Quarter Life Crisis.

I was chilling last Sunday, watching the soccer and was struck by a very sobering fact: Almost all the best players in the world are younger than me.

 I always thought, “When I grow up, I’m gonna… (blah blah blah)”

Without realizing it, that mythical ‘when’ that I spoke of, is right NOW.

*insert the roar of a ton of bricks crashing down*.

 My former classmates are getting married. People my age are having legitimate children. I have debit orders and car payments. I’m sorting out my credit history and looking into home loans.

I mean, I wake up, I go to work on time, take care of my responsibilities, come home, prepare dinner, usually get out my books and do some studying, then go to bed. Is that it? Is this all there is to be grown up? Those are the things grown-ups do. It doesn't get more benign and adult than that. No matter what I do on the weekends to remedy this mind-numbing routine, I'll still feel like my college self except with the sum of my experiences and life lessons keeping me from dying up until now.

 I don’t know how or when this happened but I’m actually a full-blown adult. Being ushered into my 20’s was a welcomed milestone. Nothing bad could come of it, I’d get a job, get a shiny car and not have to write exams ever again (little did I know). It felt as if I’d lived, being 21, for about 4 years and all seemed well and good. Then I got a job, salary slips, a shiny car and started studying again. I realized that I had a few of the best years of my life behind me. I won’t lie, it took a while to get over that fact. Ageing and maturing is one thing that you can’t fight. You don’t have a DeLorean that will reach 88 miles per an hour and you aren’t Michael J. Fox

Despite all these things, despite being officially closer to 30 than 20, I don't know if I feel very "grown-up".

The more I think about where I am in life and how I do things, makes me realise that adulthood is more of a concept than a reality. My parents had me at 25 and I certainly don't think I'm capable of taking care of another human entity at my age. I recently bought a bonsai, it died after a month. Maybe I never talked to it enough.

My teens and early 20’s were well spent. If you weren’t at least a little reluctant to move into your slaving 25’s then you’ve done something wrong in those experimental years. We went out all day, every day and all night, every night. We celebrated the New Year’s sunrise on open beaches, spent weekends away with not a single responsibility due on a Monday morning.

Could I do that now? Definitely, but not with the same reckless abandon. I’d lose my job, I’d be broke, have to sell my car and lose all possibility of owning a few homes.

We tend to have this perception of our parents as people who know everything, who are mature, responsible adults who always do the right thing. It’s a fallacy.

Growing up, little did we realise that our parents were just winging it too. There is no age that you reach where you all of a sudden know everything. We're all just human beings, synthesizing knowledge and learning from our experiences.

No one ever has it all figured out. We learn as we go and once we have kids, let’s hope they don't figure out that that's what’s going on!

I don’t know about you but I intend to age like a fine wine. I was a stupid kid and learnt from my many mistakes. Now I’m less stupid and make fewer mistakes. I think by the time I’m 35 I’ll be pretty smart! I’m determined not to let my best days get behind me. With hard work and sound planning I’m setting up a profitable future. Today I’m better at everything than I was 5 years ago. In five more years I’ll only be more accomplished. Quarter life crisis averted.

I like what I see in my rear view mirror, but I’m also pretty eager about where my car’s headed.