A really popular topic for any millennial to cover in a blog is their definition of their twenties. Here's mine:
Perspective.
That's what my twenties mean to me.
In high school, my mother (God bless her) would wake up every morning and make me breakfast to eat and a lunch to bring with me. And I would essentially hate her for it.
"Good morning Sara! I made you waffles today."
"Whhhhhhhy must you torment me with words so early in the morning." Then I'd probably shoot some lasers from my eyes at her in between rolling them.
Did I actually hate her? I hated mornings, she was around, so clearly it was her fault.
Ahhhh, but with a bit of perspective, we can clearly see that it was indeed not my mother's fault (or at least as far as I know, she wasn't the cruel, cruel person behind high school starting at 7am) but I took it out on her because she was around.
Sometimes taking a step back and realizing what is causing the grief - and putting things into correct perspective- can make everything a lot easier to handle.
Here's another more recent example. Sometimes work gives me anxiety. Some days, it's just really hard. And I wear my feelings on my sleeve, so everyone knows if I'm not feeling it on any given day. And this one day, a truly wonderful woman put it so easily into perspective, it's something I remind myself when I'm feeling stressed.
"You got a job straight out of college that uses your major at an international development organization. That's a big deal."
When you think of it like that, it's the perfect blend of an accomplishment, and an explanation of why it will be hard from time to time. Attempting to solve poverty is a really difficult goal. Every day isn't going to be perfect.
So while putting things into perspective isn't easy, nor will it always make you feel better, it helps to process the feelings you might be having at a deeper level than just the surface details.
Perspective. That's the biggest lesson the twenties have provided me, and a lesson that I will continue to learn more about, I'm sure.
