like she was doing something wrong because she thought her kid didn't measure up. I want to steer clear of that. My child is not a mini me nor are they an extention of myself and my needs. And I think that this self awareness more or less debunks this notion that I'm having a kid because of some unhealed part of me to reproduce a childhood I didn' have and to have a girl that I could project onto. In conclusion, after this therapy session, I left feeling more sure of myself. I feel like while I don't know whether or not I want to have a kid that I'm putting in a lot of good thought into it and that my deisres for wanting to have a kid is coming from a healthy and authentic place. I don't know what my ultimate decision is and I have plenty of time to figure it out. But I do have the confidence to know that whatever I choose, I'm going to choose well because I'm thinking through this carefully and intentionally.

I couldn't get through more than 4 episodes of that show. It was really cringe. It's so dated and it aged REALLY badly. It was really progressive for it's time in the late 90s since it was tabboo for women to be talking about sex so openly on TV and to have a group of women in the 30 somethings be represented as something other than a wife and a mother. But by today's standards, it's extremely closed off in terms of sexual exploration, boundaries, and nonhetronormative dynamics. I found the few episodes I saw as very flat and lacking in depth even if the topics they were tackling was interesting. Not to mention Carrie Bradshaw was incredibly insufferable to where people can probably write a 20 page essay about how unhinged she is, how bad of a friend she is, and the dumpster fire that was her relationship with Mr. Big. I can't even say that it was a bad depiction of reality without chuckling because it feels so obvious that I don't even think I need to say it.

You don't have to be a total gym rat to maintain a good amount of muscle mass. Just make sure you prioritize protein and nutrient dense meals, do some form of strength training you enjoy, and go on a few walks if you find yourself being sendentary. A little goes a long way. Muscle mass and bone density is incredibly important as you age as it can prevent injuries, perserve your metabolism and energy levels, and keep your mobility. You don't have to drink a whole gallon of water every day, obsess about getting 100-200g of protein, and go full body builder / athlete mode if you're just an average person who is looking to maintain their health over time. I'm sure the kind of advice where you workout 7 days a week, do a shit ton of cardio, and get in your protein shakes is applicable to people who have specific atheletic goals, but for maintenance, I feel like most people are just over thinking things. Personally, I've been finding more inspiration from old people who lead fairly active lives. There is this one lady that I follow on social media whose like 68 and she does strength training. She's not super ripped or skinny but she does look energetic and happy and whenever I see her, I'm just like *I know she has good bone density* lol. There is also this like 92 year old grandma that I saw somewhere who just does a little bit of pilates and yoga for the past 40 years to maintain her mobility and flexibility so her kids and grandkids which I thought was really wholesome. I also have a neighbor who when I moved into the neighborhood as a kid he was probably in his early 60s. He was always doing various home projects, trimming bushes, mowing the lawn, walking his dogs etc. 15 years later he's pushing 80 and he has no signs of aging and is still capable of doing his little projects. I look at him and I'm just like *I'm sure if he falls he WILL be able to get up* lol. My point is that if you want to maintain and build some muscle mass, you can do it by lifting weights in the gym, doing something more low impact like pilates or calisthenics, or just maintain an active life style so you have your functional strength. Just find something active you enjoy, stick to it, eat your protein, vegitables, carbs, and healthy fats, drink water, stay away from things like drugs, and you're good to go.

Questions I Want to Contemplate / Answer with My One Month of Travel What kind of role does travel play in my life and how often do I want to travel? Do I want travel to be a component of my career? Is my hobby regarding travelling some thing that is crucial for me to share with a life partner? How do I feel about travelling to developping countries regarding what I can and can't handle regarding uncertainty and navigating a new environment? How do I feel about navigating uncertainty before and after this trip? How did this trip impact my degree of self confidence, agency, and self efficacy? Do I want to have a child and how do I see this factor into my ideal life style? How do I feel about my current relationship now that I have gotten some distance from it? What role does my intellectual needs play in my over all satisfaction in a relationship? To what extent is travel something that internally and externally motivates me? Is travel a good source of motivation for me? What are my takeaways from the new experiences that I'm gaining? What am I learning about the world around me and how I relate to it? How can I be a more ethical traveler and am I engaging in ethical practices especially as an American? What do I think of my life in this American capitalist hellscape after seeing different ways of living life? How do I relate to the different immigrant groups in Dallas after going on these trips? How do I feel about interacting with my family through out all of this and what does it mean for me maintaining some relationships going forward? What do the answers to the questions above reveal about my sense of purpose, my career, and how I should structure my life? Things I want to experience in my one month of travel: For reference, I'm planning on going to Doha, Bengaluru, Kolkata, North Vietnam, South Korea (including Seoul + one other city for a day trip), and Alaska (not sure exactly where but I want to see the northern lights + a couple of national parks). Doha, Qatar: I want this to be a more relaxing part of the trip so that I can ease off of work. I'm planning a spa day do get a facial and a massage, a day where I go to the Museaum of Islamic Art, the National Museaum of Qatar, the Souq Waquif, and the Katara Village, and going dune surfing. I feel like there is a good mix of things that makes me relaxed and that lets me engage with the culture of the area. I personally think that going to museaums counts as a relaxing activity and that dune surfing is a fun way to do something that I saw was cool while having a physical activity component to the trip since I really enjoyed biking in Amsterdam when I did my last solo trip. Bengaluru, Karnataka, India: I'm going to be visiting my cousin, his wife, and his kid here. It's going to be my first time meeting the kid and i think it will be interesting to see the family dynamic lol. I also think it will be interesting visiting them now that I have grown up a little more just to see how that impacts things. I also always wanted to see south India since I heard that it's very different from the other parts of India I have gone to. Kolkata, West Bengal, India: I'm visiting more family here and I want to also see pujo here as well. I've always done Durga pujo with my family and my South Asian community in Dallas and i always wanted to see how people do things in West Bengal. My dad has many fond memories of going to Kolkata from Sylhet, Bangladesh during pujo season to spend time with family and I just want to see what it looks like when people go all out for pujo in a place where most people are celebrating. And now that I'm an adult and I don't have to wait around for the breaks in a school academic year schedule, I think it would be nice to take advantage of that and travel in October. North Vietnam: (includes Hanoi, Ninh Binh, Halong Bay, Sapa) I've never been to southeast Asia before and I think north Vietnam would be good to go to during the month of October due to climate reasons. I found a tour that lasts for 7 days that I'm interested in taking and I ihave been educating myself on the country and its history more lately. I think this will be a country that will be good for testing how I feel travelling solo in a more developing country in a more structured way, hence the tour. I think it will be a good challenge for me regarding how to navigate myself on this trip and how I feel about future trips going forward. I do have a goal of going to all 7 continents by 30 and I think depending on how I feel about this trip and my competence/ skill as a traveller can help me plan other trips in continents like South America and Africa. South Korea: (includes Seoul, and a couple other cities) I have never been to anywhere in east Asia. I've thought about going to Japan but I think I'll save that trip to go with a friend who has lived there before, speaks the langauage, and has many things to say about the place. South Korea I think will be interesting in relation to the infrastructure, the transportation system, and the popular culture that has been gaining more and more prominance in the west in recent years. I feel like growing up I was really into east Asian media and I was also inspired to travel to places like South Korea and Japan after finding YouTube channels about people from the U.S. settling there and their reaction to adjusting to the new place and the cultural differences they encountered. Also, I think the food in South Korea and north Vietnam is point of attraction for me as well. Like Vietnam, I also think that travelling in South Korea will be a challenge since I'm navigating a country that doesn't speak English super widely (unless you're in the touristy areas) and I think it's a great way to still challenge myself. Alaska: My main attraction here is to see the Northern Lights. I heard that this year especially will be a really good year to see the lights. I also want to see the national parks in Alaska because I do find joy in experiencing natural beauty from our environment. I have similar motivations for north Vietnam as well since it's more rural and scenic in terms of natural beauty compared to the south. I also want to add to the number of states I have visited in the U.S. currently I'm at 27/50. I don't have super definitive goal as to by when I want to see all 50 states but I do want to be well travelled in many contexts, including within the U.S. It's my little way of embracing patriotism I guess lol. I also want to go somewhere cold since that makes me happy. I'm also going to be spending my birthday here and I think that will be a nice way to end the trip.

My Quarter Life Crisis I watched this video from Dr. K and I feel like I related to some parts of it but not necessarily the intensity of it. I do feel like my 20s are a transformative time and I'm exploring myself and questions I have regarding what I want to do with my life. That said, it doesn't necessarily feel like a crisis, but I guess it's because I've been at a state of existential crisis for varying issues and topics from when I was 10. Stage 1: Locked In Dr. K talks about how quarter life crises have stages and how the advice in one stage may or may not be applicable depending on where you're at in this process. He goes off of studies on quarter life crises over the last 10 years as well as delve into his personal life experiences in this video. In the first stage of being "Locked In", Dr. K talks about how for many people, they have been told to live life in a certain type of way that isn't entirely authentic to them due to external validation. As a result of the incongruency of what is happening internally and what life is like externally, people start to feel stuck in life. This can especially happen to people who have been working towards something in life that wasn't super authentic to themselves, only to spend so many years doing it to where they feel stuck in their position. The example he uses is the process of becoming a doctor where you spend all these years studying and practicing being a doctor, which you may or may not enjoy, but that is not the same as the day to day of being a doctor. As a result, maybe you fit well through med school but once you become a doctor, the internal and external life aren't in congruence anymore. Or maybe, the case is that you realize that this isn't what you want to do but then you feel like since you have put so many years of dedication to it that you're like *wtf else am I supposed to do!??!* Then you start questioning your identity, your path, and next thing you know you're in an existential crisis. The research about the stages cites the following: Dr. K also emphasizes exploring yourself and actively creating the life you want for yourself over finding yourself and finding the right career. This is an emphasis of process over the product. Sure, at the end of the quarter life crisis, you might not have solid answers as to what you should be doing, but if you go through the crisis correctly, the *should* aspect of having a definitive answer becomes a nonissue. Rather, you become more sure of yourself and your ability to actively craft the life around you instead of finding a neat box to fit into. I can relate to the stage of being locked in to a certain extent. I feel like the monotony of my office life and the notion that it's a good idea to work here a couple more years despite the fact that I don't really like it does leave me feeling a little stuck. I do relate to how in the video people wake up in their 20s and are like *is this my life now?!?!* and how there is a lack of congruency between the adulthood we were promised, the one where we have the freedom to do what we want, and the adulthood we have where while we aren't restricted by parents and teachers telling us what to do, instead we are restricted by our responsibilities towards our family, friends, job, health etc. In my opinion, younger people are having this crisis now rather than in their mid life because of how bad things have gotten with late stage capitalism exaserbating these issues to where you can't ignore it until your 40s. I wrote a whole post earlier about feeling 17 and how my expectations of adulthood doesn't really fit in with my reality due to the world changing so much since 2017. However, I don't feel completely locked in. I feel like from my early teens I have done a good job at pushing back against the *shoulds* of society relating to what my parents wanted me to do for my career, or the notion that the formula for happiness is going to college, working in a cubicle job for 40 years, somewhere along the way buy a house and raise a family, and then eventually retire. I think I did a really good job in choosing what I should study in college. It helped me get a stable job while still honoring my interests. Growing up, I had the gift of being an incredbily intrinsically motivated person to where it was sometimes hard for me to respect authority simply because the things they said didn't add up and I was in exitential crisis mode all the time since the typical things that externally motivated kids didn't really stick with me. I also chose my field of study knowing that people can change a lot over the years and that I shouldn't commit to a path at 18 since I'm so young and I have so much more figuring out to do. I double majored in Managment and International Relations with a minor in Human Rights. All of these degrees are flexible enough to where I can have the freedom to get into various industries due to the types of skills you develop in these disciplines. And my business degree is much like an engineering degree to where I can take on a reasonably paying job right after college without having the same pressure to have to get a masters or some kind of graduate school like my peers who only majored in a liberal arts degree or medicine. I think the other reason why I don't feel completely locked in is because I consciously chose the boring corporate job I have right now. I knew as I was exiting college in this chaotic time that the best thing I can do financially and for my mental health is to get a boring corporate job with prospect, decent pay, and work life balance, so that I have some sort of stability and financial safety net to figure out what I REALLY wanted to do. Despite the existential dread this job can bring, I feel like I can think more clearly in terms of what can bring me fulfillment and what direction I want to go when I'm not actively worried about bills, moving out of my family's chaotic environment, and the prospects I have after graduation. Sure, I still have challenges related to survival, but my mind is so much clearer because I can think about what I want to do rather than what I need to do. I'm not as clouded by survival as I was 2 years ago when I was studying abroad and feeling incredibly apprehensive about my future because I have more of my survival taken care of. So even though I feel a little stuck in a Sisyphean sense, I do feel like the monotony has produced a net degree of freedom for me despite the draw backs. I also feel like I don't fully relate to how Phase 1 causes you to question your identity because I think I did a good job at deconstructing things and I didn't go into my job post-grad defining myself based on my career path. I went in with the mind set that a job is sometimes just a job and that I can find fulfillment in various other areas of life like my relationships, various hobbies, and volunteer work. Sure, I'm a empathetic and artistic person, but that doesn't mean I need to monetize those character traits by studying to be a therapist or starting an etsy shop that will eventually support me with my paintings. At the same time, while I know how to derive pleasure and fulfillment from various areas of my life, I'm trying to find exactly where I fit in the spectrum of *a job is just a job, clock in and clock out, live your best life outside of work* to *my job is my passion and life purpose and I want that to be the center of my life.* I don't see either of these resonating with me completely but I don't see myself as not finding a sensse of truth in both of those statements either. So yes, I do feel a bit lost in terms of how my current job feels kind of souless and I'm questioning what I care about and what I want to master but at the same time, it's not so bad because I know that I'm not tied down to a fixed identity around all of this, that my job and career is a part of my life and not the whole. Phase 2A: Separation Dr. K describes this phase as when you physically and mentally check out of our situation because internally you don't want to do this anymore but externally, you feel like you're stuck in this life that you can't change. However, this isn't a problem to be solved, rather a phase you need to go through. The research cites the following: Dr. K expands on this by describing that the oscilation between upbeat self confidence and self disgust as being afraid of the future but feeling ashamed about not taking action despite the fear, or being proud of how far you have come in terms of your achievements, such as graduating from Harvard medical for example, but still feeling some sort of disconnect because the new identity hasn't formed yet and you feel some type of way despite your life looking good on paper. It's a process of moving from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation. People often stall at this phase because they think that feeling disconnected is a problem rather than something they have to move through and as a result, sometimes they end up doubling down to shoo away these feelings instead of letting those feelings lead them into action unless they are forced to because life takes away their job or spouse for example. I feel like the description quoted above and Dr. K's expansion sums up some of the emotional experiences I have had when I was mildly depressed for a couple months. I did feel that sense of self-disgust at my fuck-ass corporate job because it felt like the people around me are pursuing something greater and eventually, while I'm going good for myself right now, I will be left behind in a dead end corporate job while my peers will be pursuing something greater in terms of skill and fulfillment like going into law, medicine, diplomacy, getting a CPA etc. I went through a phase where I was deconstructing some of my self deprecating tendencies and how I have a chip off my shoulder from college regarding my performance and my inability to work long hours. And I think I came out of it with a greater sense of appreciation of where I am right now, my accomplishments regarding the things I have been working hard towards, and a greater sense of humility. Because humility is about not thinking of yourself. It isn't self deprecation since while you're not in constant praise of yourself like a grandiose narcisissist, you're still centerring yourself by constantly picking yourself apart. Yes, humility is recognizing that there is always people who are better than you in some way, but humility is also recognizing that you're pretty damn good yourself and being thankful for your own gifts and fortune instead of taking them for granted. I don't think I went through the de-coupling phase of separating your identity from your commitments and roles since I wasn't super latched in to begin with and I think this crisis isn't hitting as hard because I have been so intrinsically motivated for so long in my life. As a result, the process in which I was navigating this path, prior to coming across the obstacle course that is the quarter life crisis, was already correct even though I haven't gotten to the product. But that's the whole point, the process is more valuable than the product and I think even listening to this video, that gives me a sense of relief because while I do feel lost since I haven't *figured things out* yet, it's nice knowing that I'm going about this the right way. However, I do find myself checking out because of my tendency to zone out on tiktok on the regular and having a screen time that I'm not ready to confront just yet. I do sometimes feel like I'm going through the motions and then I feel a sense of panic set in when I realize that I have been disassociating in the productivity of my job to where Monday to Friday feels like a blur, then the weekend goes by even quicker, and next thing I know, my week and the whole month flew by. I feel like my chronically online tendencies falls in between the phase 1 tendency to get into an addiction or compulsion to cope with the existential crisis mixed in with the separation of phase 2A. Phase 2B: Time Out Here, while you do have still have the sense of separation of phase 2A, often times people think it's beneficial to take a break from what they're doing to figure their shit out. Often times, this involves going to a different location to get yourself out of your current life to think about what else you can do instead. People often get stuck in phase 2A because they are dead set on making their old life work and doubling down because you want to cling on to the stability of the old rather than seeing what else is out there and jumping into phase 2B. The research cites the following : Dr. K describes his own situation and how he had to travel across the world and separate himself from grades and achievement to gain more clarity. He also talks about how many people in this stage want to escape their old life for the new, but they still want to cling to the stability and certainty of the old life. Then they start asking themselves how they know if XYZ is the right thing to do. As a result, people in Phase 2B have the avoidance of the future as well because they want a guranteed future and they're stuck in their heads without being able to embrace uncertainty of not knowing what will happen after they make these decisions. Phase 2B makes you avoid the past and avoid the future because you're not ready to make a plan. I do find myself relating to phase 2B in that I'm planning a trip coming up later this year where I take a month out of work to travel. Part of it is following things that make me happy, such as learning about different cultures, and also challenging myself in the process since I'm very much the type of person why makes travelling a sport or boot camp of sorts rather than a relaxing day at the beach. Listen, if I fly my ass half way across the world and spend a shit ton of money to get there, I'm not going to be sipping a maragarita on the beach. I can relax and do that shit in Texas. If I'm taking my time and money that far away, I'm going to do as much as I can with my time and immerse myself in that culture rather than isolating myself in a resort, or doing like 1 or 2 things a day. I'm also taking this trip because I want to see what travel means to me and what role it's going to play in my life. Is this an itch that I need to scratch every few years, or is this something I want to do on a semi regular basis? How important is this to my sense of fulfillment and to what extent do I want to share this with a significant other? Answering this question is goign to be important regarding my choices in my life partner, my reproductive choices, and my career to a certain extent. I'm currently dating someone who I love but who I tend to clash with in terms of intellectual compatibility. I'm very traditionally smart in relation to academics, nerdy hobbies, and writing out my existential crisis in the form of long ass essays that really only I read (and occasionally my friends and significant other when I have a lot of say so I give them assigned reading lol). He is very intelligent on technical matters and is very trade school coded. And this difference was a source of admiration for both of us in the relationship. He's impressed by the interesting things I have to say and the conversations we have and I'm impressed with the more unconventional path he took careerwise where instead of going into college, he went more on the certification route in IT. It inspired me and gave me the courage to take my own path in college and honeslty, he's so intelligent about things that I don't know shit about. Like he's the type of person who you can call to fix your car, your plumbing, your internet issues, and any other DIY project you may have where I suck at basically all of these things. I remember seeing a very old Tumblr post. I have no clue if this is true but I do think it's very funny but it's this anecdote of the Obama's helping their elder daughter Malia move into Harvard. Everyone is helping her move in and Barack is just twiddling this thumbs in the corner and Michelle is like *what are you doing just standing there, go do something.* Then Barack is trying to set up like some IKEA furniture and is struggling with the instructions. And I'm very much like Barack in this anecdote where I am smart and successful in my own ways but I struggle with technical and detail oriented things that my boyfriend is really good with. Despite the fact that we're both really smart in our own ways, I feel like there is a lack of fulfillment in my relationship because while it's really happy, healthy, and supportive, I don't feel like my intellectual needs are being met. And I'm trying to figure out exactly how much of that need I need to be met for a life long commitment to someone. Maybe I can find this intellectual fulfillment in my friends and my career rather than my life partner, which is fine since I don't expect my husband to fulfill every single need I have as that can be a nerve wrecking expectation. Part of me thinks that if I get a job that I'm more intellectually engaged with that this will alleviate the pressure in getting my needs met through the one avenue of my partner. It was kind of nice during college where I was academically challenged but then I got to turn my brain off around my partner temporarily. At the same time, I remember even then picking up on the feeling of the lack of intellectual fulfillment in my relationship even though I couldn't really articulate it to myself at that time. And even now, while I do have an outlet through my hobbies to get my intellectual needs met, I still feel the lack of fulfillment. To tie it back to travel, I think part of it is because I'm considerably more well travelled and I care about travel more than my boyfriend. There is nothing wrong with having different interests, but I think it's important to have some common ground in certain interests that give you a lot of fulfillment so that you can continue connecting to the other person over time. And I'm trying to figure out if that is the case for me with travel. The role travel plays in my life also factors into my reproductive choices since I'm still on the fence about whether or not I want to have a child. If this is something that I need to get out of my system when I'm young or if this is simply an itch that I want to scratch every few years, that's great in terms of the possibility of having a kid. However, if I want to regularly travel, that's going to be more challenging because it's difficult and expensive to travel with a kid and it's likely that for the first 5-10 years that I'm not going to be travelling often. Some challenges include your baby crying on a flight, or your toddler / young child being cranky and hyper active from travelling long distances. Travelling can be distressing and anxiety inducing but when you're an adult, you have more emotional regulation skills than a child to be dealing with the inconveniences that are thrown your way. I feel strir crazy after a long flight and I don't want to be seated for that long. A 5-year old feels the same way but they don't have the impulse control to stay put, which is developmentally appropriate for their age, so then they end up acting out, throwing tantrums, and running around. Not to mention things get so much more expensive when you're travelling with a family rather than just solo. If I do have a kid, I do want to raise them in the way I was where I give them the gift of travel and having a variety of experiences, but I do realize that the lifestyle my parents were able to give me in the 2000s has a very different liklihood of achievability in 2024 financially. I'm not saying that it's impossible to travel after you have a kid, but there are a lot of additional things you will need to think about before making this decision. And if it turns out that travel is more important to me, I see nothing wrong with pursuing my sense of fulfillment in that route rather than becoming a parent. Finally, there is the role of travel in one's career. I don't have the same rose toned glasses I had at 17 when I found out that you can travel for work as a consultant for example. The reality is that travelling for work isn't as glamorous as it can seem. Often times as a consultant, you will be shipped off to the butt fuck of nowhere in Idaho surrounded by potatos instead of New York or San Francisco. Even if you do go to somewhere more exciting, you're travelling on the company's time so you might not have the time or energy to actually explore. And I think that's a different kind of torture to where you dreamed of travelling your whole life but when you finally get the opportunity to do so, you can't even enjoy it properly. I also have friends who do have to travel frequently and it really disrupts with their ability to have a healthy routine which affects their physical and mental health. At the same time, I do know that travel is an important factor in my life and I don't know how exactly travelling for work will affect me, so I'm not completely ruling it out as something that can be integrated career wise. Which is why I think having a month where I'm constantly travelling can be insightful to the questions I have for myself and how I want to structure my life careerwise but also in terms of my romantic relationships and reproductive decisions. It will also give me some distance from my daily life, my relationship, and my job in a way that simply taking a week off work can't. Stage 3: Exploration Dr. K opens this section by quoting the research. Dr. K elaborates on this by saying that's a process of actively recreating yourself and reinventing yourself, rather than finding something and getting stuck in it again. Some people get stuck here because they don't think they have the time to experiment for it's own sake and just want the right answer, whether that be the perfect partner, career, etc. The problem isn't that you don't have the right answer, that goes back to the old way of thinking pre-crisis. The problem is assuming that there is a right answer to begin with and that you don't have to actively craft the life you want. Dr. K also talks about how the advice to *just put yourself out there* when it comes to dating doesn't always work for people is because they haven't done the work in phase 1, 2A, and 2B to get to the exploration phase since you have to figure out what is wrong, unpack the baggage you currently have and separate yourself from it before re-establishing your identity so that you have the room for new things to enter into your life. I feel like this really resonates with my on the career level because I always have people telling me that I need to start searching on Linked-In and start applying to jobs since I'm dissatisfied. But I don't quite feel ready for that. For one, I don't want to get into this job market until after I have had more experience professionally and have gotten a couple promotions. There are still things that I want to learn from this job before moving on to something new. Another reason that came to me while watching this video is that I'm still mainly in phase 2 and I need to work through some things before I start property putting myself out there so that this is done in a more sustainable way. While I'm not super happy with my position at work right now, I don't quite feel ready to put myself out there. Part of it is the phase 2 pitfall of being afraid to let go of the old while also not being happy with the old, but another thing is that I simply just don't feel ready not because I'm lazy or lacking in ambition, but because I'm not in that phase of the process yet. I honestly think travelling for a little bit will help me a ton and this video has made me feel more motivated to take more action in my life since I know the way this process is structured and where I am right now. Stage 4: Rebuilding The research explains the following: Dr. K explaines that what got us into this problem in the first place is that we crafted a life without understanding who we are or exploring ourselves. As a result, there is a fundamental mismatch of the life around you and who you are. In order to get through the quarter life crisis, you need to recognize that this sucks for you, check out mentally, then intentionally check out, then you start exploring yourself where it's not about finding the right answer but discovering who you are. And unless you intentionally leave, whether that means going to somewhere else geographically, surrounding yourself with different people, you can't do that exploration. From that sense of exploration comes a greater sense of who you are intrinsically, thus causing you to be able to actively craft your life consciously to make your external life align with your inner life. He then goes into talking about his life and experiences with these phases from 24:35 to 27:53. Dr. K then goes back to the research that says the following about phase 4: Basically, the crisis is necessary to go through in order to create a better life for yourself. Dr. K goes into this whole thing in an uplifting and motivating way from 28:03 to the end of the video. I'm not going to summarize it since it's something that I think needs to stand on it's own and I can't do it justice in a summary lol. I can relate to the fact that there is a fundamental mismatch of the life around me and who I am and that I have crafted my life as of right now without exploring myself . I say this even though I have been intentionally thinking of various questions regarding my identity and what I want from my life not because I don't have an understanding of myself but because given that I'm only a couple years out of college, simply by my lack of life experience, I haven't explored enough of myself and what I want long term. I'm like at the infancy stage of establishing my adult life. As a result of the work I have been putting in over the years, I don't think I'm dealing with this as intensely as a lot of my peers who are more entrenched in an extrinsically motivated world than I am. The last bit of this video was really nice and it did give me a lot of hope and reassurance regarding where I'm at right now.

This might be a more US centric thing since we don't have many walkable cities and third spaces are disappearing but I feel like now that I have graduated from college, it's so much harder to make and keep friends. I know this isn't some kind of ground breaking revalation that when people graduate and enter the workforce they aren't surrounded by their peers as they used to be. But I feel like as you grow up, friends kind of become an after thought, like people who you hang out with once a month or once every other month to "catch up" on life rather than people you live life along side as you did growing up. Part of it is due to work schedules. I know a good bit of people my age who are working 60+ hours either because they have a job and are going to school, they're in a demanding career like consulting or investment banking so they can establish their career and get good exit opportunities, or they are working multiple jobs / have a side hustle or two in order to make ends meet. Another part of it is how it's normalized, and expected to spend time with a significant other regularly but then once you have similar expectations for friends to meet up like once a week, then it is kind of seen as you're doing too much. It's also reflected in the way that I feel like most people talk about lonliness since often when we talk about lonliness, we talk about it in a romantic sense, not in a platonic sense. I think it also goes back to the whole ideal around having a nuclear family where it's just you, your spouse, and 2.5 kids where there isn't really an emphasis on a larger community beyond that. I'm sure this will get exponentially worse once my peers really start getting married and having kids since especially for women, your whole life and identity changes to where often times you're the one taking on more mental load to where it's hard to have time for yourself, much less time for friendships. But yeah, I'm someone who derives a good amount of fulfillment from friends and it kind of makes me sad that adult life is built mainly around work, maybe family/significant other and that it doesn't really incentivize people to build deeper connections platonically unless both parties are REALLY invested in it and are actively working to make this work.

I do see some truth in this. I know with my friends who are working long working hours, most of them don't want to do that or are doing it temporarily. The ones who absolutely didn't want this ended up in these jobs that work long hours partially because they didn't know what red flags to look for in interviews or because they were funnelled into a certain career path after college because they weren't aware of the other options at the time since they were in school their whole lives. The ones who are doing it temporarily are doing it out of either financial necessity or because it's important to utilize opportunities they have to set themselves up for the future. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even if your values are in the right place, that doesn't mean your labor won't get exploited since this is a systemic issue. And things aren't looking too hot out there in the job market and often times college students try to cling on what they can get since they have limitting barginning power in the first place. I would say that I'm a relatively career minded person, however, I got lucky and found a job that doesn't stress me out too much. But yeah.. I guess in the mean time as things calm down a bit in terms of the people in my life going through a milion transitions right after college, it would be better to find friends who suit my life style better.

@Basman I agree. There is a lot of hyper individualism and late stage capitalism that is contributing to isolation and the so called lonliness epidemic. I don't think this is healthy for most people. I currently have a significant other who I talk to every other day or so and we meet up like once or twice a week. So I have at least one person who I interact with on a regular basis. Which is nice but I guess it feels weird because I consider myself as someone who derives more fufillment from friendships than romantic relationships, yet here I am spending a large chunk of my social time with him, not only because I love him but because our schedules and work loads align more closely than my other relationships. But sometimes, I just get the vibe in general society that if you have the time, it's kind of expected that you spend the little time you have with relatives and your significant other if you have one and friends are a nice bonus or after thought. Even as an introvert, this seems like hell tbh lol. Like if you wanted to, you could work remotly, have anything you need shopping wise delivered to your house, and never leave which seems dystopian af. I guess work, whether it's the long hours, worrying about bills, or having to move around for you job, it really comes between the resources you have to pour into yourself much less spend time with others which is so unfortunate. And while I'm in a good place with work life balance, I wish the people around me had that too. I'm just venting at this point lol.

@Evan Gill I know that as you get older and people go on different paths and phases in life that friendships also ebbs and flow as you grow apart in one season and then grow back together in other seasons. I guess as someone who is 24 and only like 2 years out of college, it's hard to keep the big picture in perspective since it's only been 2 years and there is limitted life experiences in longer drawn out cycles. I have a handful of friends who I have good relationships with where we can be vulnerable and authentic with each other and I know we both put in effort. But sometimes life happens and I understand that the distance isn't in any malicious way. I'm also an introvert and I generally thrive in social settings that are one on one or in small groups so I guess in my mind, since I'm not an extrovert with groups and groups of friends and I know things are going to get worse as I get older, I wonder if like the 7 ish friends I have will dwindle to like 2 once I reach my 30s. I have plenty of hobbies and interests, I generally enjoy my own presance, and I would even argue that one of the ways that I like to actualize / work on myself is through platonic relationships since I'm of the belief that there is only so much you can work on yourself and heal in isolation. It's not a lonliness that is coming from a desparate place of wondering if there is something wrong with me or feeling needy/ insecure because I'm not hanging out with people regularly. I guess I find myself mourning a time when life was more so set up for these types of interactions and I catch myself wondering if this is just adulthood and I just have to suck it up or what. Like I get that friendships take work and in a way I like that I'm not around people constantly and that there is some degree of effort that people take to get out of their way to hang out. And I understand that some friendships just naturally grow apart and that this is alright and not anyone's fault really. But sometimes it feels like an uphill climb to mantain anything. It's one thing to go out of your way and put in effort. It's another thing to feel like you're swimming up stream because the path of lease resistance is carrying you in other ways due to actual logistical issues beyond anyone's control.

Also, I meant to put this in the relationships section. Is there a way for mods to move this thread there lol?

I Feel Stupid for Wanting to Prioritize Platonic Connections I know this isn't a new realization, the adults around me have been telling me this since I was a freshman in high school, but it is harder to make and keep friends when you're an adult and it take a lot more intentionality to maintain such relationships since you're not seeing these people everyday anymore and socializing isn't really baked into the way that your life is structured. That isn't new. What is new is how I feel like there is less of an incentive to maintain friends due to the priorities that society believes we should have. Even if you don't subscribe to it, it's sometimes hard not to fall into the path of least resistance especially if you're getting the vibe that this is happening to your friends. I feel like after you finish school, it's like friendship goes from one of the big things in your day to day life to an afterthought where you have to plan out catch up sessions on your Google calander with your friend like a month or two in advanced. And even then, life happens and then you have to reschedule. You're no longer living life with your friends by your side rather you have to update them on your life to the side. And this is a pretty shitty feeling when you're a person who derives a lot of fufillment from platonic connections rather than romantic ones. The big reason why I'm not neck deep in the lonliness epidemic is because I have a boyfriend and as a result, I talk to another person on a regular basis and I hang out with him like 2x a week. I think it's normalized that after school, much of your time is spent with a spouse or significant other. It's even reflected in the ways that we talk about lonliness in adulthood where whenever you bring up the topic, people automatically assume you're talking about romantic lonliness rather than platonic or familial. I think it's weird that when it comes to dating or a relationship, it's normal and expected to spend time with someone regularly but then when you make the same expectations of a friend to meet up like once a week, suddenly that feels too much. And even though I've never been the type of person whose all like *my man, my man, MY MAN* sometimes if you don't actively pay attention to it and you go along with the path of least resistance societally, your life can become isolated and centered around your partner even if that is not what is true to the way you place your priorities in your life. I feel shitty about being the main person reaching out sometimes. I sometimes try to talk myself out of it because I know that people are busy with work and their family and significant otheretc. and who the fuck do I look like to say they need to prioritize me above their other priorities?! Like if I have a friend who is coming from out of town, I know they are trying to spend time with family or a significant other and I don't want to interfere with that and make it hard for them to squeeze me into their limitted amount of time they have for PTO. Then there are careers. I know a lot of people post grad are on their grind to establish their career and that for the first 2-5 years are crucial in terms of getting your self set up, whether that means going to get your CPA, go to med school, law school, or figure out how to pay for that or work long hours in a consulting / investment banking firm so you can get decent exit opportunities afterwards. And all of this is sooo important in terms of ensuring you have a secure financial future, a way to support yourself and maybe a future family, etc. It is literal survival. And on top of that, especially if someone is in a toxic job that overworks them, I know some people barely have time for themselves much less others. I guess since I'm the friend who comparitively has more work life balance and is the party that is capable of being more flexible, I try to be more understanding towards people since I'm like 90% sure that my friends not reaching out isn't from some malicious place. But it gets old being the main person reaching out and I have encountered things this year that has hampered my usual role as the main person reaching out. When I'm being challenged with things in my personal life and as a result, I'm not on top of reaching out to people, it's like crickets. And that makes me feel some type of way. I also find myself looking around and feeling dumb that I prioritize friendship in this sort of way. Everyone seems to be prioritizing family/ significant others and their career more than friendships and I find myself wondering if I should do that too. Sometimes I wonder if I'm working hard on my career enough since I'm not stressed all the time or working crazy hours and because I have all this free time to pour into my platonic relationships. And since some of my friends don't have the same luxury even if they want to prioritize our friendship, I end up sitting around at my apartment like... As someone who doesn't have a close family support system and as an only child, my friends are like my chosen family. But I get a sense that my friends don't see me in the same level of closeness since they have families that are more stable than mine and they have people they can turn to in times when their social life is kind of dry due to friends being in different phases of their lives, in times when they are planning on having kids, or in time for the holiday. As a result, I think I just end up being the one who cares more in the dynamic, thus resulting in some degree of inequality. So it's like, I know you're supposed to prioritize family, but where does that leave you if you didn't have the luck to be born in a healthy/ functional one? And I'm sure that everything I described will get much worse once people get married and/or have kids. I've already had someone ghost me after she got married which hurt but also I'm worried about her since certain aspects of her relationship seems questionable. I've decided that I'm not going to keep reaching out but since I'm worried about her potentially being in a toxic situation, I'm just gonna keep the door open in case she needs anything. With the kids thing, that's 1000% understandable since kids, especially babies, pretty much take up like 90% of a woman's time since the responsiblity for everything typically falls on her. But it's still hard for both parties, both the mom and the friend, to deal with changes like that. I've been told since I was 15 that making and maintaining friends as you get older just gets harder. As an anxious and awkward 15 year old, that made me nervous and I thought to myself *well, I already kind of suck at making friends, how tf am I supposed to cope as I get older?* I find myself having that exact feeling but even more so since I'm seeing the theory in practice as an adult. Since this is something that gets harder over time, I wonder if it's worth prioritizing at all and if I'm better of prioritizing career and my romantic relationships more since at least the way that our society right now is structured, those seem more stable and reliable to a certain extent as constants in one's life. But one thing that gives me reassurance is that as I get older, I'll figure things out and that I'll have the tools to deal with things like this in the same way I have more things figured out now compared to when I was 15.

How the Passage of Time In Adulthood is Fucking Me Up The best way to describe it is that the days feel long, the weeks and months feel short, but the year feels long. The days feel long because my current job isn't something that interests me a whole lot and I feel like Sisyphous rolling a boulder up a hill. The weeks and months feel short because I do have actual things I need to be doing and when you're productive, time feels like it's going by fast. But also, since I don't have things like spring break, summer vacation, winter/ Christmas break, Thanksgiving break, time kind of feels like a blob because I don't have the breaks to segment parts of my year out and sometimes I feel like I don't have much that I'm counting down towards. I also catch myself feeling kind of angsty since I haven't been taking my PTO and whenever the time comes when I'm supposed to have a break, I have this visceral feeling that I'm not supposed to be working and instead I'm supposed to be hanging out and relaxing. It manifests as a sense of irritability with anti capitalist angst along with feelings of acute burn out. My yearly rhythms of 9-5 life hasn't adjusted in my head. The months and the weeks going by fast also gives me an existential crisis because it's like I blink and the month is over and next thing I know I'm questioning what I've been doing with my life and my time since it all feels like a blur. The year feels really long. I think part of it is the acute burn out due to the lack of breaks. Also, I guess things feel like a blob because when you're in school, there is a linear and segmented process of progression that you get from moving from one grade to another which isn't really a thing in the real world. I know that we're all on our different time table and some people are in seasons where a million things are going on in their lives and there are a lot of changes at once while for others, it kind of feels like a period of stagnation even though they are still growing. I would characterize it as the difference between the flowers in your garden blooming all at once in the spring, harvesting new crops in different weeks in fall, or weathering one storm after another during the winter compared to toiling away in the summer as you tend your fields where even though you know that your crops are growing below the surface and in time they will produce, you're just not seeing any of it now and the days feel long and hot. I suppose mid 2022 to 2023 was my spring. Prior to that I had a rough time in high school and college which I would characterize as the winter. From May 2022 to December 2023, I feel like I was growing a lot, having a lot of new experiences bloom, and I was enjoying the beautiful life and garden I have created for myself. I guess that makes 2024 my summer. It feels long and drawn out. Sure it's hot and unpleasant at times like winter, but it isn't as volatile as the storms during the winter so that's good. Other times, it feels soothing, like cat sleeping in a ray of sun. Nevertheless, it feels foreign to me since I'm super familiar with winter since much of my life felt like that, cold, volatile, and always in survival mode with a million thing happening at once. Sure the monotony and the heat isn't fun, but there is more stability and a sense of warmth in summer. I wouldn't say that I'm someone who is bored of ths stability because I've been subjected to chaos my whole life (I dealt with that a little in 2023 but have since normalized this sense of stability and new base line for my quality of life). I'm just not used to the long days and heat which I guess messes with my sense of time.

Living in the 1999 Life in 2024 Zeigeist: Experiencing the Neoliberal Dream in Late Stage Capitalism I watched Office Space and despite the fact that the movie was made 25 years ago, I found myself relating to it on an individual level in my day to day life (you know.... minus the white collar crime part) but I felt like I didn't relate to the narrative completely since it's from a different cultural context. Lets run down a list shall we....: Boring stable office job that lets me pay my bills: Check Monotony of daily life that gives me a Sisyphean existential crisis: Check Corporate being annoying and seemingly pointless: Check The ability to buy a house in a few years and not be burdened with student loan debt: Check not because of my job but because I grew up economically priviledged A broader sense of stability on a collective level that can justify capitalism: Hell No A sense that this office job is the worst thing in my life: No While I get not being super happy about a boring corporate job, I just couldn't relate to the main character in Office Space being like *everyday is the worst day of my life at this job* sentiment. I think it's because I live in 2024 and some semblence of stability feels comforting, even if it is largely unfulfilling. But I can imagine this driving you nuts if you're a white guy in the 90s where there it monotony all around you and not just at work. I sometimes find people online either romanticizing 90s corporate culture or making fun of the movies in this era. The romanticization comes from the fact that it's rough out here and that a college degree or typical office job won't get you the middle class lifestyle you grew up with in the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Like you know what, maybe a boring office job that pays my bills and lets me get a house in the suburbs would be nice buuuutttt noooo instead we have the gig economy and rent is averaging at $2000 a month and many people have to pick up a side hustle to keep themselves afloat. And I've seen videos of people making fun of the cubicle movies where people are like *Hi, my name is Bob and the worst thing in my life is that I rot in a cubicle and that I have a boring life in the suburbs.* Like damn, first world problems much lol? Things have gone to shit to where 35 years later, we're romanticizing Homer Simpson's life as aspirational even though he was created to be the butt of the joke and someone you don't want to be (like imagine being able to own a house, care for a family of 6 including your aging parent, all under a single income at the power plant factory, must be nice in 2024), Sure the monotony gets to me sometimes and the passage of time where the days feel long but the weeks and months feel short gives me an existential crisis, but honestly, I'm doing much better than a lot of people. Honestly a boring corporate job that doesn't over work you and you can confortably afford your life style is a dream for most people nowadays. I can't stand my job sometimes but I would be a fool to take it for granted and do something stupid and act like a white man in a cubicle movie. I might be living a 1999 life but there's no denying that it's 2024 and the stakes are very different. But while I'm grateful, I'm not naive to think that this is something everyone deserves. Definitely everyone deserves reasonable working hours, a fair wage, and general peace of mind but I'm talking about the monotony, aimlessness, busy work, and pointlessness of office life. I also think it's important to remember this quote from Innuendo Studios. "It was the neoliberal dream come true. The 90s were the best argument that the system works so long as the right people are in charge....The neoliberal dream did come true once and we weren't happy. We were famously disenchanted with it." The answer isn't to put up and shut up, throw up my hands and say that this is the best that things can get. But it feels a different kind of bad to sometimes say this out loud because things are so much worse for other people. And I know it's also not the answer conflate the bad of an office job and terrible of the gig economy and struggling with inflation are the same thing or that bad is preferable to terrible. There is better out there and constantly looking back isn't going to get us anywhere because the past got us to where we are today. Idk, I guess I'm trying to convey that I feel in conflict because my personal experience doesn't match with what I'm seeing collectively. I feel a good amount of dissonance when I'm just trying to do my job that I have the privilege of having despite the world around me going up in the flames of late stage capitalism. I feel like I have to cut myself out from a piece of humanity, the piece that relates to the existential dread of the common man, the piece that empathizes with the tragedies going on and the social movements gaining momentum, for a moment so that I can do my job and pay my bills that I'm fortunate to have mAxIMIze ShaREhOlDer vALue. That's some bullshit! I would say this type of cutting yourself from your own humanity feels different from the 90s version where it's like *bEeP bOP BoOp I am a machine with no personality meant to do everything in the most efficient matter and fall into a mechanical monotony and waste 30 years of my life in a job I hate.* I think this sentiment comes from a lack of individuality and the broader conformity to *the American dream* Rather, the 2024 version of cutting yourself from humanity I feel has more to do with the broader sense of isolation we have felt since COVID and the disappearance of third spaces, the lonliness epidemic, worker exploitation of minimum wage and gig workers, and the notion that we have to keep working and maintain a professional front even when everything is falling apart around us. Rather than a lack of individuality and the expectation of conformity, there is more of an emphasis of lack of community, hyper individualism, and having to cut your empathy off in the fact of your other fellow suffering humans to take care of personal tasks to maintain your survival. While individuality was emphasized as a solution from the 90s monotony and collectivism was in some cases conflated with conformity, the opposite feels true in 2024 where collectivism and community building is seen as the solution and problem is the hyper invidualism of late stage capitalism. As I'm writing this out, I find myself thinking about how my personal experiences fall in line with this book I'm reading about The Four Turnings. It discusses history, particularly American history in a cyclical fashion rather than a linear one. It breaks down a period of time that is as long as a long human life, roughly 80 years, called a scelum. And within these 80 or so years, there are four phases, the High, Awakening, Unravelling, Crisis, which corresponds with the seasons Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Here is a brief summary of that in the video below: Here is another still brief but much more detailed summary that goes into the specific seasons and the generations associated with it: I'm not going to repeat too much of what's in these videos but provide enough to have somewhat of a bridge of what I'm experiencing and the theory. Crisis are times when institutions fall apart and shit goes down. This creates more of a need for teamwork and collectivism to face up to challenges that are larger than ourselves. Eventually, the Crisis phase reaches a resolution which then brings in the High. During the High, new institutions are created (think post- WWII new world order), people are the most collectivistic (1950s suburbia), and things are considerably more chill (the GI generation coming back from war and creating the Boomer generation). People are unified, more equal than in the past, and things feel utopian (America encountered an amazing standard of living at this time). However, while the High is utopian for some, it isn't for many people (contrast the idyllic stereotypical 1950s life to what women, POC, and gay people were experiencing at the time) which then leads to an Awakening. After dealing with a 20 year high period, there are people who start to notice the limitations of it, thus leading to the Awakening where people begin to question the institutions set up during the Crisis that were fortified in the High (Civil Rights Movement, Hippie Counter Culture, Free Love etc.). Because peopel are questioning and realizing things, Awakenings can be quite a chaotic time as people begin moving away from the communities and towards more individual self expression. After the realizations of the Awakenings settle in a little bit and weaken the institutions set up in the past, we go into the Unravelling stage where individualism is increasing and leads to it's zenith in the scelum. Things aren't what they used to be in the High and there is a cynical and apathetic vibe to the time. Eventually, shit continues to get bad until we reach the next crisis phase where it feels like things are falling apart around us and we need to find new ways of doing things. The new institutions that emerge in the end of the crisis mirrors the realizations and conclusions of the Awakening. The Crisis usually starts with an economic catalyst (Panic of 1857, Great Depression in 1929, Great Recession 2008), followed by the Regeneracy where people get ideological and polarized in response to the crisis, and then there are numerous shocks (pandemic, international conflicts, internal political instability) which then leads to the mother of all shocks, the Climax (Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWII). The Climax is usually in the form of a war either internally or with a foreign adversary and it forces people to come together after the polarization. And then the cycle repeats. The image below summarizes the mood and zeitgeist of each of the turnings: I want to focus on the social norms section of this chart. Boomers became adults in the Awakening phase (Individualism Rising) and Gen X came of age in the Unravelling (Individualism Maximum). Millennials are coming of age in the Crisis (Community Rising). It's also important to note that Millennnials in this framwork are defined as kids who were born during the Unravelling phase so like 1984 to 2004. Colloquially, the Pew Research puts the ranges of Millennials as 1980-1995 and Gen Z as 1996 to 2008. So while I colloquially call my self a zoomer in my other posts, according to this framework, I'm a Millennial which is fine because generational year divisions are often arbritrary and require some context for discussion. Basically: High: Collectivism Max / Peace but optimistic : D YAY I can support my family of 4 on a single income and buy a house in the suburbs and everyone seems to be living in little boxes in peace. Thank god the war's over) Awakening: Individualism / Chaos but optimistic >:D YAY rebellion, I'm passionate about my causes, I don't give af, and I want to express myself. FREE LOVE FUCKERS! I'LL NEVER BE SQUARE! Unravelling: Individualism / Peace but pessimistic T-T I still care about individual expression but I'm reacting more negatively towards the bland ideal set in the high. FUCK THIS BORING SHIT! Crisis: Collectivism Rising / Chaos but pessimistic :___(( Mom come pick me up, I'm scared. I just want a sense of peace of mind, some friends, and never hear the word unprecidented again in my life. Another thing that the books on the Four Turnings discusses is how the zeigist of the time isn't necessarily defined by the events during that time period rather it is a cycle of how we interpret events and innovations. The internet and computers for example came up in a time when we were more individualistic and it was seen as a good thing. The Macintosh 1984 ad is a good example of how computers were seen as a way to break from conformity in a very positive sense. But now as individualism is starting to feel stifling, so is the way that the technology is structured and we're trying to find more ways of integrating it with a sense of community. In this Apple ad, they tried to use the same concept of destruction being a segway into innovation as the 1984 ad, but here it comes off as dystopian because while the initial intent is to show *look at all the cool things that are in this singular thin iPad* it comes across as *we're crushing society and collective culture into one individual homogenous thing with no character* In conclusion, I think, in my current life situation, it makes sense that while I have the same kind of monotony and peace that was common in the zeigeist of the 90s but I'm interpreting it differently because I'm experiencing this monotony and peace during a Crisis era instead of the Unravelling era.

Feeling 17 I have talked in past posts about how I didn't quite feel like an adult despite being an adult in tangible ways and how I instead felt like a 20 something teenage girl. I feel like 24 so far has been me solidifying the view of myself as a capable adult. It started with me thinking about how 24 felt like a big age just before my birthday but also how I had faith that I'll grow into growing up. I also think just me having to live on my own and pay my own bills contributed to a greater sense of autonomy and self efficacy. Next month I will be coming up on 1 year of me living by myself. I remember having many moments in the past from the ages of 20-23 where I still felt like I was 17. I remembered stopping and thinking that in various occations and I came to the conclusion that the feeling I was describing as "feeling 17" was this notion of me encountering new adult situations that I do have the tools to tackle but I don't have the life experience to navigate. Because when you're 17, you aren't a child any more and you can think critically and are navigating more complex topics, emotions, and situations, but at the same time you aren't old enough to fully navigate these situations effectively since you don't have history and hindsight to help you out. I talked about this with my dad as well and he told me that even well into his adulthood in his 40s, 50s, and even 60s, there were moments where he felt 17. Some of these moments include when I was born and was growing up, when my grandmother (his mother) passed away, and even planning for his retirement. He was encountering something new that he had the tools to handle, but it was still a challenge to navigate due to his lack of life experience right at that time. Basically, I had a lot of moments where I thought to myself on how I felt 17 but I knew damn well that I'm not actually 17 when I'm faced with a conversation with at 17 year old. However, now, at 24, I feel like I don't have the same "feeling like I'm 17" experience. I feel like I have grown into growing up in a lot of ways. I think I have done the inner work to realize that adulthood in my generation, doesn't really look like the adulthood of my parents' generation. And instead of seeing this idealized image of an adultier- adulthood way back when a 24 year old could afford a wedding, a family of 4, and a house quite easily and thinking that I'm so far behind, causing me to fall into a spiral of self infantilization, I feel secure in my adulthood even if I might not have all of the material signifiers of western adulthood. I think the video below is a good description of how I feel: Instead, I sometimes find myself wanting to feel 17 again. I guess part of it is the monotony of settling into any stage of life rather than the constant state of evolution you find in your formative years (roughly 15 to 25) as I find myself closer to the end of that range. I think another part of it is linked to the mild depression I had earlier this year about my career path which led me to unpacking a lot of self deprecation I experienced in the back of my mind due to the chip on my shoulder from my college experience. When I was 17, I felt like I could do anything. I can see how part of it is naive but the optimism for my future was nice. I was a straight A student with a charismatic personality who thought about things deeply and was really into self development. I remember feeling like I had all of the tools to do big things. I was an academic weapon who felt like I could get my foot in the door of most universities without really trying. I had an engaging enough personality, depth, and self awareness to where I felt like I could utilize my smarts in a unique and clever way that would propell me into success. And I was into self development in a way that made me feel like I was ahead of my peers in terms of healing trauma and avoiding common pitfalls. Looking back, I do thank my teenage self for providing the foundation for the person I am today. But I think the naiveity comes from how small my world was back then. I feel like I was smart and interesting relative to 110 of my peers in a small town in the suburbs of Dallas. Like I really was out here thinking that I had what it takes to go to a prestigious university, get into medical school or get into law school or become a high power career person in consulting or finance (or similarly glamorous career), travel the world, buy a house in my 20s, have a string of multiple romantic relationships and get married before 30, go viral on social media and create a following in something I found meaningful and well... do something impressive with my life. I didn't know what that impressive thing was nor did I know whether or not I wanted the stuff that I listed out before. The naiveity came from me projecting my successes as a teenager onto what I thought adulthood was going to be like despite the fact that I didn't know how the adult world was going to consist of since at 17, I didn't have experience with the adult world. I sure as hell didn't know what adulthood was going to look like post pandemic and the chaos of the world I would have to navigate. I had a series of events that caused this view of myself as this person who was capable of anything challenged. The first was the colleges I didn't get accepted to. The second was me academically struggling during my 1st year due to my mental health. And the third was the pandemic and it's affects. Basically, starting from the college acceptances all the way to graduation, I was humbled, and not in a good way. I remember starting the application process with a sense of wonder of where I would end up and what I could become. By the time college graduation and the time to apply for jobs came around, that sense of wonder was replaced with fear and economic anxiety. That person who thought she could do anything back in September 2017 when she was touring colleges was replaced with a person who felt like she's not going to amount to much in this lifetime in December 2022. While I do feel like I have recovered from this to a certain extent, I still miss that naive sense of confidence and innocent self importance. I think I am doing better now that I have recovered from my mild depression/ existential crisis and that I have a taste of what corporate life is actually like (and realizing that I'm more capable than I originally thought fresh out of graduation). But I still feel like I can't quite replicate that naive sense of confidence and innocent self importance. I think in a way, I feel like I'm too aware of my short comings due to my past while also being too aware of all of the talent and privilege that is actually out there in the world due to me getting exposed to the world outside of my small town. I feel like I can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, which makes me desire this aspect of feeling 17 even more. On top of the naive sense of confidence on the individual level, I think part of me also mourns what I thought adult life was going to look like at 17. My views of adulthood consisted of the pre-pandemic world and influenced by the feeling of the Obama administration (also, inflation who?). Trump and the craziness of 2016 felt like an anomaly back then as my teachers would urge us to pay attention to the news because this will be history, not the norm that it has solidified to in 2024 where we roll our eyes whenever we hear the word "unprecendented." Also at 17, I was not aware on how capitalism was fucking everything up and I still had girl boss day dreams. While I never got emersed in rom coms, I do feel like shades of my view of adulthood was influenced by the media in the 2000s. This video summarize things well: The sections I want to emphasize for this post are the following: 12:10-15:22 An Economically Chaotic Match 18:14-27:01 The Romcom's Relationship With Money 31:30- 36:05 Your Job: The One True Love Of Capitalism 46:48- 50:48 Congratulations, Life Ends At 30! While the video "Millennial Women May Never Recover From The Rom Com" and the video I linked before it. "Why Slow-Adulting is a Good Thing" mainly focuses on well... the Millennial generation, I feel like as part of the older part of Gen Z I still relate to it. While Millennials had the 2008 recession disrupting their expectations adulthood and the timeline of various adult milestones, for Gen Z, it was the pandemic. I don't know what will be said about my generation in 10-15 years and I'm sure I'll relate to that more since it would be more directly pointed to my experience. But until then, this is what I'm working with in terms of relatability. I think the main difference is that the expectation of adulthood vs the reality was more of a rude awakening for Millennials since they remember the 90s and how stable and prosperous it was. So as a result, the whole notion that your generation isn't going to have the same standard of living as their parents and that this is the first American generation in a while where this is the case, is pretty jarring because of all the false promises that were made to Millennials. I think for Gen Z on the other hand, where most of us don't remember a pre 9/11 world and where adults arguing about the economy and health care circa 2011 was the back drop of our childhood, we didn't have a rude awakening rather we didn't have the chance to sleep. I do remember as a teenager occationally watching some of these rom coms in question and thinking they were wildly out step from reality in 2016 even though back when they were made they were closerto (but still aspirational) the realities of a 20 something in the 90s. I think for me, I didn't have the lie that said *get any college degree from anywhere and you'll be set for life* but I did get the lie of *you need to work your tail off to get into an amazing school and get a practical degree that is practical enough to where you can get a job but not so much so that you're only doing it for the money and you'll be set.* In other words, there was this notion that the older generation was pointing to our older millennial siblings and saying *you'll be fine so long as you don't buy avocado toast and you get a degree in something other than music from a good insitution.* Instead of acknowledging the systemic factors of why Millennials were struggling, we were told to simply make different decisions on an individual level. However, I see how using individual decisions to systemic issues that are larger than ourselves doesn't adequetly address the issues around us. We can't all be software engineers (hello, tech lay offs). I see the individualistic way of addressing the pitfalls the Millennials ended up in fall apart in this post pandemic world, where even some of my friends who got more pratical degree struggled to get a job in some situations because they were applying to hundreds of jobs on LinkedIn and many of them were probably phantom job posts. Sure, there are times where I sit and think about how I should have done more with my life, but rather than feeling like a blob of wasted potential, I can realize that I have done everything in my power and that even though I'm not living my dreams, I'm still living a decent life considering the chaos around me. I'm doing what I can and what I can is enough but I know that there is only so much that can be done in the face of systemic issues and chaotic / unpredictable events. As a result, while I think what older Gen Z is getting a more intense version of what Millennials have gone through in terms of generational wealth hoarding and late stage capitalism, I think in some ways it feels less surprising and jarring because there was always some form of chaos in the background growing up and this notion that you have to work your tail off which tampered expectation to a certain extent while shades of those expectations still remain. To tie this in with how it relates to feeling 17 (in 2017), I think feeling 17 and the naive confidence that comes with it also corresponds with the lie that your individual choices will prevail even systemic hurdles and unpredicatble life circumstances. And a lot of it is because 17 year old me wasn't aware of the full extent of systemic economic issues her generation would encounter and lord knows that she couldn't have predicted something like a pandemic hitting her and transforming the world. 17 year old me would be shocked to hear this because at the time she thought things were as crazy as it can get, but 2017 really feels like a simplier time considering the shit show that is happening now.

Therapy Notes 1: Gambling I started talking about this topic in therapy after a long awaited amount of time. For this session, we mainly focussed on the difficulties of parenthood and why I'm against having a kid. In our next session, we'll delve more deeply into why I'm for having a kid but that is something that is yet to be seen. I addressed many of my concerns in this therapy session. These included my fears around pregnancy, labor, postpartum, and how delicate raising a baby is and how on top of that is physically exhausting. We also talked about changing relationship dynamics, the chance I marry a guy who wouldn't help out at home much, the isolation around motherhood and the struggles many women have with losing their identity because they no longer have time to take care of themselves or engage in hobbies and while many women love their children, they don't enjoy motherhood. And finally, we talked about the chaos of the world around us, climate change, school shootings, and affording a good quality of life and education for the kid. A lot of it came down to the notion of *will I be able to handle X if I have a kid?* Will I be able to handle an event where my child is severely disable? Will I be to handle an event where the father doesn't contribute much to the household? Will I be able to handle the stressors of being a mother and being on 24/7? Will I be able to handle the health issues that comes with pregancy and giving birth? Will I be able to handle postpartum? And while it's good to have these scenarios as a possibility so that you don't look at becoming a mother in rose toned glasses, you're aware of the red flags that are present in potential partners, and you are mentally prepared of the various ways parenthood can test you, I don't think it's entirely healthy to focus on the negative aspects. You can be aware of them, but you don't need to be lazer focused on them. I feel like for me personally, I should probably step back from social media just a smidge when it comes to these types of content because while it's good to have some anecdotal evidence, just because something happened to someone, doesn't mean you will have the exact same experience. And I don't think it's entirely healthy to anxiously come up with future possibilities, scenarios, and how to react to them over being able to be present and tap into how you feel about a situation now. We'll cross the bridge when we get there. Speaking of crossing bridges when we get there, I think a lot of these doubts also has to do with doubt I have in my own ability to respond. Sure, I'm not ready now. But I have still a good 8+ years left to grow into the person who is able to deal with these types of situations and have the emotional regulation skills to take care of myself and respond to my parenting responsibilities accordingly. Then there are my anxieties around choosing the right partner. I understand that having a kid can change the dynamic of the relationship and that there are guys who say they really REALLY REALLY want to have a kid and that they'll step up and take responsibility but once the kid gets here, you're pretty much on your own. It's similar to how kids talk about wanting a pet and how they swear they'll take responsibility for it but then the parent gets stuck having to clean up after the pet, taking them on walks etc. And while there is a risk that your partner can switch up on you, I think there are some warning signs that you can clock early on to avoid getting into this situation. Some of it involves how much he pitches in on domestic chores and how regularly, to what extent he can grasp the responsibility around having a kid, his attitude around household labor, the way he has interpreted his family dynamics and dynamics of the families in his community, his reasoning why he wants a kid, and his over all competency around being a good partner such as being able to communicate, take accountibility, be gentle etc. And I guess since I do have a track record of having good relationships whether it be platonic or romantic, I do have faith in myself to be able to choose well. Then again, I'm so cocky to think that just because I'm generally well thought out and fortunate in this aspect that shit can't happen to me and I wouldn't ever be dealt a bad hand. But I do think that having a really good partner (and a village to a certain extent) is essential to navigating parenthood and having a more equitable division of labor and involvement in raising the kid. Speaking of the village, that's another thing that worries me. It's a chaotic world out there. And while I don't think it's wise to bubble wrap the kid and sheild them from what's happening, I do want my kid to grow up in a good environment. I understand that there is only so much I can control on my end in raising a child well and that there are tons of unknown variables in school, broader society, entertainment, etc. I know there is a chance that my kid can fall on the wrong path and really fuck up their life and not have it be my fault. You can do everything right and still have your kid turn into an ass because they are their own person. I will also say, I do think it's a good sign that I'm putting this much thought and work into seeing if this is a good choice for me. I remember being like this prior to getting into a relationship. While I was a little spiky and on guard when dating, it did save me from a lot of questionable situations and it did ultimately lead to me choosing well and being considerably more chill about it. And I can see the same detail oriented tendency come in when it comes to deciding to be a parent and with who as well. I do think I need to trust myself more lol. I have build a good life for myself. I'm healthy and self aware. I have dealt with difficult things before. And I have good people around me becuase I choose/ attract good people and I'm good at maintaining healthy relationships. That all points to something, right ?! I guess after writing all of this out, motherhood feels like a gamble. Will I have the resources and capability to handle what is being thrown at me and / or will I grow into being that person? Will I have a good spouse and support system to help me raise the kid? What about the circumstances outside my control that can greatly impact the outcome of how my child grows into a person? There is a chance that all of this can turn out well but there are also plenty of pitfalls along the way as well. I guess for me, it comes down to the degree of uncertainty I can tolerate to take a risk like this as well as how strong my desire to have a kid as well. I know in this session I focused on the negatives but I do plan on exploring the other side of this more in a future session so I'm sure more entries are to come. Over all, I feel more balanced after talking about this with a therapist. I do think it was wise to step away from family and childfree related content on the internet so that the horror stories don't mess with my head and cloud my judgement too much. I felt like I was catastrophizing less and that I could point to parts of my life that indicated that I had the competence to be a parent in the future.

Material Things that Greatly Helped My Inner Work I know external solutions for internal problems aren't always helpful since they can be a way of bypassing a thing you're dealing with mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and that it can be the type of solution that just deals with the symptoms rather than the sickness. However, just because they aren't always helpful, doesn't mean that they are never helpful. Sometimes, I think it's just what is needed in a situation and that mentally processing it, emotionally working through difficult emotions, and spiritually trying to evolve and integrate only does so much. Sometimes, to silence the mental voice so that you can focus on other areas of life instead of having to keep something under wraps, you need the external solution. Here are some of those instances I saw manifest in my life. Getting contacts after wearing glasses growing up: I was always a little self conscious of what I looked like in glasses. Even though I eventually learned to love myself, I found myself constantly body checking my face because I felt like I didn't know what I looked like without glasses and I had a feeling that I probably looked better without them. The reason why I didn't completely know what I looked like was because as soon as I took off my glasses, everything was a blur. Sure, I could also refer to pictures where I didn't have my glasses but the images always felt separate from me. Since I already did the work of accepting myself both with and without glasses, I would say that getting the contacts helped me stop the constant body checking and it didn't feel like I was covering up any insecurities. Having a job that pays well and doesn't stress me out too much: I feel like I have a lot of mental space and room to just breathe since I have this sense of stability. While I do think my job does give me a good amount of peace of mind, I still think that I would be still pretty mentally stable without it granted that I have a plan and money to hold me down until then. I say this to say that the things that were mentally messing with me, especially in a trauma and mental health sense, were things I was already actively working on well before this job through therapy, introspection and journalling, and self help. I already built a good foundation for peace of mind prior so again, my job isn't a bandaid solution, but sure does it help in the peace of mind category. I'm so fortunate to not deal with the constant stressor of trying to pay rent on time or budgetting to the cent. Don't get me wrong, budgetting and learning to manage your money is important but it's worth not having that fire on your ass all the time. Getting a boyfriend: I was working on myself and my relationships well before meeting my partner. And yes, you should work on yourself, learn to love yourself, and find happiness in yourself before even thinking of enterring a relationship with another person. But then there comes a point where you need the life experience of a healthy bond over the theory in order to continue healing and growing. Even though I wasn't in a perfect place in regards to self love and personal fulfillment prior to meeting my partner, I was in a good enough position to have a solid foundation for my life and sense of identity, the skills necessary to make a relationship healthy and functioning, and the foresight to know the common red flags. But also, materially knowing the green flags has been super helpful and I feel like I could have known this mainly from being in a healthy relationship where I feel self regulated. I also feel like my femcel monologue of wondering if I'll ever be enough for a relationship even though logically I know better and my constant touch starved thoughts have long since passed and I feel like I can focus and function lol. Moving out of my parent's house: Again, I have been doing the inner work of addressing my childhood trauma and processing the dysfunctional dynamics in my family but nothing has helped quite like just being independent from them and having my own place. Do I think just moving out alone would have helped me? No. If I moved out without ever having to go to therapy, I think it would've been more like me running away from my problems and trying to run away from my dysfunctional tendencies not knowing it would still follow me because I can't run away from myself. I honeslty wouldn't be much different from my parents. But I feel like since I did therapy and I did do the inner work, the external solution was able to do it's thing and help me maintain the inner work that I worked so hard to do. Going to the dermatologist + prescription skincare: I had a lot of skin issues growing up and I tried everything under the sun to help with my skin discolortion and acne. Eventually, I learned to accept myself, build confidence in a variety of ways, and I know that I'm still beautiful, lovable, worthy, all that jazz. It wasn't something that I felt like I always had to hide nor did I get depressed about the way I looked. But it still bothered me and took up a lot of mental space in the form of skincare / self care. Once I got better health insurance from my job, I went to the dermatologist, they gave me 2 things that worked well for my specific skin condition, and honestly after that I felt like I finally started seeing results and the mental chatter around skincare calmed all the way down. I didn't feel as suceptable to the consummerism and marketing around skincare and the annoyance around my skin in the back of my mind disappeared. It feels nice to be able to focus on other things. Having *that* conversation with my dad: *That* conversation refers to how I discussed how I actually felt about my family, cutting myself off from people, and what to do going forward especially in the event that my father passes away before my other family members do and I'm essentially stuck with them. I have worked on myself in therapy and contemplated this topic for YEARS. And while I did do a lot of work and healing, nothing gave me closure and financial peace of mind quite like that conversation. I'm glad I did this when I did and not do it prematurely because I feel like I had to do all of this work in order to reach a point where this external solution gave me this much peace of mind and ensured that I wasn't doing this to run away from my family situation. ***Stomach Liposuction: I haven't done this yet but I do think that it's an external solution in the same way the stuff above is in that it can help a lot with my mental chatter and neurosis because I have a good foundation of inner work to back it up. Besides my stomach, I am pretty content with my body and I can practice both body positivity and neutrality. I have a healthy relationship to both food and exercise for the most part and my weight has never had any crazy fluctuations. I have been going to therapy for my body image issues and I feel like I have mentally and emotionally analyzed it to death. I have also worked through most of my internalized fatphobia, educated myself on various issues, and addressed a lot of my internalized diet culture. But I feel like I keep hitting this wall with my stomach in the same way I felt like I was hitting a wall with my body checking prior to getting contacts, a wall with my self love around being single, a wall with my mental health while living with my parents' house, a wall with my skin issues, and a wall with my family relations prior to implementing the respective external solutions to put an end to my internal problems once and for all. I still have some hang ups regarding this because of how invasive it is, how I'm waiting for my frontal lobe to finish forming, and the cost. But I do genuinely think that I have put a lot of thought into this and that I'm not using this as a band aid to fix all of my problems. I just feel like this will give me a lot of peace of mind and calm down the last bit of persistent mental chatter.

Travel around for a little bit (like a couple years or so) Buy a house and/or apartment in a walkable city potentially raise a kid if I decide to do so after getting married pursue higher education get a better career help friends and family who have to deal with things like student debt / issues with the housing market go to workout classes regularly (I don't rely only on workout classes for exercise but there are a few workout classes I have taken for free that I enjoy but they're like $30-$40 per class. I currently do them at most once a week with a discount I get from an app so it's more like $10-$15 instead. I'm just assuming this is a scenario where I would magically win a few million in the lottery rather than landing a job that gives me a hefty paycheck.