I’m 25 and I don’t know what I’m doing in life. And for the first time in my 25^th year I’m perfectly okay with this statement. No one ever said that you had to have everything figured out by the time you reached 25. I’ve spent my entire life working up to a goal. It was always making the basketball team, getting a perfect report card, getting into the best college, finding the best job outside of college. Now that I’ve been out of college for almost 3 years, I feel as if my life has come to a standstill….and that’s okay.

I’m 25 and I don’t love myself. For the first time in my 25^th year, I’ve fully recognized this. I have spent the past 25 years seeking the love of others. I needed the love of my best friend, the “popular” kids who were my “friends”, the guys who came in and out of my life, I needed to feel loved by everyone aside from myself. When I was 19 or so I watched “Perks of being a Wallflower” for the first time. There was a quote in the film (yes yes I know, it was originally a book) that said “we accept the love we think we deserve”. I remember reading that quote for the first time and literally not understanding it. Like, at all. I remember browsing tumblr and Instagram and seeing that quote plastered all over the place, just thinking to myself “wow these people really get impressed easily by shitty quotes”. Flash forward 6 years later, and I got a call from my ex. I put everything on hold just to talk to him, by the end of the call he had me crying more than I cried in the past year.

Once I hung up, I went straight to bed. The first thing I did in the AM was check my phone to see if he texted me, he didn’t…and I was sad for the remainder of the morning. I went on a jog later on that evening, to look at the ocean, and I had this thought in my mind “why does no one love me”. I kid you not, as soon as I finished the thought that exact quote popped into my head. “We accept the love we think we deserve”. So why from the ages of 19 to 25 could I not find anyone to truly love me for me? Because I looked for love in the wrong places, I accepted the love that I thought I deserved. I’d been chasing after guys who made me feel shitty because I made myself feel shitty. I didn’t think that I deserved to find real love.

This kind of brought me to my next train of thought. Why am I seeking love in the first place? I’m 25 not 45, I still have plenty of time to find a place in someone’s heart and honestly (get ready for this, honestly you might cringe, you might look away because what I’m about to say is so cheesy) the only person’s heart that I need to solidify my place in is my own (THERE IT IS!).

Alright so now that that’s out of the way, I can talk about my next topic, which I feel like a lot of fellow 23-27 year olds can relate to. My job. Oh my my my. When I was 20 I thought I’d be working in  dream job, in an amazing city, with so much growth within the company, I’d be a VP by the time that I reach 30 in no time. Well, life doesn’t always happen the way you imagined it in your head….and that’s okay. Listen, we’ve only been out of college for 3 years, failure and unhappiness is almost a given. Nothing is permanent, things change, and so will your career.

So here I sit, writing this…whatever it is…wondering how I got to this point. So to any of you out there who are also experiencing a quarter life crisis like I am, just know that you’re not alone.