Turning 28.
On Wednesday, I turned 28. Turning 28 is somewhat of a ‘nothing birthday’. It’s not a round number like 30, and there’s no major milestones to cross when you’re 28.
28 to me however, is quite significant. It’s the first birthday I’ve had after the COVID-19 lockdown, and it’s the first birthday where I’ve felt truly present in my life. In previous years, I’ve always been looking for the next big thing. I’ve always viewed the job or opportunities I had as stepping stones to the next place, so one day I could land the dream job... and that would make me happy.
Like many people in 2020, I had the time for a little soul searching. And what I realised was so many of my extrinsic goals and my ambitions stemmed from this desire to be ‘free’ and have complete autonomy over my life. I always told myself, get that job at X, so you can impress people at Y and eventually get that high paying job at Z, then after you’ve settled there THEN you’ll be able to do what you want. To me, doing what I truly wanted wasn’t about buying expensive things or working on a big budget movie (even though that would be cool), it was all about having the time and freedom to choose what I wanted to do, outside of the capitalist bubble and ever growing hustle culture.
For once, I wanted to do something that only mattered to me, and it didn’t matter if other people cared about it. But for some reason, I never felt like I had permission to do that. Any time I wasn’t placing down a brick towards my ‘future’, I was wasting time and wasting away my potential. The goal post kept moving too, so the grand goals I had felt small and insignificant as I set my eyes on a new and shinier prize.
Even though the shiny prizes kept changing, the endgame was the same. In my endgame, I saw myself sitting on a hill painting outside my mansion (lol). Realistically, it wouldn’t be a mansion because cleaning that whole thing would be very exhausting, but it just symbolised my wealth and ability to afford the luxury of time – being able to spend a whole afternoon doing something blissful yet insignificant.
When I had previously thought about this endgame, I always saw the mansion as the goal, the desire to be wealthy, when really it was a symbol for security and freedom. In my 27 years, I just didn’t connect the dots.
2020 was the year that I connected the dots, and despite not having a mansion (or being close to owning a home), I realised I had more freedom that I thought I did. All the relationships in my life were strong and free of obligation, I had a roof over my head, and my job security as a designer never faltered despite being in a global pandemic. I realised… can’t I paint on a hill now if I wanted to? And… yeah I could.
So I did. I started drawing again with excitement that I hadn’t felt since I was 15, and thought of all the ways I could enjoy my life in the present. A lot of the hobbies I have right now, I do it because I like them, not because I want to be the best at it. There’s no grand goal or desire to monetise them (take that capitalism, I won’t sell anyone my ugly pots!). I have small goals with some of my hobbies of course (my rising sign is Capricorn after all), but these goals point me in a forward direction rather than setting a daunting standard I need to achieve.
Even though I’m taking it easy with the goal settings, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have some for this year.
My goals for my 28th year on Earth:
Enjoy my life day to day
Take steps to eliminate my Imposter Syndrome – Draw more, being okay with making more mistakes in my work, accept compliments, stop being so self-deprecating
Be more shameless – Despite having quite a following from the Expense Tracker and Timeblock Planner, I still have this idea that (at best), people don’t really care about what I say, and at worst, people find me really annoying. I need to assume people probably want to hear what I have to say and I do have useful things to share
Continuing to fight my perfectionism – Even though I found the cure to perfectionism, it still comes back anyway and hits me at my weakest times. I want to care less and be more agile when it comes to my work.
Turn off my business brain when I can, and start reframing my thinking – Running a startup for over 3 years gave me serious business brain, and it pops up even when there’s no need for it. My business brain carries a lot of feelings of anxiety, FOMO, and missed opportunities, and I want to change that.
Continue to make decisions based on excitement instead of fear – Rather than a fear of missing out or future regret, I want to make decisions that are driven by curiosity and a desire to discover and learn new things.
It will be fun to look back at age 29 and see how I went, but until then… I’ll just be drawing.
x Deb