anxiety of getting old
i suppose we all have triggers for our anxiety. despite so much reasoning and gaslighting, it's easy to succumb to those triggers, which makes us feel worse about ourselves. for me, one such trigger is getting older.
i would come across a post where someone talks about being 21 and already working at google (or say faang), and i lose my cool because i'm already 23, turning 24 this year.
it's not jealousy toward them, but rather a resentment toward myself for not achieving the same feat—not necessarily a "cracked" job, but something equivalent or parallel. a friend on twitter once told me that we like (or love) to talk about our advantages to give ourselves an edge over others.
if i look back and compare those periods, i was doing something else entirely. when i installed ubuntu for the first time, i had a deep desire to contribute to open-source software, but it never happened. at 13, i imagined myself making an iron man suit, but by 19, i was in kota preparing for engineering entrance exams and appreciating amazing rajasthani food. at 21, i was doing solo backpacking. i was definitely not raising a pull request on github.
(ps: if you're reading this and getting anxious, don't worry—i'm getting anxious writing this too.)
but if i look at it from another perspective, perhaps the problem lies in the fact that i had planned my life in a certain way (or had certain expectations), but my actions didn't get me where i wanted to be; instead, they led me to the other side of the hills. at this point, i should probably give up on planning and let time decide what comes my way (T_T).
even the bad periods of life can be given meaning if you put the words inside your head in the right order.