The sacrifice of now

For the last little while I have been debating back and forth between living in the now and letting everything unfold as fate dictates, or taking charge of my life and making things happen the way I want them to. I have always been a believer in the concept that your 20's should be the best years of your life. The years of travelling, falling in love, doing reckless things, and getting one last shot at being young before a career and life falls into place.

As I have been growing up and going well past the 20 mark, I am slowly starting to get a different kind of understanding for what the 20's should be about. While we all want to travel, travelling is expensive and unless you have a well paying job and no bills to pay, travelling is not too feasible. Falling in love can be easily disappointing given that a majority of young individuals are on the path of self-discovery in their 20's. Doing reckless things can easily become very troublesome for those who have future aspirations of getting a career that might look into your past.

That being said, I am quickly starting to learn that maybe your 20's are about sacrifice. The things you must accomplish while you are young in order to make big plans possible when the time comes. Hustling and working endless hours weekly only to be able to make the future easier. Working now so that you do not have to later. I by all means condone it because it is part of the process. Part of the way some must live. We are not all born into glamorous families and as such, must work to make ends meet.

Sacrifice is often painful because in this scenario, working endless hours to make ends meet kind of takes away from your ability to hold together a social life and do things for yourself. As a female, I often forget what it feels like to actually be a girl and be dolled up because I never have the time to do it, and do not have anywhere to go since I am always working. There are days when I consider quitting, calling in sick, or just not showing up only to get a few extra hours of sleep or to rest my feet a little longer. There are days when I stand for so long that the pain in my legs keeps me up at night. And yet every single day I show up because I know I am doing this now so that I will not have to do it later.

Sometimes you have to give up a year or two of your life in order to make your plans for the future a reality.

And yet, other days, I am ready to take off. I am ready to quit my job and figure it out as I go. Teach English online, become a virtual assistant, whatever it may be to get out of my bubble and breathe the air in a different, town, city, country, island. Perhaps it does not all have to be about sacrifice and perhaps there are ways around it. Work a little, travel a lot. Hustle a little, fall in love. Whatever it may be, there must be some balance right?