Life is a race and I prefer to take a seat

For someone who constantly dreads the consequences of wasting time, I sure do seem to be doing a lot of it. My days go by in such a haze. Before I know it, it’s time to settle down into the next episode of White Collar and I haven’t even touched my to-do list. This goes on for a few days (and a couple of seasons), until I decide to make another to-do list with half the original items crossed off. Whoops.

In college, there was only one goal – get a job. It was such a clear goal that we were all working our way towards. Don’t get me wrong, it was a tough goal to achieve, but there wasn’t much ambiguity to it. Deadlines were set. Now the concept of time is so vague. There seems to always be a “tomorrow” to get things done. For me, this usually applies to taxes, exercise and cancelling my very unnecessary wine club subscription. Figuring out when the next tomorrow really is “too late” is tricky.

Adulthood comes with a whole new set of problems. You have to manage your job, money (apparently we are supposed to save money now?), personal growth, career. It’s no longer cool to go around saying that you were so busy that you had to pull an all-nighter — you just sound like an overgrown idiot who couldn’t get her crap together in time. Added to this is the melodic tune of “it’s time to get serious” that everyone older than me seems to keep singing. Most of us are routinely second-guessing our career paths and those super geniuses in their Harvard dorms building social-networking sites aren’t making it much easier. Funnily enough, those exact creations are where most of my time seems to be going. 

Striking the balance between ‘I’ll never be as young as I am today’ and ‘this is an opportunity to set the foundation for my career’ is a whole other problem in itself. I’m just waiting for the day that the universe agrees that routine bar-hopping is an investment in my future, even if the next day’s hangover feels like all is coming to an end. Investing time in your future often seems like a good call but making these distinctions is often exhausting and draining to think about. Yet again, I feel like I just need a good glass of wine.