Right now, you may be at the cusp of something that feels thrilling or you are still hoping for your moment to be “at that cusp.”
I can feel your burden. I’ve worked 10 years of my life pushing on the possibility that it would be my turn on the spotlight–creating a massive breakthrough that will make the news.
I think we are in this tug for a certain possibility that it could be the us we were hoping to be when we were younger: that CEO; someone who found the cure for cancer; or be in the news, acting all confident and successful with good English.
I’d like to tell you, fellow 30+-year-old, that what you’re feeling is all fine and normal for a human being.
You are in a constant motion of obsession for something that is still vague as the concept of adult love, built by expectations by your family, your society… and yourself.
In the age of Hustle and Overnight Success, you find yourself walking in an empowerment seminar feeling like a teenager again, still back to square one, still feeling a little confused, still feeling a little lost.
And this is my take for this: don’t stop fighting for your spot in the world. Hopefully not for ego but for a life that would matter.
In a world where most have succumbed to the comforting feeling of mediocrity because their moms always shared to them that job security is all there is, I hope you go outside the cycles and patterns of fleeting love-forms and addictions to find what your life really is.
Maybe what I’m trying to say is, never stop fighting.
Say yes to yourself again after you’ve failed 5 startups. Say yes to yourself again even if you’ve slipped into a wild romance that left you in the ash of angst and lack of self-worth. Say yes to yourself again even if people lost all their trust in you because you were determined but nothing seemed to breakthrough.
Say yes to yourself again because there’s nothing else worthier than believing that in this one life, you are entitled for something bigger than you.
May your worth be measured by your dedication to your chosen vocation and career, for that is worthier than having given up to a daily life of to-do lists trying to act as if you’re “living.”
It’s been helpful for me to see between the truth and the fake. The fake is comfort of daily lattes and too much of Netflix viewing without a real plan for the week.
The truth? It’s a forever test of your endurance. But it’s where you get to meet who you could be. It’s a life of balancing the vocation you love with late night meet-ups with friends so you can have a “life.”
By all means, choose the latter. The latter will of course be rewarding because it’s what will keep your soul singing.
So here, my friends, are some takeaways you can build on with the hopes that this will spark a fire in you.
- Don’t shape yourself to what you “ought to be,” but find out who you already are and become it.
- Don’t work for applause and adoration by others because you’ll crave it. It disappears as easily as a pint of ice cream. Just be so good that people can’t ignore you.
- Choose a life of risk than comfort. You’ll be eating feedback for breakfast, dining with isolation, rejection, self-doubt, and humiliation most of the days. And that’s okay. If you have a worthy cause, isolations are pre-requisites.
- Don’t chase success. Chase growth. I know by the laws of nature that someone who’s grown well will always, always be found. You’ll be valuable and valuable things will always find its place in the world.
- And have a relationship with Him. He’ll bring you the purpose you seek for, the peace you seek for.
So be valuable, be gold. Your kind of gold.
I wish you well.
A Fellow 30-Year-Old Who’s Still Figuring It Out,
Ralph
Ralph Layco is a 30 year old, award-winning marketer and entrepreneur. He co-founded Macho Mucho, HairFood Co., and lately, an ambitious project titled New Bold University, his attempt to reimagine education. He loves drinking coffee and likes to travel in his free time.
