Life In My Twenties: Two Dilemmas I Have Faced So Far.

Hi guys!

Back again with another post in the Life In My Twenties series! I hope you are all enjoying it so far?

Our guest today writes about two dilemma’s he has faced so far and has come to realise the importance of contentment and being patient with yourself!

I’d love to hear what your twenties have been teaching you, please share and leave a comment!

Happy reading!

Two DILEMMAS I HAVE FACED SO FAR IN MY 20’s.

Hey Ari, I hope you’re well, 

It’s certainly been an interesting few weeks since you asked me to be one of the contributors to this blog series about what it’s been like navigating my 20’s so far.

I was unusually excited, after all, we’ve had so many meaningful conversations about life over the years and spoken about how we’d like to share our experiences with a wider audience.

However, as time passed I found myself paralysed by the idea of sharing my experiences; and by my fear of being judged – what if I can’t get my message across clearly? What if I’m misunderstood? What if no one cares?

Anyway, that being said, I have decided to go for it and put my fears aside. I believe that there is always something someone can learn from another person’s experience. And that is exactly what this is, my personal reflections on my experiences so far.

-o-

The Dilemma’s

“Ari… you know I have a restless imagination at times and I can be a bit of a perfectionist.”

Thinking about where to start on a topic such as navigating your 20s. I was instinctively compelled to write about certain dilemmas I have faced so far. This is because the situations and patterns I have encountered have often provided me with an avenue for profound shifts in perspectives.

With that in mind, I would like to discuss the tension I have often faced fully appreciating my success and striving for continuous improvement.

Up until the beginning of quarantine, it had been virtually impossible for these two opposing approaches to life to coexist in my head.

On one hand, my desire to better myself has been a huge contributor to my achievements. However, it has contributed equally to destroying my motivation and eroding the joy and satisfaction from those successes.

You see, the continuous improvement side of myself would often spend so much time analysing how things could or should have been done better or differently so that the next time round I would ultimately achieve more, and in my head, maybe then I’d be satisfied. 

That continuous improvement side of myself would often rhetorically ask the other side of myself: “But I mean Fola, can you really blame me?” And would then proceed to give the very compelling (in the world of my mind) argument that:

“We both know the allure and promises of ‘progress’, ‘growth’, and ‘the next thing’, are very enticing… And besides, we have constantly been reminded, and also both agree, might I add, that there is always room for improvement, to never rest on our laurels and most definitely never to be complacent.”

Sometimes, this argument would spur me on to do more which I guess had its benefits, but at other times, the other side of myself would simply shutdown.

This shutdown was because that part of myself had found, through its practical experiences that manner of living was simply tiring, draining, unrewarding and hugely dissatisfying, irrespective of how much it had made me achieve. So much so that then achieving more had no correlation with satisfaction… You know, that feeling you get when you realise that what you were so sure you wanted didn’t turn out to give you the satisfaction you’d imagined.

Realisation

Now that hopefully you now see my Dilemma, I realised that it was as a result of my misconception of what I thought contentment meant.

I thought that to be content meant to settle, and because I refuse to settle (I still do refuse). I was always searching for something out there, dwelling on the past, fixating on the future.

Never really appreciating the moment (or the present success) for what it was. 

A new understanding of contentment has taught all sides of me that there is a time for everything. It has taught me to know that, sure things could have been done better or differently; and that there is still so much more to be achieved. But for now, in this moment, to consider all those facts and still chose to accept where I am at. 

Contentment taught me to be present. To fully appreciate my current successes and also at the same time strive for more. 

The Real Dilemma

Those are the things I would have liked to say about one of the dilemmas of navigating life in my 20s so far, but really in writing this my true dilemma has been that: 

Ari… you know I have a restless imagination at times and I can be a bit of a perfectionist.

Ari… You know I have a restless imagination at times and I can be a bit of a perfectionist I am scared of failure.

Ari… You know I have a restless imagination at times and I can be a bit of a perfectionist i’m scared of failure I am scared of my success.

And I know that although I have found it easy to express myself to you, I know that I will not be able to express  myself to your readers… so I thought why should I bother.

The end.