Peace: A Birthday Reflection (2025)

Thinking about my life since my last birthday, I’ve concluded that if there’s one thing I’ve come to realize about this life and my own morals, it’s that you need to have peace with yourself and the life you are living above all else. Everything else comes after.

My priorities have shifted since that period of my life, which was spent stressing about how my life changing radically after graduating college would change me. I fearfully clung to what I knew about myself, trying to stay grounded in those certainties rather than feeling excited about the prospect of discovering new things about myself. I wasn’t at peace because I didn’t know who I wanted to be, and therefore who I would become.

My concern now is that I won’t change enough, that I won’t grow, and that I will stay stagnant in this version of myself for eternity, paralyzed and uncertain, allowing the fear of what others think of me or their expectations to control my decisions in this short life.

My mom always told me that I have to know what I want, the unspoken implication being that as long as I do, most of the heavy lifting has been done, and I won’t have a problem getting there.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning what I want in life, and that’s the point. As long as you know what you want or who you want to be, you can make a plan toward achieving whatever it is. Change isn’t as scary as long as you know what you’re working toward and that it’s what you truly want.

For now, I’m building a life where I am constantly growing, challenging myself, and shaping something day by day that I can look back on and feel at peace with—the decisions I made and the person I consciously chose to be.

Here’s to getting closer and closer to knowing what you want, birthday by birthday.

May 3, 2025