Turning 28

Talking about quarter life crisis in the late 20s, spoiler alert, it ends on a positive note.

Hello hello, pehle to maafi for this long break, but again, I started this newsletter thinking it should be one place where I won’t have to pressure to churn out “content” but to only write when I feel like, so here I am, 2 weeks after my birthday (Itt was on 5th July and you can still send gifts, hehe).

But also, NOT hehe, because when you turn 28, you don’t know how to feel about birthdays. My teenage self would call me “uncle”, my dad at my age was a father of a 4 year old kid (me) and like most ambitious people in their 20s, I feel like I haven’t achieved much. But when you think about it, tum sab ke baap ne bhi late 20s mein zyada kuch nahi ukhaada tha (no offense) (offend karne ke baad no offense boldiya).

But I mean it in the nicest way, we think late 20s is the time when we need to have it all ‘sorted’. But do you think you feel your parents were ‘sorted’ just because they were married or were they actually sorted? I think there’s an invisible stopwatch that goes till you turn 30 and the ticking isn’t less threatening than a time bomb. But SURPRISE SURPRISE, no bomb is going to explode.

I’ve heard it from the people in 30s of our generation that once you reach there, you become much more relaxed, the idea of ‘success’ changes, you become less pretentious and are too direct about what you want and what you don’t.

The idea of success has been different for people in different stages of their lives. I think it all started from school when the first 3 kids to score the highest marks were considered successful (at least in my brain). So for most people I know, it was like this at that point of time:

Age bracket. | The idea of “success” at that point

5-15 | Scoring high marks in the school

15-20 | Getting into a nice college

20-25 | Earning money

25-30 | ‘Sorting out of life’

NOW that I look back, in the age of 5-15, success would be just being able to have fun in school without getting bullied while learning new stuff.

For 15-20, it would be getting good at a skill enough for me to earn money with it and doing things that I wasn’t allowed to do in school.

For 20-25, I would consider success when I would be able to spend on things that felt like luxury in my teenage (going for a movie whenever I want to, eating raw Bourn Vita without anyone stopping me).

And now that I am currently in 25-30, it’s hard to think of what I’ll think success is in future, but it’s definitely not sorting out my life, going by the patterns.

But one thing common with all age brackets, success has to do something with having fun while you live life. “Having fun” is very vague. Everyone has a different definition of “having fun”.

But I think, being able to have fun without feeling guilty for having fun, is truly SUCCESS.

P.S. Remember to eat raw Bourn Vita, don’t let anyone stop you.