5 Signs of Aging (Early 20s edition)

Quick survey: 

Are you finding it hard to vibe with current trends?

Do you have the urge to leave Facebook?

Are you in your 20s?

If you answered yes to at least one of the questions, sad to say, but You. Are. Aging. 

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Let’s go further down the rabbit hole of white hair and back ache! 

What could be the signs that you are aging at the young age of 20?

1. Actually sleeping during night time

When I was younger, my parents would strictly, when I say strictly I meant strictly make us sleep during the afternoon, eyes shut and all. Their reason is for us to grow taller, because apparently it does that. However, If you say “sleep!” to a person even if they aren’t sleepy, it will never work. In most cases it never worked for me as a child, I would lay down on my bed and would just puff air in my cheeks while looking at the ceiling–which is maybe why I’m short. 

Now, as a one year old adult, in which stuff needed to do for a day can’t be done for 24 hours, where just staring into space when you’re supposed to be typing up words feels like a crime… and where you would exchange your precious phone just for a good night's sleep. But unfortunately there isn’t any sleep exchange like that anywhere and so when given the opportunity to nap or to sleep, whether in the afternoon or at the wee hours of the night, you take it. Fast. Like swatting a mosquito chilling at your arms. 

2. Refreshing your email account every second

Remember when you used to wait for a favorite TV show on the TV that it physically hurts whenever the commercials just keep on going and going? You sat there on your comfortable couch gripping your pillow in hopes that after the Coke commercial, your show would eventually start. 

This was the exact position that I was in just a while ago, except I was on my computer chair, neck craned, still holding my pillow, refreshing and refreshing my computer screen, in hopes that something on my inbox labeled “important” would pop up. I’m in my 20s, just like you, I try to explore a lot. I enter, send or distribute your email around, in hopes of connections, career boost, seminars, acceptance emails, rejection emails etc. because…this is adulthood. 

Please take me back to my Friday afternoon ICarly marathon.

3. Shrugging off drama

Friends, families, self problems are common, but for some reason, it was a little more of a big deal when we were younger than it was before. It was still the same toxic environment except now with work rather than at school, our parents and relatives still are the same egoists, we still have trouble finding our own path, but for some reason, now we don’t care, or maybe not as much as we did before. Maybe because we realize that life is just not perfect and we can’t do anything about it.

And this is probably what I love the most about aging, we mature not just physically but also mentally.

4. Less care to important things

This is one thing I realized as a college student. In high school grades are important, homeworks needs to be submitted before the due date. Where rules are strictly and critically followed. 

Now I don’t give an inkling care about it anymore. It may seem careless and reckless at the same time but it’s true. Adulthood is hard, I would never recommend it to anybody but we go through this. The important thing for me now is to finish. I learned that life goes off path too, it doesn’t have a rule, the way to experience it goes beyond that. 

I remember being so constricted with rules that I told my friends in high school to never go to that one convenience store with bad connotations in the community as to protect our so called “reputation”. Mind you, they were just out to grab some ice cream. Years later, that convenience store closed, my high school friends still got their reputations intact, it didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. 

(basically what I’m saying is to have fun! Live with the rules but not for the rules! Please don’t do anything that could put you to jail!)

5. Intense fixation to little things

Little things means just what it is, little things, not silly little situational things but rather, literally little basic things: cute keychains, Croc charms, kitchen tongs, coupons, house slippers, rugs with cat designs, cute socks, and so on and so forth. Usually as we age we dream of big things, such as a car, big house, a family, etc. which triggers workaholicism (if that's a word) to people.

Maybe it’s a Gen Z thing, but now, people in their 20s get fixated on little things, especially cute ones. I saw some adults on Twitter get hyped over a Pokemon plushie from Japan, another, a person who adores her little succulent plants, giving them each their names and little ribbons on their colorful pots. In the olden times this could be labeled as immature or childish, but now, it’s just…human. 

People are getting less and less serious as the time goes by, as I have noticed. And guilty as I may be, I am happy that with the options of being something or just being someone, most people, nowadays, choose not to live to be, but to live just because. 

Let’s all age like fine wine! Not just physically but also mentally!

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Thank you for reading!

Comment down below if you also experience these specific symptoms of aging!