Being consumed by the fast-paced style of living.

Lately, I have been hyper-focused on my environment declaring a more rigorous attempt in awareness of earning an income, achieving a prestigious merit, or deciding a course in life purposefully.

Inside my heightened mind, ideas keep clashing — should I take care of myself? Or should I risk it and get the life I want? Surprisingly to me, the first option is the more rational decision.

I know I am vulnerable to stress and this option is perfect for my well-being. But, life as it happens does not simply work that way. We tend to get our feelings and impulses involved, it’s how the brain helps us make decisions that matter to us more. Even when it mattered only at a specific moment.

You might be wondering how my surroundings are and why I might have thoughts like these ones. I’m going through a normal transitional phase of finishing my undergraduate studies and entering adulthood. A largely reasonable trial of life, that seems unwelcome as it feels that makes sense why people around my age are distressed.

I rationalized the second option I had, which was to risk it in my 20s and get paid for what I deserved moving on in the next decade of my life. While I type this, the rational brain in me makes a facepalm if it had a face. At the back of my head, I want to discard this thought because my impulses are strong and I tend to follow it more. It’s telling me I shouldn’t even have to consider this option but I’m being stubborn.

I’m thinking about it and pondering over risking my way through opportunities in my 20s. It just felt like a wonderful concept, even. Then comes the time I’m stable enough where I could finally settle down and live the way I want — was the idea. It’s like asking if I should reserve my energy for a grueling battle or to use it up and recharge when the harder battle is done.

Technically, the life I want to live is a slow life, which believe me, I know is ironic. In the sense that in my mind, for me to get there is to use up my energy, and only then afterward, I’ll live slowly.

I mean most people do the same as they get older. But, it doesn’t mean that every person who went through a similar process meant they deliberately planned for that outcome.

Here’s another thing, we humans tend to overestimate ourselves. Something which is a feature in us that is giving betrayal. But, there are actually more things about the way our mind works that makes it unreliable. Which, as a person typing this, there legitimately are times in life that I shouldn’t trust myself. That’s just how the mind works, believe me on this one, though.

What I also want to open up is how our mind likes to reframe things. It likes to adjust the lens so we’ll only focus and see a certain view.

In psychology, there are defense mechanisms — we use them when we’re anxious in hopes of alleviating the uncomfortable. That of course, isn’t only being fueled by our internal desires. External forces are at play too and in my case, there are people around me leading totally different paths in life from mine. Yet, as varied as they are to mine, I keep comparing myself to them.

It’s not like I was letting myself get involved in their business but since we’re all living in the same world, our lives are not impossible to cross. Life as people always say, isn’t a race. But, since our feelings are involved in the decision-making process, it becomes difficult to pull back and severely complex to decipher a solution. Sometimes, we tend to decide in the heat of the moment only after minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, we then realize necessary and unnecessary things.