Time in Regret

I turned 21 this month. Last year I turned 20 and the year before I turned 19.

I don’t think until very recently that I noticed how quickly time is moving. The days are moving too quickly and it scares me a lot. Before I know it it’s already morning, I’m getting ready for bed and I just woke up.

I think back to things that happened what I would consider “recently” and I realise that it’s almost been a year.

I haven’t really done or said anything new publicly in the past three years, post-Wash Your Lyrics and SESH. My go to success story still being Wash Your Lyrics after three years is kind of embarrassing.

Death scares me (it always has) and I want to do as much with my life as possible. I look at the following from Tim Urban and am terrified. How many days have I lost?

Life has become very repetitive because it hasn’t changed in so long. And every day is the same. I have things well but I don’t know if I can say that I am happy or enjoy daily life.

It’s so repetitive that I’m scared to make any changes. Or not that I’m scared, but it’s so easy not to. The endless feedback loop of being stuck in a schedule and TikTok makes saying tomorrow the default.

Probably due to my past I live day to day life in constant fear of regret. This probably fuels my inaction. I am scared that I will regret not spending more time with my parents before they die, specifically my mother. I am scared my twenties will fly by and I will have wasted them; spending the rest of my life in regret that I blew my one opportunity at being young. I am scared I will not do anything great with my life.

It’s possible that last one stems from gifted child syndrome, but there is so much I know I want to do and know I can achieve, and I’m not. Why? For stability? To put more dollars in my pocket? To grow a number? To prepare for my retirement? I don’t give a shit about any of this. It’s all fake. Fake rewards systems that I feel trapped in.

I also feel fear of regret in the opposite direction. I have things well right now, so if I enact change and end up in a worse position, will I regret what I once had? Sometimes I look at memories generated in Apple Photos from the past year and I look happy and that I’m having a good time, but in the present I am not. What’s worse? Then again, this graph from Young Money sums it up pretty well:

I think I also suffer from a “deer in headlights” mentality. I can be confronted with the fact life can also be cut short at any minute. Albeit cancer, an aneurism or getting hit by a car or shot. But no dice.

From what I’ve heard, time feels longer when you’re a kid because of all the new experiences. I wonder if you can live your entire life always moving and changing your environment, and you’ll feel like a kid forever?

Something needs to change, and I think it will soon. I would be so proud of myself if I am able to make change for the better. I think I will do it.