When I was seventeen a family member told my mum that I was “a bit behind-the-eight-ball”. They said it to her while I sitting beside them, as though I wasn’t in the room. I didn’t know what that phrase meant, but it made me feel so small and insignificant, as though there was something wrong with me. It didn’t matter if that was true or not, what hurt more was this person thinking there was something wrong with me. Later, I asked her what they meant by it and she said it was because I hadn’t gotten my learners license or a job yet. At seventeen. While I was still at school.
I’m getting defensive just thinking about it.
Because even back then I knew that I hated societal norms and the thought that people “should” be doing certain things at particular stages of their life. And yet, even though I knew it didn’t matter if you got your L’s right when you turned 16 or waited a while or didn’t bother at all, the phrase still stuck with me.
It sprung back up when I was 21 and considered going to University for a Bachelor of Arts, but decided against it because I was “too old” and it was “too late”. It’s laughable now. Because most people begin Uni at 18 but there are still many people who get their degrees at any age.
I think there’s too much pressure on us to be a “valued member of society”, and somewhere along we way, we forget what it is we actually want for life. Quick, choose your profession. Quick, buy that house. Quick, get married. Be everything you’re supposed to. Be like the others. Fit in or be shunned.
“You’re off with the fairies.”
”How can you be so switched-on but also so aloof and forgetful?”
”Be realistic.”
I had a quarter-life crisis at 25 years old. Mid-twenties and I still hadn’t achieved my “purpose”, whatever that means. No bright lights. No big career accomplishment. No career at all.
The truth is, there is no set time-frame for anything to do with personal achievements. I’ve learned that I do things in my own time in my own way. That’s what my old therapist called being an “independent thinker”. I really liked that. It’s much nicer than that 8-ball comment.
It says : do things your way. It says : don’t let anyone tell you what you should be doing. It says : Be you, and if you’re you then you’re exactly where you need to be.
And so my reframe is this…
“You’re a bit behind the eight-ball”
“I do things in my own time, in my own way”
