Not old, just older

We live, we learn. I seem to discover something new every year that just wasn’t there the year before. At 24, I thought my life would end at 25 and wanted to be able to do everything, sort of like a new year’s resolution. At 25, I was sure I was going to grow old and do nothing with my life. At 26, today marking the first day of it, I shall bestow upon thou my wisdom (just kidding, I’ll just say some stuff that will negate my convictions for the past 2 years.)
In the past year, my achievements amounted to a big fat ZERO! Work wise, I only got more lost, not even slightly sure if what I’m doing is what I want to do. I sort of got over the first accident only to crash my new car and get into a new one with more problems and more casualties. As for the family side, it’s not exactly showing its pretty side, mostly because I’m not performing up to par with them, and they have to suffer through all my problems right along with me. So I spent most of the year, up until very very recently, thinking that this is how my life will be like; I’m already stuck at a job I don’t like, I have huge money management issues, I’m usually getting into trouble not getting out of it, and my new attempts to try and see a bit of the world resulted in a total disaster (plan A was to go to Italy failed when I started legal issues, and then plan B of going to see my friend in the UK left me in disaster while finally, plan C which was due to be early January to go visit my family in the US ended with a personal financial crisis, not to mention when I almost tried to go on a hike in Sinai, it broke out into what seems like street wars, rendering it unsafe in the eyes of my family and so many other people). So here I was, stuck, stuck, stuck, and stuck! And I don’t think it was going to be for just the blessed year of 2012.
My expectation was that I would probably be living that same exact life with the same exact parameters for the next 5 to 10 years. Career advancements would have to be through management; a track I do not fancy. The dream of getting out from under the umbrella of cultural and family restrictions would only be achieved if I got married, a prospect I don’t fancy either, and that is based on what my married friends think of marriage by the way. Not to mention, I will probably get into more trouble; some people are just like that, you know! So now that I have just turned 26, I should probably just roll over and die, right? Wrong! It turns out that maybe life has some chances after all.
I don’t know when exactly I got this realization, but I was going about the whole age vs. achievement thing all wrong. It’s true, I was and still am trying to break the routine of life, but that is the thing, there is no breaking it. My life has not ended at 25 and will not end at 26, it won’t even end at 36 either. There is no such thing as getting old for something, except maybe bearing children but I still got plenty of time for that I guess. I don’t have to rush through my life, I just have to live it enjoyably. I will probably change my career at some point in the future, and I would preferable to change it in the near future, but I still haven’t explored my career enough yet. I do believe there are chances out there, and no, I’m not too old to go back to coding or to learn a couple of new tools. I won’t be too old to learn new tools 3 years from now either. I will not be too old to be a junior at some other track at 30. I will not be too old to learn to bake or ride a bike. I will not be old to travel and see the world. I will not be too old to publish a book or open up my own bookstore some day. I will not be too old to break the routine because the routine is there for as long as I want it to be there.
The world does not end today ladies and gentlemen, it is still way too early to tell. I’ll do what I need to do when I’m ready to do it. Most importantly, today I let go of so many balls and chains from the past. Today, I will make up new dreams and live the first day of the rest of my life trying to make them come true, only I don’t have a deadline to keep, I’ll take my time and live, not race.