* / 𝑑𝑢𝑠𝑘𝑦 𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠

Happy birthday! Firstly, the objective reality is 24 is incredibly young. We’ve been legal adults for 6 whole years, and for 2 of them we were teenagers. We are in the freshly post grad age (and for people like me we didn’t really graduate at all because I’m now in grad school lol). I’m secure because I know, objectively, that I’m still young and it’s completely natural to be learning how to live at my age.

But, and a lot more importantly, I feel like I’ve realized everyone’s going to be hard on you. Society, your parents, your boss, your professors, the internet lol, whoever at all. People will tell you who you are and who you should be all the time. For a while that literally cannibalized me alive — I feverishly sought approval, and basically had anxiety attacks every time I feel like I displeased anyone, for reasons both selfish and selfless — but then I realized that literally no one’s perfect and that, so long as I’m trying, staying humble, being open to other people’s takes, owning up to my mistakes, I could also be resolute in my values, confident in my choices, and forgiving of my shortcomings. Humility tempered with self respect will always be the antidote to insecurity about aging.

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