The woes of
being in your twenties - Only some can empathize.
Sigh. People ask
themselves different questions: When will all this end? How could they do this?
How will I pull off this exam? Do my eyes look smaller today? Is he cuter than
I am? Shouldn’t I have a job by now? Was I really thinner last year? Where did
my favourite sweatshirt go? Is chilli sauce really better than normal low-grade
tomato ketchup? Will someone notice if I steal the last French fry off the
plate?
If you are a
fresh, but-poor lazy architecture graduate, with a weakness for French fries
and sauce, you find yourself asking all of
them. Twenty-something’s all over the world have
unexplainable questions with equally unexplainable answers. But difficult
question and answers aside, the twenties offers you a brilliant insight into
the world, which has nothing to do with the cost of the Ralph Lauren cologne
that you have been saving up for months. They are hormone-pumped, youth filled
and guilt laden, yet you love every moment of them. It is the first time in
your life where people actually have experiences to learn from. And they
actually get to see what life is really about –
1.
Money is life,
and love. And also liquid.
Just as you get your first job, you realise the single most
important thing in life. Money is god; and easily gone. You realise it when
you’ve hit your favourite bar four nights in a row, or when you go credit card
splurging at the nearest high-end mall. You realise it as you order that
expensive bottle at wine while dining with friends. And you realise it most
when you are buying a list of things online that you will never use, a little
past 3 am. Money, like the next fresh faced Bollywood startlet, has a limited
lifespan.
2.
The Simple life
is not only a Paris Hilton show, it’s also the way to be.
At the same time, you’ll also understand the value of money.
You’ll know how to survive a week on
200 rupees. You’ll cook instant noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You’ll
walk home from work. You’ll use free coupons and hunt at discount clearance sales.
You’ll freeload of richer friends and giggle at them shamelessly. You’ll wear
your underwear in and out. You’ll learn that a jar of Nutella can go a long
way. You’ll do everything you can do to keep that last rupee in your pocket for
as long as you can.
3.
You will get
your heart broken, a minimum of at least seventeen times.
Face it. The sun rises. The sun sets. People come and people
go. By the twenties, every person becomes a real life version of the Heartbreak Kid (without looking like the
lead of the romcom, Ben Stiller, though). If you decide to mope around in your
pyjamas eating tubs of Belgian chocolate ice-cream, or cry around in the
showers clutching at your knees every time someone toys with your heart, there’s
a high chance you’ll turn into a soggy, overweight body pillow. By the time you
hit your mid-twenties, you’ve gone through it enough number of times to write
your movie, or at least a book without sequel rights. Listening to Adele’s Someone Like You doesn’t help too, because
what you really need is someone who likes
you. Pick up those million pieces of your heart, glue them together and walk
away. Then repeat. You’re
going to give your heart to a few people who don’t deserve it. Then, one day
you’ll come to your senses and ask them to give it back.
4.
You will
hate your job more than America hates Kim Kardashian.
Do
you know how the grass is greener on the other side and life is but a bed of
roses? No? Exactly. You will at least do one job where you clock in at ten am
and then spend the next nine hours, staring at the clock waiting for the minute
hand to strike seven- The job with the boss from ‘Devil Wears Prada’, and the workload from ‘Hercules’. Relax. It happens to the best of us. You will get
through this, like all of life’s others trivial problems.
5.
At some
point, Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen will
be your anthem, and then you’ll hate it.
Move
over Bryan Adams and Cindy Lauper, we don’t want a summer of 69, and girls
certainly don’t just wanna have fun.
It’s Luhrmann we love, and his prophetic words. You will scream out the lyrics
at a drunken party, or broodily word them out at an inspirational talk. Can I
copyright those lyrics, please? Then you will soon reach a point where you will
have loved it so much, you will despise it with every bone in your body.
6.
You will
have dream jobs by the dozen.
You will wake up one Monday morning, and realise you always wanted to
be a concert pianist. Or a painter. A jazz player. A social activist. A
socialite. A baker. A butcher. A candlestick-maker. ( the last three, you will
realise were also a part of a nursery rhyme.) You will search on Google for all
of thirty minutes, and make a few frantic calls to close friends telling them
you’ve found your true passion. Then you will get back to doing whatever you
were doing before.
7.
You will
suddenly feel responsible. Only feel, not be.
Wow. To pay your own bills and do your own accounts;
to buy your own clothes and drive your own car and to still live with your parents. Sigh. Rent’s a big pain the ass.
Wait, why don’t I go ask mum what’s for dinner?
8.
You will
join the gym. All for one week.
The twenties ask for a personal renaissance. You need to be thinner,
fitter, and happier. You’ll draft out diet plans and exercise routines to get six-pack
abs. If that dim-witted model neighbour of yours can do it, why can’t you? An
hour’s worth of exercise five times a week shouldn’t be difficult. A ten
thousand rupees deposit, and two sessions with a personal trainer later, you
will realise you were wrong. You will hastily insert an appropriate excuse, and
then stop going to the gym. You’ll be okay with the single love handle and
avoid staring at yourself in the mirror while you change.
9.
You will find the love of your life, and
then some.
As discussed in point three, your twenties would be an epic whirlwind
of romances, and you would identify with Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother. The next person you will meet might end up
being your soul mate, or the one after that, or after that. The list is
endless, just like the population of our country. Remember how you’ll have your
heart broken at least seventeen times? There’s good news. You’ll break an equal
number of hearts too.
10.
You will
have bucket loads of epiphanies and make a cartload of mistakes.
Every day would give you a new life lesson; you’d wake up with sudden
realisations and make life-altering decisions. Maybe one of them would be a
mistake; maybe all of them would be mistakes. But I’ll let you in on a secret?
That would be the fun part.
Like they say, you’ve not lived life till you’ve learnt from all the wrong
things you’ve done. Fine, I said it. The twenties are a rollercoaster of
experiences, and then you reach your thirties. That is a whole new decade, and
calls for a whole new blog.
Now I must go, and do pretentious
things that other twenty something’s do. Like watch a play, and eat crepes.
Until then, See you soon.
