[tealBumblebee]

Where were you at 26 years old? What had you accomplished? Where were you living? What were you doing? Were you working? Still home? Moved back in? A parent? Married? Were you happy? Were you stable? Did you have true friends by then? Did you know your purpose in life? Were you right/wrong?

What were you doing when you were my age?

I have no way of knowing where I am supposed to be at this point in my life.

[i dont matter]

26 certainly has come and gone.........

But what I did or did not do should not matter to you. You are your own person.

It is a trap to do comparisons - because you can always find someone who is: smarter, richer, better-looking, more "successful", more likeable, more kids, more .........

And the fact is - you do not want to be me. You are a perfect you. I love the lyrics of "All of me"........ "your perfect imperfections". It is so true. It is the things that are different about you that someone will love. We are not robots, we are not all alike - and we should not be.

You are you. And you should be LOVED for that fact.

[regretful]

At 26 I was getting ready for graduate school...Thought I knew what I wanted to do; now, at nearly 49, I've unraveled to the point of depression. I don't know how you figure out what you want to do. If I could go back I'd have done a lot differently.

[monkeybrains21]

26 I graduated art school. Finally after 3universities I finished and had a degree. I was a full time student and full time employee. I slept only about 4-5hr a night and not much has changed on that front. My partner and I had a small apartment and were looking for a house. We had one 2yr old car with high payments and one beater jut like now. I had cut ties with my father. My mother was on the verge of being cut as well. My older sister I thought was coming around to the reality I what our childhood really was but in the end she remains delusional and self centered.

My partners niece was born and we were constantly taking weekend trips to her brothers house to spend time with the baby and help him around the house. I had begun going to therapy initially to learn to control my rage. Now 2yrs it I am being treated fr severe anxiety, severe depression, and have finally come around these last few weeks to accepting I have PTSD.

I no longer have my old friends I thought were friends. They were bad influences as had no drive to go anywhere. Now my partner and I have mutual friends that have jobs and dot live at home with their parents and have jobs.

I still don't know what the reason of life is. I'm a very rational and logical person. Right is right and wrong is wrong. I don't believe in dbl standards although I know they exist and it drives me mad. I dislike my job most days as the company I work for do not use logic or any rational argument in the way they conduct business. I would love to paint canvas all day. I'm extremely abstract and my paintings are always one of a kind that I could never replicate again.

I would never say I'm a stable person now or then. I still have a lot of things to work through and I have to do it very slowly so I don't break under the weight of it all. I'm not rich or very well off, mine and my partners jobs pay the bills and student loan debt as much as we can and we don't have much extra after. We r finally able to be married and we will be this yr, that will end any final ties To my family. They r right wing republicans and against everything I am. Not to mention they will no longer be next of kin and will not be authorized into my life in any way. Especially if I die they get nothing and my partner receives everything.

[Bluesday]

On the outside, my life looked pretty normal. I was in college, had a decent job at a bank, and rented a nice big house with my roommate who was also my best friend. Inside, however, I was plagued with anxiety and depression.

I miss the forgiveness of youth. Back then, society approved you just for going to school or holding any kind of job at all. Years later, in your 30's and 40's, you feel more of a societal pressure to be a "success" and raise a family, have a great job, always drive a new car, and vacation like a celebrity every year.

It all just feels like such a hassle. If life is a roller coaster, I just want the ride to stop already.

[nummy]

At age 26 I was struggling because both my parents had just died, I was seriously depressed, just overall a very bad year.

I wish I had had the strength to finish college, that has really haunted me.

[phaset]

Where were you at 26 years old?
Living in my hometown, I am still there.

What had you accomplished?
I had finished my BSc the year before.

Where were you living?
I had just moved into my own apartment living alone.

What were you doing? Were you working?
Yes, I was working, doing computer stuff.

Still home? Moved back in?
I had moved home after dropping out of university a few years before.

A parent? Married?
Nope.

Were you happy? Were you stable?
Not at all, I was convinced that I wouldnt make it through 27.

Did you have true friends by then?
One, but she didn't live anywhere near me.

Did you know your purpose in life? Were you right/wrong?
No, and I still don't.

I wasted so many years before asking for help.

[-jimi-]

Around then I finished uni without a degree because of lack of credits, with loads of student loans. I lived in a small apartment. Had lost a long time friendship. Made a new one that has lasted. Accomplishments? Written a crappy novel. I was extremely unstable and anxious, had just started crappy treatment that I regret I did.

[Perna]

I was 26 in October of 1976. I graduated college in June of 1972 into a bad recession. I had no self confidence and did not get a job until September, when I filled out the form at Sears Roebuck (did not require resume, background, etc.). I lived at home (made $95 a week, $5 more than high school graduates since I was a college graduate) until the Spring of 1973 when my stepmother called me "stupid" one time too many.

I found someone who was advertising a 2 bedroom rental house to share (she had just gotten out of the Peace Corps) and I moved my living from my room at home to my room there. I hated working at Sears, it caused a great deal of anxiety and was wholly different from my life before which had been being in school. I had grown up extremely sheltered and though I had worked summers in college, I never had to share/use the money I made to support myself in any way. My house mate turned out to have a drug problem and started acting bizarrely and decide not to renew her lease, etc. so I was given notice to move out.

My stepmother went around with me, apartment building to apartment building and we found an efficiency apartment I could barely afford (and which she and my father had to secretly cosign for without my knowledge/consent). I lived there for the next 13 years, was terrified I was going to die there. Through a friend of my parents I got a better job at the Pentagon/GS-3 clerk but that necessitated taking the civil service clerical test. I had taken the professional test at the end of college but Vietnam Vets got an automatic 5 points extra and, because of the recession, everyone and their brother wanted jobs with the Government and there weren't enough to go around so you had to score really high in the first place. I was only a "B" applicant at best back then. Anyway, I passed the clerical test okay and got calls from other agencies interested in hiring me, a novel experience for me (that someone wanted me) since the Pentagon job was being "held" specifically for me pending my passing the test.

I took that job and there were no roses because I was supposed to have shorthand for the job and I did not. My department head was overly familiar/paternal, and he would tell people on the phone, "I have a girl here who rides her bike in every day from the Zoo!" (my apartment was 3 blocks from the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.). My department sent me off once or twice a week (still in the Pentagon, it is a VERY big place :-) for shorthand training and I did miserably at it. My boss, a brilliant Harvard grad lawyer my age with no charm/looks/sex appeal whatsoever (he was single, short, balding, and roughly pear shaped with a nasally voice) would read what I was writing upside down and correct me :-)

In a couple years (around when I was 26) there came to be less work to do so I sat around being bored, there was no chance of "moving up" and coworker friends were moving on to other jobs/leaving so I started looking for another job and got the one I stayed with the longest of my career, a non-profit I stayed with for 8 years, until the mid-1980's. My salary in that 8 year period went from $8500 to start to around $21,000 (shows you what the 1980s were like, remember, this was a non-profit) and I learned a great deal and made some contacts, had my first relationship, and started therapy with my "good" therapist, etc. Life started to turn around/take off in 1985 (when I was 34/35) and I haven't looked back.

At 26 I was married with one child and had been teaching full-time for about 4 years. I was pretty stable at that time, probably because I was still very busy and early into my career and marriage and motherhood. Instability came later when I settled in more.

[doyoutrustme]

This isn't a race to keep up in. There is no one way to live life.

It's a good idea to set goals for yourself and think about ways to achieve those within the time YOU want.

[trying2survive]

Originally Posted by tealBumblebee

Where were you at 26 years old? What had you accomplished? Where were you living? What were you doing? Were you working? Still home? Moved back in? A parent? Married? Were you happy? Were you stable? Did you have true friends by then? Did you know your purpose in life? Were you right/wrong?

What were you doing when you were my age?

I have no way of knowing where I am supposed to be at this point in my life.

i had my first son and was renting an apartment and an auto mechanic at the time

[ncrust]

I was a student and pretty happy. Age is not related to happiness, I think, but the goal in life and understanding the meaning. I am a Christian and believe deeply. That gives me peace. I know and believe where I am coming from and where I am going. Hope you find your peace too.

[CompleteNerd]

Originally Posted by tealBumblebee

Where were you at 26 years old? What had you accomplished? Where were you living? What were you doing? Were you working? Still home? Moved back in? A parent? Married? Were you happy? Were you stable? Did you have true friends by then? Did you know your purpose in life? Were you right/wrong?

What were you doing when you were my age?

I have no way of knowing where I am supposed to be at this point in my life.

I suspect you are at the low end of the 26+ range. What you need to know is this: times have changed but cut cliches and conventional wisdom has not caught up. There are some very thoughtful responses here to your post and my advice is to savor the good ones and take them to heart.
The cliches and conventional wisdom will get you stuck in an unwholesome and unproductive mode of living. You may get "lucky" and find a job financially rewarding and suited to your talents, but if your endeavors in this job are not suited to the core of the good being that you are (and you, and only you can make this judgement), then you are better off jumping the plane because you just might be on a fast road to hell.
The hope in the fact that times have changed is this: you have a lot of time, and many lifetimes in your lifetime to reinvent yourself. Spend time in joyful learning and production in things that interest you and things you are curious about. Be human. Be you. You are the only one who can succeed at that and if you try sincerely, i guarantee you that you will not only find happiness, but you will bring it to other people.

[ChipperMonkey]

Stop comparing yourself to everyone else.....

It seems like most others miss this in that they are giving their age 26 life stories.

But seriously, who cares where anyone else is? Comparisons only drive you nuts.

People look at me at the age of 34 and think I have nothing, that I have gotten nowhere. But the truth of the matter is that I've been through more crap at my age than most people go through in a lifetime. (None of it brought on by myself.) Thus, to compare is fruitless.

There is nowhere you *should* be at any point in life. Learning to live in the moment is a hard skill to master, but I suggest it highly. That way, no matter where you are, you can be content with where you stand.

[avlady]

i know myself i had a good 26, but like the others said don't compare yourself to others. Live in the present is what my mother always tells me when i start talking about the past, of which i like to do some reminising. also i think of my future, but that does me no good either because i'm still not in the present. Live for love is what i say and you can't go wrong.

[Jolisse]

At 26, I had just gotten married to my first husband. This is when my nightmare began!

Dear TB,
Although everyone who has been 26 can answer your questions but the responses would be sharing their experiences in their own way. These may be and may not be relevant to you. I believe that as humans living amongst people and functioning in societies, we have the opportunity to either follow the established paths and well-trodden roads or walk our own journey. So it is up to you as Robert Frost wrote in his poem, the road not take:

Two roads diverged in a wood and I;
I took the one less travelled by;
And that has made all the difference.

The difference (whether good or otherwise) is left up to us to decide and choose…

Originally Posted by tealBumblebee

Where were you at 26 years old? What had you accomplished? Where were you living? What were you doing? Were you working? Still home? Moved back in? A parent? Married? Were you happy? Were you stable? Did you have true friends by then? Did you know your purpose in life? Were you right/wrong?

What were you doing when you were my age?

I have no way of knowing where I am supposed to be at this point in my life.

[Lemongrab]

I turned 26 this year. Left my hometown to study further in the city. After 3 months I couldn't take it and decided I was returning home the moment I was done with my course. I am now back home. I was living with my brother but he has Aspergers and severe OCD and threw me out after a week and a half because he can't handle having other people in his space. I am now living with my boyfriend in my mother's house.
I want my old job back, and my old boss has offered me her business as she is selling it at the end of the year. I don't have the finances to buy it so I don't know what's going to happen there. I have no assets, medical aid, saving funds or retirement fund. My dad is supporting me financially until I get a full time job. I am desperate to achieve financial independence and I hope this will happen before I am 30.

[lovesdogs99]

Someone that is very close to me is 26.
He still suffers from depression and thoughts of suicide.
He isn't married, doesn't have a girlfriend.
He lives with his friends and has a job at pizza hut!

[tokiwartooth]

I was in grad school, getting ready to drop out. I never finished it. I was extremely unhappy, living in a place I hated, trying to please professors and advisors who didn't give a crap about me and did not have my best interests in mind. I had a mental breakdown in September of that year, I was abusing Vicodin and alcohol, and I had to get a sh***y job to help make ends meet. Moved back in with my family because I couldn't make ends meet. This was in 2009. You don't want to be me. My emotions are still broken, I'm still extremely depressed, the only things that have changed have been moving back to NC and starting a job in my field.

I was 26 years old 24 years ago.

I was married and mother to a 4 year old and a 1 year old.

I was a stay-at-home-mom. Very much into being a homemaker.

My children and I spent a lot of time with my mom.

I had completed 2 years of college.

I lived in a rental in a middle-class neighborhood.

I was teaching Sunday school at the synagogue I grew up going to and was becoming interested in Buddhism, meditation, mindfulness. I was seeing a psychiatrist for bipolar and anxiety issues.

That's about it.

[no more me]

Follow your heart and gut feeling. They will take you anywhere your supposed to be and remove you from anywhere your not ment to be. The biggest mistake I made at that age was thinking I was supposed to do what everyone else was doing. I wish I would have learned: to be free means to be me, no matter what anyone else thinks,feels or says.

[tealBumblebee]

Thanks everyone for your responses! I appreciate the nice comments, etc. I don't want to 'compare' myself but I just don't feel like I am where I want to be. I've read letters I've wrote to the 'future' (now present) me and I realize I never knew really where I wanted to be. Or how to figure it out. Or to where I should be. I'm understanding more and more the value of life (not that I even want to take a chance at living it) and I went from not wanting it to not knowing how to live it, to savor it. From everyone's descriptions, it seems that 26 wasn't really a "blissful" age for anyone but most importantly, not a good tell of where one will be later in life.

[i dont matter] I appreciate your kind response. Reading it almost in the moment that I wrote it, it literally brought tears to my eyes.

[regretful] You said if you could go back, you'd have done a lot differently - what are some of the things that seem so obvious now that didn't seem as obvious then that you want changed?

[monkeybrains] You sound a lot more like where I'd hoped to be at this point. Even if not necessarily happy, just - more stable/independent and with a job. *sigh* I, also, can't imagine a life with the ties of my family cut, though I greatly would like to cut a few.

[Bluesday] It's ironic that T and I talk about my life in the terms of an assemblage of roller coasters. But many of the rides are incomplete, and stopped mid-ride... I'm not excited to know that the rest of life is just more of the same.

[nummy] I'm sorry to hear about your struggle at that time and how it still haunts you.

[phaset] Have you ever wanted to live outside of your hometown? Did making it to 27 make it any different? What kind of help did you end up asking for?

[jimi] I think it's pretty awesome that you wrote a novel. Especially so young.

[Perna] What an interesting story. Thank you for sharing.

[1914sierra] Sounds pretty nice before the latter misfortune.

[doyoutrustme] I find it extremely hard to set any real goals - maybe because I don't want to deal with the disappointment of them not being acheived but also partially because I feel like there are so many things in life that I don't know about to even want to try to acheive.

[trying2survive] Way more accomplished than I at this point. Good for you!

[ncrust] I understand age is not related to happiness. What, though, do you attribute to that?

[CompleteNerd]I am a few weeks short of being right in the middle of 26 and 27 (which sounds a lot like 30 to me). "You have a lot of time, and many lifetimes in your lifetime to reinvent yourself." I try my best to live by this idea but lately it hasn't been getting anywhere.

[ChipperMonkey] I understand what you're saying; I just want to feel life I can believe that there is no "should be" place in life.

[avlady] Thanks for sharing.

[Jolisse] I'm sorry to hear that!

[Alfred.Mayor] Well i'm definitely making my own path but how do I know that it's going somewhere/anywhere?

[Lemongrab] I think i'm kind of in a similar place as you are at this point; oddly enough this is comforting. I want financial independence and to learn how to live independently in general before 30

[Emma] 26 doesn't sound like that great of an age to be in for your friend.

[tokiwartooth]

[Sister Rags] That sounds relatively accomplished!

[no more me] My heart tells me to do things in my own time and not to conform to societal rules, but my gut tells me that in the process of doing things in my own time - i'm actually not doing much of anything at all but wasting it.

[phaset]

Originally Posted by tealBumblebee

[phaset] Have you ever wanted to live outside of your hometown? Did making it to 27 make it any different? What kind of help did you end up asking for?

I lived in a different city the first time I went to university, I wanted to get away from my parents. The only reason I think about moving now is for a better selection of work, but only if I was to lose my current job.

No, 27 wasn't much different.

Last year, when I was 34, I told my doctor that I wanted help with depression and he sent me to my therapist who I really like. I started medication a few months later. I mentioned to my therapist last summer that I thought I had Asperger's and went through the process of being diagnosed.

What about you? What is going on with you at 26?