Since I was maybe 10 years old, I've been told "You're so mature for your age". That soon became a status I would chase the rest of my young adult life. Last year, I turned 25 and shit changed. Like overnight.
Things I've stared doing since turning 25:
1. I became disgustingly aware of how much time I spend thinking about how I look.
One night, laying in bed with an overpriced face-mask on, I asked Mark, "How often do you think about what your face will look like in 30 years?"
"Um... never? Very rarely. Maybe once?"
I was stunned. "Never" ???? I estimated that on average, I spend 30 minutes a day thinking about this. Since I was 14.
[For those that are mathematically challenged like myself, thats 2,007.5 hours. Just over 83 days.]
Thinking about my face.
Eighty-three days I could have been laughing harder.
Paying attention.
Living inside my own life instead of observing it from the outside.
If you asked me,
“How much time do you spend thinking about what you look like, in general?”
I don’t think I’d answer.
I think I’d just sit there, a little heartbroken.
2. Started leaving my house without mascara.
There was a version of me – 12, maybe 13, standing in a foggy bathroom mirror, analyzing every inch of my exposed skin. Thinking I can never leave the house without:
At minimum: mascara.
& Fill in your eyebrows.
& Hide the acne. Everyone else’s skin is perfect.
By 15, I had escalated the concern. Dates involving water were a genuine threat.
What if my mascara runs?
What if my eyebrows disappear?
What if someone sees my real skin?
It felt like exposure. Like being found out.
Now, I still catch those thoughts sometimes. They haven’t fully left.
But I’ve learned to interrupt them. Gently.
I can walk out the door barefaced,
and the world does not pause to examine me.
No one looks twice.
No one keeps score.
And somehow, that is the most freeing thing of all.
3. Started feeling very sentimental about my childhood. Or maybe just the world I grew up in.
School computer labs. The hum of machines that took forever to start.
Big box TVs that felt like furniture.
MSN Messenger. Where conversations had weight because you had to wait.
Nintendo PictoChat – arguably peak communication. & Nintendogs.
An iPod Touch on Christmas morning that felt like holding the future.
Cable TV. Rushing home after school to watch Wizards of Waverly Place before my parents got home from work.
2000s music. Your favourite tracks still know exactly where & when to find you.
I know every generation gets nostalgic. That part isn’t unique. But something feels different lately.
The faster the world moves, especially with AI and everything becoming instant and optimized, the more I find myself mourning the slowness we had.
The boredom.
The waiting.
The figuring it out, without a tutorial.
Maybe this is just the cycle. Or maybe we really did have something special.
4. Realized that I'll never be able to read all the books I want to read.
Which, strangely, has made me a better reader. Because now, I leave.
I close the book. I put it down. I don’t force it.
I no longer spend my time trying to become the kind of person who would like it.
There are too many stories in the world.
Too many sentences waiting to mean something.
Life is not long enough to spend inside ones that don’t.
5. Started habit stacking.
There’s this quiet lie that life will feel easier once you “level up.”
A better job.
A bigger home.
More money.
But no one mentions that it scales everything else too.
More space to clean.
More bills to manage.
More time spent maintaining the life you worked for.
I read Atomic Habits about 5 years ago. It took all 5 of those years to understand & implement habit stacking. I think it takes a while to find what works for you. I only really grasped it when I looked at what frustrated me at home.
For me, it finally clicked when I stopped focusing on the habits I should have and started looking at what was actively annoying me.
Dishwasher: unloaded while my coffee brews or food is in the oven. 5–10 minutes. Life changing.
Laundry: turns out the issue wasn’t motivation, it was having too many clothes and nowhere to put them. I downsized, gave everything a home, and now I just need to work on actually bringing the laundry upstairs. (It still lives on the floor. Growth is not linear.)
“Turn down service”: quick nightly reset, wipe, vacuum, tidy. I even turn down my bed before I shower. It’s giving boutique hotel and I will not be told otherwise.
Waking up to a calm space is wildly underrated.
6. Realized it's okay to wear multiple hats.
I used to feel so much shame for not having a clear vision for my future.
One path.
One identity.
One thing to be known for.
Everything else felt like distraction. Or worse, failure to commit.
But the truth is, I have never been one thing.
And I don’t think I’m supposed to be.
The things I’m drawn to, the hobbies, the interests, the ideas I can’t let go of... they aren’t pulling me away from who I am.
They are who I am.
You are not just your job.
You are not just your most productive skill.
You are the combination of everything you keep coming back to.
And that is far more interesting.
7. My role models are also living life for the first time.
There was a time when I thought adults had answers.
That they moved through life with a quiet certainty I just hadn’t reached yet.
But now I see it differently.
They are guessing.
Adjusting.
Trying again.
Just like I am & just like you are.
There is no moment where it all clicks into place and stays there.
There is only the next decision.
And the one after that.
And somehow, that feels less scary than it used to.
8. Doing things on Friday night, after work.
It sounds insignificant.
But it stretches the weekend in a way that feels almost rebellious.
Like you’ve found extra time no one told you about.
Highly recommend.
9. Drinking Beer.
This is less of a personal breakthrough and more of a biological plot twist.
Bud Light Double Lime, specifically.
I won’t be explaining further.
I thought growing up would feel like becoming someone new. But more than anything, it feels like noticing.
Noticing the patterns.
The habits.
The ways you’ve been moving through the world without questioning it.
Keeping what feels like you.
Letting go of what doesn’t.
If this is what 25 is, I think I’m starting to understand why people say it changes you.
Not all at once.
Just enough to finally see yourself clearly.
xoxo - Sanshira
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