Stay: to continue to be as specified, to hold out or endure, to stop or halt.

The last month has not gone well for me.  My 25th birthday grows closer by the day and I am nowhere near where I thought I would be at a third of the way through my life. For the most part, my disappointment is derivative of social expectations and my lack of lucrative accomplishments but I am struggling to feel adept when I am constantly surrounded by 'successful' people. I feel vulnerable, scared and extremely small.

For all intents and purposes, I am small, I am just a number on a screen, I am just another name on a page. I am counting down to a personal milestone that literally no one else in the world gives a shit about, so why do I care?
Who am I really comparing myself to?
When do I find that 'dream job' we have been told about since we were kids?
What is the point?

Last night as I sat feeling like I had been pooped out the anus of life, I ate my third meal for the day, I sat in front of a lovely warm fire and went to sleep under a stable roof. I woke up this morning and drunk my speciality plunger coffee and spread Marmite on my Chia and flax seed toast that cost $4.49 a loaf. I had a hot shower and put on warm, dry clothes, then drove to work.

The point is, that although I may be turning 25 (in 2 months and 11 days) and I do not own a house or have a job that would make my parents brag, I am fortunate. I am on my own path that is not dictated by girls on Instagram with bikini bodies sitting on tropical beaches. I will not succumb to a completely consumerist and privileged lifestyle because that how western society ranks the elite. I am humbled by my gratitude and vulnerability and happy to take my place in line. I know that we are not just given the life we want, circumstantially or otherwise, we have to work for it.

"If all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbour's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own."
— Herodotus (The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus)