As I approach the quarter-century mark of my existence (known in far less creative terms as my 25th birthday), I've been thinking big thoughts about my life and how I'm choosing to spend it. Some might call this a quarter-life crisis, but I've never been a big fan of this terminology. First of all, claiming "quarter-life" status at age 25 implies that I'm going to live to be 100. While that's a lofty goal, I'm not going to be disappointed if I only make it to 90, which means my quarter-life crisis should have come when I was 22.5 years old. It didn't. Secondly, "crisis" usually implies something catastrophic, which my internal musings certainly are not. So this is not a quarter-life crisis. It's just a moment to take an inventory and ensure that I'm making the most of life.
Apparently this is something that people face around the approach of age 30 as well. Rather than getting all emo about it though, I think people would do well to follow the approach of Jen MacNeil. She turned the end of her 20s into an opportunity and decided to spend each day of her 30th year experiencing something she had never done before. Best of all, she started a blog to document her quest. When you read it, you will quickly realize that her new experiences are usually not on the extreme level of skydiving and bungee jumping. Rather, she does some simple things (playing her first game of jacks), some weird things (peeling and eating a banana with her feet) and some cool things (giving a live interview on CNN via satellite...about her activities, of course).
As difficult as it might be to brainstorm 365 new experiences, I think it would be even more difficult to keep the commitment and actually do something new each day. It will definitely be a memorable year for MacNeil, because this quest is probably consuming her life. I suppose there are worse ways to spend your time though, so I admire her ambition and creativity.
I almost feel compelled to come up with some grand self-improvement plan to commemorate the Quarter Century of Matt. For now, I think I'm just going to try to hone my banana-peeling skills. Once I've got it down with my hands, maybe I'll try the feet thing.
3 comments:
FYI, I do use the "crisis" in jest. "Quarterlife reflection" just didn't sound as cool in the blog title
Matt, do a search on "101 goals in 1001 days". There is a bunch of people working on goals and they document their progress online. There are sites dedicated to helping you achieve you goals and help with the documentation and tracking of your goals. Good luck!
I love how in your aim profile it says your blog is "updated frequently"... I suppose if you consider once a week frequently... Come on Matt, you gotta give me something to look forward to in my life! lol
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