Catherine Chea

Time just won’t slow down. It feels as if the older you become, the faster time goes by. It’s terrifying yet exciting to be nearly a quarter century year old. Every choice that I make now seems to have some monumental impact on the course of my life.

A lot is happening to me at this point in time:  I’m establishing my career, I’m moving out of the house and I’m meeting different people. I think (maybe) my biggest fear is that I’m becoming old, that I won’t live up to my potential and that my personality will become static. It seems that older people are less malleable, more predictable and are harder to change (like my parents…haha). It’s also a lot easier to learn new skills when you’re young, such as a learning a new language. As well, I’m afraid that in a few years down the road, I won’t have as much time to explore and try many different things.

I’m also conflicted. I’d like to establish stability in a few years but I also want to continue to live my adventure.  I also know deep down that all of this worrying is unnecessary. Because after finishing the book, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, I’ve realized that being old is more of a mindset than an age thing.

The title of the book gives away the storyline; it’s about a centennial who decides to flee from his uneventful life at the nursing home and go on a new and crazy adventure.  Even though it’s just a fiction, it’s inspiring and comforting to realize that there is always excitement in life no matter what your age. There’s always something to look forward to and that you only truly become old if you allow it.

I feel the need to constantly remind myself this realization because I have a terrible habit of setting expectations for myself when it comes to what I should be doing in each stage of my life. The truth is, nothing in my life has really turned out as planned and so far it has worked out for the better.  Maybe living a life that is unpredictable enables a person to grow but to also stay young forever.