23 and Free

I turned 23 two weeks ago, which means I'm officially old. At the very least, I've aged out of my youth. I'm no longer the youngest person in the room, and I can no longer take that as a point of pride nor use it as a crutch to lean on. I'm unc, for better and for worse, mostly for the better.

A common ailment among my peers — those of us who grew up upper-middle-class, are college-educated, are tiger-parented, and were academic-focused — is striverism. I'm sure you've seen enough tweets lambasting strivers, (usually young) people who take so much pride in their existing credentials and seem to exist solely to pursue more credentials that will really prove to the world that they're special boys and girls. Individuals who justify their existence with job titles and degrees. Obviously, optimizing for status is not necessarily bad, but it does get very annoying for other people and almost certainly soul-corrosive when you make it an intrinsic part of your identity.

I mention striverism because I am infected. I crave status, I crave the validation of my peers, I crave the validation of people whom I deem to be more successful than myself. I don't just want money, I want everyone to applaud me, slap me on the back and say "You're a genius! Such a hard worker! You made so much money and I adore you for it." This is obviously the inner monologue of a lunatic.

What does getting one year older have to do with striverism? Well, because I am no longer the youngest person in the room, and will likely never be the youngest person in any room ever again, I feel as if striverism has begun to sublimate from my body. It's turning into little wisps and just floating away into the big blue sky. I'm free from having to worry about being perceived as good, or great, or "high-potential", and I can actually focus on my work.

I can focus on my day job: writing software, without worrying about trying to cram in some outstanding achievements before an arbitrary age, because that age has already passed. I can focus on writing about things I care about without craving people's validation for having produced something great before x age, again, because that age has already passed. What I'm trying to say is that I am feeling particularly unburdened. I am unburdened by expectations and that is all courtesy of aging another year.

I understand that there is some irony in writing this. Twenty-three is obviously not old, but in my circles it is positively geriatric. I can't write about striverism, and say that chasing status is gross, then turn around and say that twenty-three is old and if you haven't achieved anything major by then, then you're free because you've effectively failed to become high-status. I'm not writing to make an argument for anything in particular here. I'm writing to let myself know that it's time to focus on nothing but what I am excited to work on. Not the perception of the work. If that happens to resonate with you, maybe you're not twenty-three, maybe you're eighteen or forty; that's great. The sooner you realize that all you can do is focus on the work you do, the happier you (probably) will be.