Turning 25 = Quater life crisis?!

Do you ever feel like you wasted an entire day doing nothing? Spent the entire day on the couch getting invested in countless videos on YouTube or slept until noon? That is how I feel today. Sometimes I think I missed the mark, conversations change, people change. Am I still keeping up?
I always lived life at my own pace, did what felt right and experienced many trials and errors. Sometimes I forget all the work, resources, time, strength and effort I put into being where I am today, it is always easy to forget about good things that happened to you, it's even easier to remember failures.

I also start to notice old and new patterns I follow, try to eliminate a few and continuing to stand for others. Comparing myself as well as my believes and ideals to others happens now more often as well. Is that normal? Am I at the verge of a quarter life crisis?
Todays post is motivated by wanting to share my thoughts about "aging", comparing myself to others and experiencing an alarmingly large amount of epiphanies lately. I am sure (or lets say I hope) that some of you feel the same way and this post will help you feel encouraged, less alone, confident and stronger than ever....also, this is just an unedited outpour of thoughts so welcome to my brain :-)

To me, turning 25 is a big deal, some may call you still a baby while others point out that you are running out of time. How confusing, am I right?! Lots of outdated expectations for women are still alive while others were added not too long ago. Have a baby in your twenties, provide for everybody, have a more than average successful career, be liked by all, be pleasant, "keep it right and tight", break those ceilings and take what you want!
The time between 20 and 30 is a time that can be especially eventful, a lot of changes and often disturbances. I mean, it seems like not too long ago my biggest concern was to make sure that my bra matched my panties, now I am forced to think about real life problems, such as finances, washing laundry on a regular basis to ensure that I will never run out of socks, buying a home and be well traveled to seem interesting enough to have something to show off to my friends (Also, why is it so hard to make friends once you've reached adulthood?). Everything happens so fast!

Scrolling through Social I only ever see people having a ball, always busy, always on the go, does that mean they are successful? I brush it off, nevertheless, I can feel it hovering over me for most of the day. Are other people more interesting than me? What is it that I am missing? What do I have to do to "have it all"? Now, I know that people always just put their best selves out there, never talk about embarrassing, self doubt inducing incidences that happen to us on a regular basis. We create an image of ourselves and hope that people just believe it. People not commenting on our pictures, sharing and "liking" your content brings us down. Likes = Self-worth? Never do I stop and think about the things that I achieved. Who can relate?! It takes everything in me to remind myself on a regular basis that I am enough, that I should live my life consciously and live in the moment, quiet negative thoughts and find beauty in everyday situations.

Life is not fun being negative all the time. It is exhausting quite frankly.

Turning 25 makes me want to reflect on my life, skill set, relationships and personality. Lots of things I found out about myself.
Confession: I am a pretty judgmental person. It is not something I like to admit because it is definitely not one of those "weaknesses" one could turn into a positive a la "I just care too much about other people" or "I always put others before myself". Nope, not one of those! Now, I don't judge people for what or who they are but more so for what they do, that includes myself. I like to think of that circumstance as an important differentiation rather than an excuse so hear me out. The last year or so I have been actively working on becoming more openminded. I try to give the people that I meet multiple chances instead of cutting them out of my life immediately and also try to be less critical of others. Being less judgmental improved the quality of my own life tremendously, I invest less time into negative thoughts, putting myself down and of course, intense eyerolling. Asking myself why I do what I do and what benefits it gives me brings clarity and helps me to make changes. That being said, I still have a low tolerance when it comes to sexist, racist, patriarchy promoting comments uttered by small minds which is something I will never tolerate and you shouldn't either!

You see, using your characteristics and skills in a way that will help you and others is an art that needs to be learned. I think that understanding that you have a purpose and know that by utilizing your gifts and talents, you will achieve everything that was destined for you in the first place. There is a reason for why you are you and not somebody else. Living for yourself and making yourself happy is one of the best things you can do not only for yourself but also for the people around you that love you. What other people do in their free time, their job, their way of living and what they may think about you is non of your business. It is not something you should be concerned about, it only takes away from valuable time that you could be investing in yourself. What I am trying to say is that the grass is not always greener on the other side, its all just grass in the end. So, I think that is all I wanted to say for now! I am usually not one to share personal thoughts, especially not publicly so writing this is not easy for me. Nevertheless, I know that I cant be alone in this and it is important that we talk about it! We got this!