Why Rush? — MelinaMou

“Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.” - Michelle Obama (From her book ‘Becoming’)

My childhood, like many others, was defined by the existence of a finite structure - ‘get good grades so I can go to a good college and get a good job’. Period. The End.

This structure was comforting to me, I excelled within it, and by the ripe old age of twenty one I had achieved the so-called ‘good job’.

I was pretty satisfied with myself that first year with my grown up job. But I started to feel adrift pretty quickly. I was only twenty one and I had already achieved everything my childhood had set me up to expect from life. What was I supposed to do next?

Do I change jobs every few years? Should I go back to school? Am I supposed to get married and have kids now? What the hell do I do with all this TIME? Am I really supposed to keep doing this for the next sixty years?

It had never before occurred to me that I wasn’t aiming for some finite state of being. Some eventual point where I would be able to consider myself ‘done’. My childhood was so comforting in the sense that I always knew what the next steps were. The next grade level, university, and employment. Beyond that was a giant black void that I had no hope of preparing for.

Even now, I still feel pressure to aim for ‘forever’ type goals - buying a home, the dream job, marriage, etc. Part of this is definitely due to societal pressure. These are things that are valued by society and are things I’m already seeing others in my social circle prioritize and accomplish.

I already know that things occur on a different timeline for everyone, but my problem is that I keep trying to rush mine. I keep wanting to find my ideal situation right now. I want to discover work I’ll be passionate about forever, people I’ll love forever, and places I’ll never want to leave.

But let’s say I do achieve all that. Let’s say it even takes me five more years to get all those things. I’ll be thirty one and I’ll still have decades of life stretched out in front of me. And what’s more? I don’t actually want a finite state of being.

Yes, I want to find ideal situations for myself, but I believe my ideals will be dynamic throughout my life. My priorities and wishes will change over time, which means there is no finite state of being for me to aim for. I can only aim for the ideal situations available to me in the moment and keep building on them as I grow and learn. Even if I find work I adore, make an absurd amount of money, have control over my time, fall madly in love, and achieve everything I could imagine in this moment - there will always be something new for me to discover, to learn about, or to develop into.

And even though achieving my ideals is satisfying, whenever something ends, it just means something else is starting. Death is the only thing that stops this cycle. In the meantime, it is just achieving one objective after another, making one choice after another.

With that in mind, the question I must pose to myself is - why rush? Making progress on a work project is just as satisfying as finishing one, sometimes more so! The process of falling in love is just as amazing as being in love. Hell, even furnishing my apartment is more fun than just enjoying the final product. I will continue to change no matter what I achieve. My goals will continue to change no matter how incredible my life ends up. So why should I rush into these lasting goals when the process to get there will probably be so much more enlightening than arriving?