The future is scaring and if you are in your twenties you for sure know what being scared about the future means. When I finished my bachelor degree I was not sure about what to do next. Master? Volunteering? Traveling? On top of this, the society puts pressure on you. “You must finish your academic career as soon as possible and you must know exactly what to do with your life” this is what resounded in my head.
Nowadays we live in a world full of possibilities. We have been taught we can become everything. We can travel everywhere. We can love everyone. This definitely gives us a feeling of freedom, but at the same time uncertainty and anxiety. Exactly like in a restaurant when the menu is full of delicious options and you get crazy because you cannot decide what to order.
Moreover, the society constantly shows us models of perfection we have to be inspired from. And on the top of this, our society aims for quantity and not quality, so we end up choosing as many experiences as possible to fill in our CV without taking time to internalize what we learn.
Personally, the last two years I took two gap years, one for traveling and the second one for volunteering. At the beginning I thought to find answers to my questions, especially to get a clear idea about my future career. For sure volunteering in development has encouraged me to follow this path in a future master. Beside academic clarifications, I’ve definitely began my personal growth and collected some life tips which still need to be totally processed by me. Here they are:
Do not follow perfection
Perfection does not exist. So what is the point of being inspired by something that doesn’t even exist? You are not a number. You are not the marks of your exams. You are not your weight. You are not the number of diplomas you get. You are not the number of followers you have on Instagram. If perfection is at the finish line you will not enjoy the journey.
Everything is going to be fine
Do not overthink about the risks of what you are doing. Just do it. Do it believing the best scenario will happen. Also, if you want to dare a bit more and believe in the law of attraction, you must believe that your positive thoughts will attract positive things.
Be kind with yourself
Do your best everyday but accept that you will also make mistakes however you will learn from them.
Trust people’s help
You are not alone, so you do not have to carry all the weight of your problem on your back. Be willing to share them with people who love you. Nevertheless, you never know if someone else is going through a hard time and you could be the one to help.
Be yourself
You are not made to be liked by everyone. So do not put too much effort in trying to please people. Be unique and people will appreciate it. If you pretend to be someone else, you will live a lie.
Enjoy the present
Be aware of here and now. Do not regret what you have done or have not done in the past. Nothing will change anyway. Do not be afraid about the future. Fears will not make things easier, they will just steal your energies from something really worthy. Focus on what you can actually change, and for sure this is something you can do today.
The bottom line
If you have the opportunity to be a volunteer abroad for one year, try to take some time for yourself-development. To build a conscious relationship with yourself will also help you in helping other people around you. Finally, be kind with yourself during this process, you are doing more than fine.
