It’s all planned out for us…
Our parents, our school teachers, all herd us in what we’re told is the right direction, from a very young age. You go to school, go to college, get a stable and rewarding career, and find someone to start a family of your own with.
It’s as simple as that, right? This is what the majority of people have done in previous generations, so we’re told that we’ll be better off for doing the same thing ourselves.
All we have to decide is which of those stable careers we want, and who we want to share our lives with…
Why A Stable Life is Killing You From the Inside
Isn’t that holding us back, though? Are we killing our creativity and passion as individuals? Are we settling for what we’ve been told, rather than what we want?
Is a stable life really what we want early on in life?
Here’s what I mean by the stable way of life:
- Going to college just because everybody else is, and you’ve been told it’s the safest thing to do.
- Settling down in a long term relationship in your early twenties, just because you like the feeling of being in a relationship.
- Picking a safe career, that’s easy to get into and you’re unlikely to be let go from.
- Increasing and upgrading your material possessions, being a major desire of yours.
We’ll all want that at some point later on in life, but for anybody reading this who’s in their 20’s in particular, here’s why having a stable life is killing you from the inside:
1. Following for the Sake of Following is Stupid
Come on, seriously?
If you have a bunch of friends who have decided to go to college; regardless of what your own personal thoughts are to begin with, if their decisions have any effect on your own whatsoever, that’s a problem.
Following what somebody else does in life just because many people seem to be doing it, is always the wrong decision. Where’s the logic in that?
Even if the majority of people go one way, that doesn’t mean it’s right option for you too!
Think about what you want before making any decisions in life. Don’t just go to college because all your friends are and your teacher is telling you that’s what they did… blah blah…
2. Settling Down Early is Skipping Half of the Good S**t
If I hadn’t made the decision a couple of years ago, for the sole purpose of wanting a better life, I could well be engaged now at the young age of 21 and have a full time job I don’t really enjoy.
I was thinking about it… but it didn’t feel right.
I definitely thought I was missing out on so much more. Then I went travelling, started a business, and well… a lot of good s**t started to happen.
My point is, don’t cut life short. We all want to settle down eventually, but if you’re in your early 20’s relax! If you’ve only been with a few people before, then honestly how do you know the person you’re with currently is the one you want to settle down with?
There’s billions of people out there, just remember that…
Plus like I said, you miss out on all the awesome fun you can have when you’re not tied down.
3. Opportunity is in Abundance, Seriously
Often, people settle into what they believe is a stable life, only because they think great opportunity is a rare occurrence.
I’m not the first person to say this isn’t true. Opportunity is everywhere. You have the opportunity everyday to better yourself, to improve your circumstances.
Opportunity is not something that you either have or don’t have. It starts off smaller than that. There’s plenty of small opportunities everybody has access to everyday, and those can lead to bigger and greater things.
That’s where people trip up…
They fail to see the smaller opportunities as stepping stones towards the greater ones. If you’re settling into a stable life because you don’t think you have opportunity, that’s the wrong decision. There’s always opportunity.
4. Going Where Average Goes is Only Going to Get You What Average Gets
Do you want a life better than average?
Your answer is probably yes. I hope it is anyway.
So what makes you think that going down the path of majority in life is going to get you anything more than average? It’s very unlikely that it will.
In order to live a phenomenal life, people have to think for themselves, and make decisions that the majority of people might not make. Take risks that the majority of people probably won’t take.
Following the majority will only get you what the majority get…
5. Stability Doesn’t Actually Feel All that Great
Where’s the excitement?
You know what they always say about life; it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. You can’t cut the journey short! That’s the best part.
Your journey makes your destination worthwhile. Instability in life makes the stable part rewarding once you finally reach it. When you aim for a stable life as soon as you become an adult, you’re trying to skip right to the end.
It’s doesn’t make sense…
The journey is where you realize who you are. It’s where you have all the crazy experiences, the ups and downs. It’s where you understand what you TRULY want. You can’t have a happy and stable life if you just miss out that whole process.
6. Once You Cross That Threshold, It’s Harder to Come Back
Once you open yourself up to a stable life: full time job, house, girlfriend, car; it’s a lot harder to get out of that situation.
The point being, you have to make sure that you’re ready for those things and they’re what you truly want before you start welcoming them into your life.
If there’s any part of you that wants to pursue a dream, to travel, to meet a tonne of new people and have the freedom to live and work in different countries around the world… you can’t allow yourself to settle into a stable life.
Not until you’ve done those things and you’re finally ready to do so.
7. You Regret List Will Keep on Growing
Are you someone who often finds yourself saying to other people; “I wish I was you!”, “I wish I could go there!” or “I’m so jealous of you!”
Maybe you see someone post a status on Facebook, or a photo, and you leave one of those above comments on it?
If that’s you, and you’re not just someone who has millions of wishes, you f***ed up somewhere…
At one point or another, you could have done any of these things you’re saying you wish you could do. But you attached those wishes to balloons filled with excuses, and let them float away.
Don’t adopt a stable life until you’ve really experienced all the things you’ve wanted to do on your own to begin with. Otherwise you’ll start to have a growing pile of regrets, and that pile’s always going to stack higher than you can reach my friend…
