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Love. I'm pretty sure every generation looks at the younger generation.
Be like, this is so different from what we went through when we grew up.
If you're too young.
I'm just kidding. For those of you who are listening who may be a little younger.
I didn't have unlimited texting until junior year of high school, and that is with a regular phone that wasn't even with a smart phone.
Can't wait to graduate.
I can't wait to start driving.
I can't wait to have my own car.
I can't wait for freedom.
I can't wait to get out of here.
Why do you think that we chase this next step in life?
If we do not check ourselves, it's very easy to wreck ourselves.
I feel for my younger self.
And I feel for younger kids these days who feel the need to grow up faster, to change how they look.
Are we not part of the youth anymore?
We are not. It's okay, we're young at heart.
That's what matters.
I just know baby. Welcome to voice hugs, A podcast on being your best self and embracing all seasons of life with open arms, this is your host, Vivian and Rebeyla.
Happy October. Can you believe it's October already?
How time passes. Time is flying by.
Time flies when you're having a good time, am I right?
Yes. Oh yeah, sure.
Sure, speaking of time… This episode that we are about to explore and embark on is tied to this topic and idea of time.
We were inspired by a friend who shared this topic idea.
She saw on a TikTok video how younger people these days, specifically in maybe elementary teenage years seem to be growing up a lot faster than when we were in elementary school and in our teenage years.
Some examples, 10 steps, skincare routine, full face of makeup, going to school.
Waking up at 4 a .m. or like 4 .30 to do all of that and get ready for school.
Like a morning routine, which I'm sure is influenced by Get Ready With Me, like That Girl routine, you know.
having a routine in the morning and there's a lot of younger girls doing nice and sexy TikTok dances i was like wait what are you saying and dressed a certain way crop tops yeah it's cute it's cute there's nothing wrong with any of that there really is nothing wrong with any of that yeah it's just very different and i really can't wait to talk about this because what it was like when we were in elementary school and when we were teenagers and what we were doing on social media it's totally different i can't wait to talk about skincare makeup with you as well.
there is literally nothing to talk about.
none. none. anyways so this conversation, i'm excited to talk about how it's kind of like the grass is greener on the other side.
we always want what we can't have. when we're young, we want to grow up so fast, and then now that we are older, there's almost this feeling of like wanting to stop time a bit.
i don't know if we necessarily want to go back in time, but definitely time is flying by so much faster and there's this feeling of wanting to at least hit like a pause button.
Because if we want to see what's trendy, I think like we just describe what's trendy for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, I think what's been trendy for Millennials is cute things like Sanrio characters or things that we grew up with that's like coming back in style like Bratz dolls and just these random things that it's like when you see them now you're like wow, it's such a blast in the past and I can't believe this was my childhood but you feel this like affinity towards it and our initial hypothesis was that oh maybe it's because you know when you're younger you want to grow up so badly anything that's
something that both of us can relate to and we'll definitely dive into that and then now that we're older even though we may not relate to this one as much but it's like when we're older like you just want to be young or you want to stay young so it's this interesting dichotomy of wanting what you don't have and And we wanna just talk about all this today.
Yeah. Before we get into the episode, it's always so hard for us to ask for help and support, but we would so greatly appreciate your support if you have been loving voice hugs so far.
Few ways that you can support us is subscribing, following us wherever you listen to your podcast, Spotify, Apple, leave us a review, thumbs up the video.
So, we would also love to hear from you, whether it's comments on YouTube or Spotify or sending us a DM on Instagram.
We love chatting with you guys and greatly would appreciate your support.
It helps others find voice hugs and together we can spread more hugs all around the world.
Also we have cards!
We have greeting cards on www .VoiceHugsPodcast .com.
It helps makes this podcast possible.
Yes, it is a labor of love.
Yes. We are not making any money from this.
No. No, you're not But with your support we can keep going All right.
So let's talk about what it was like when we were a little bit younger I am curious.
You said earlier that there was this feeling of wanting to grow up.
Yes, sir What made you want to grow up faster and what did that look like for you starting at what age?
I think it was Was having a bunch of cousins and siblings around i think like when you're really young you want to grow up because you want to hit the height limit to be able to go on rides at theme parks or at carnivals the very sketchy carnivals or like disneyland because now it's like we have friends who have kids who are just so distraught and sad every time they go to disneyland because they're like i can't write this right yet um so they have to stop sit off to the side so i think from a really young age it was more of that and seeing the older kids get to go on rides or they get to go to
Six Flags like my cousins and you know my parents are being like year a girl and then you're too young for that just things like that I think initially it was more just a desire to want to feel a part of something and to be able to join in and do these things I think when I got to high school was when it became really like really like I just want to get out here what what about high school did you want to escape or leave from I probably had more of a unconventional youth I mean it's not unconventional but compared to my peers I went to a very competitive and mostly predominantly Asian school so a lot
of people were studying a lot of people were getting 5 .0 GPAs out of a 4 .0 how with AB classes if it's weighted yeah weighted gps and then meanwhile I'm like struggling and barely maintaining a three -six weighted but I think my priorities were just different I just wanted to have fun like this is so interesting because now that I'm with a significant other who is like older like first child he's the only child but he's also like first child takes care of business I have realized that I'm such a I still am and I just want the baby to just do everything for me no but I think when I was in high school
as a second child my brother was doing the APs he was doing well enough at this point and so I was like I'm just gonna have fun you know I don't have as much pressure my brother got a handle like don't worry about it so then I would start like going to parties and hanging out with friends like my current group of high school friends that I still see now We're all gonna go grab dinner over the weekend They were my high school friends essentially like I Started hanging out with them when I was a sophomore.
So like a second year it was their senior year second semester So they already got into colleges.
They're already graduating so they could have fun They they earned the right to have fun me as a sophomore second semester I was about to be a junior that was when it mattered most, but I did not care So then had the best time going to parties going to raves.
And then when they graduated, and I became a junior I was like, oh, this sucks.
I have no friends here.
All my friends have left. It is just me like it really was, you know, like in Mean Girls when Katie eats her lunch in the bathroom stall like it felt like that.
Even though I knew everyone at school and you know I had acquaintances and all that it just no one felt like home or like no one felt grounding and so that was the main reason why I was like I can't wait to graduate I can't wait to start driving I can't wait to have my own car I can't wait for freedom I can't wait to get out of here and I also felt like it was like having grown up in the same city with similar people that you've known kind of your whole life even though we have a pretty big school the graduating class is over a thousand people but at the same time I was just like I can't wait
to get out of this bubble So that was me like really wanting to grow up.
What about you? I can relate to the second half of that of like wanting Japana picture I am an only child and then I grew up in a house with my three cousins and they were younger than me So in some ways I was more like in your brother's role or like your significant other's role I was not the baby.
Like I felt like I'm the baby now Yeah, I I desperately wanted independence.
The moment I could get my driver's license, the moment I could get my permit, I did it.
I could not wait to get my first job and to make money for myself.
Oh yeah. Oh my God.
So you can stop asking for your permission.
Yes. I think something about just being younger, you're starting to see what you like and what you want to do but you're restricted by your parents.
You're restricted by finances.
And so there's this sense of like, I want to get to that place where I can finally live and do and be.
I don't know if having like a sense of responsibility was just something that made me feel of value like worth.
Having people depend on me or like being able to handle life felt like something that I really wanted to be able to do.
So going into college, it was more or less the same.
I could not wait to graduate.
and again make money I think making money was a huge part of like me wanting to grow up financial independent yeah because then you can finance the rest of your life like you can enjoy these experiences without having to ask for permission it's interesting because even though we are talking right now about how much we wanted to grow up it feels so different than what is happening currently with the youth and how you are we not part of the youth anymore we are not.
It's okay. We're young at heart.
That's what matters.
I just thought baby I'll just be the theme of today's episode.
I think to go back to what you just said and like to paint a better picture because we kind of we talked about our experience and why we wanted to grow up but it's very different from what's kind of happening these days on tik tok and the things that you see on social media.
So I recently saw a real is probably a tick tock that got onto a reel of like a thing a fourth grader waking up again at like 4 .30, 5 AM to do like skincare routine, makeup routine, like concealer, foundation, a little bit of eyeshadow.
Like it looked natural.
So it wasn't too, it wasn't like a full beat.
And then she would like make a cup of coffee.
You're in elementary school.
You need coffee like from like a Keurig.
And then she would prob...
I think she like would get dressed and do all these things too and like do her hair.
And I'm just thinking, first of all, like again, there's no shame in doing that.
We probably had friends who did do that.
like maybe in high school, I can understand that like as a young girl, like you're not even a woman you're literally a young girl to feel like you need to do that to feel yourself like I can't imagine because we already grew up with so much insecurities and doubts and just growing pains as a child like you know we all go through these things but to have this added layer and expectation that you need to be this thing that you see on social media too Yeah it actually makes me feel really sad thinking about it because I think every year is precious, right?
But I think like I don't know maybe I have a soft place in my heart for like kids.
Your skin, your mind, your everything like a part of me wishes and like hopes for people to just be as they are and enjoy the now and I can understand the type of pressure or what you see on social media and how that influences you.
I think a lot of us we try to there's this idea of wanting to be a better version of ourselves and I think we get influenced by what we see whether it's on like media or around us right like we strive to be this better version of ourselves but it's hard to navigate that when you are young because first off this always blows my mind I just remember learning this maybe two years ago that like our brain is literally not even developed until it's like 25 -26.
My brain still doesn't feel developed.
25 -26 was only a couple years ago for us.
Yeah, you know. So I feel for my younger self and I feel for younger kids these days who feel the need to grow up faster to change how they look or to be like this better version of themselves that's like more polished that has like a routine instead of just enjoying the now because i think the better version is also when you're young it's inevitable that it'll just be superficial or it's more like external like how you look how you dress how you present yourself and there's nothing wrong with that because we're trying to find our style we're trying to find you know how we fit in to friends and to
society so that's all normal but i think like i'm pretty sure every generation looks something younger in generation and be like this is so different from what we went through when we grow up but when we were growing up it like, oh, everyone's wearing Hollister and Abercromby.
Okay, I'll wear Hollister and Abercromby.
Right. But I genuinely did not know how to put on makeup until high school.
No, no until college and I did not use skincare until probably college.
When I say skincare, I mean like a very harsh cleanser like Neutrogena and a two in one Aveeno Radiance face lotion that also doubles as sunscreen.
Yes, I remember those products.
Yeah! Yeah. Just like from CVS. Yeah, I didn't wear makeup until college.
Even then, like makeup now versus makeup then, so different.
The only skincare I remember using in high school was Proactiv because I had so much acne.
I think, like nowadays skincare is such a fun thing, like it's a routine.
You like, you have all these really cute products.
There's also been a lot of innovations within skincare too, and beauty.
Yeah, but like, in high school Proactiv was something that I was like ashamed of.
If you were on proactive, you had acne.
It's just so different.
Like, I feel like I'm totally we're just aging ourselves here.
But like I didn't even have an iPhone until I didn't have unlimited texting until junior year of high school, like 17.
And that is with a regular phone.
I wasn't even with a smart phone.
So thinking back to those days, it was simpler in some ways, but also just so different than what it is now, Cause the most popular social media platforms at that time was also MySpace.
MySpace and then Facebook.
MySpace in middle school.
We still use MySpace in high school.
Oh yeah maybe actually.
Yeah cause it was Top8.
I just remember there's so much drama.
So Top8, I don't know if we talked about this on the podcast before but if you're too young, I'm just kidding.
For those of you who are listening who may be a little younger, who doesn't remember MySpace, there's this thing where you can organize, you can showcase your friends.
top eight friends yes and then you just move them around and it caused so much drama between girlfriends and also girlfriends and like crushes so if like three girls like the guy like - liked one guy and he changes them like i would be like number one and then i go on a camp or go on a trip and come back and find that he replaced me with like another person so trivial now that you think back but back then it was like the end of the world so that was the type of social media that we grew up with and I would say the essence of myspace back then and just the culture of it too was it was a lot more
grunge and emo there's a lot of like scene looking the hair yeah girls who had like really cool hair at least I thought back then where it's like you would dye chunks of like sections of it of glass yeah but it's like kind of like a skunk like vertical oh I don't remember this no anyway it's just like you would dye your hair these like vibrant colors and different chunks would have different colors.
I'm glad that my mom never let me do that, but that was just kind of the landscape that we grew up around.
I feel very lucky that we still grew up with enough time to be bored.
Instead of shooting TikToks and Reels back then, we would just be doing things on our camcorders or on like the photo booth.
We would do like the silliest things.
My friends and I would draw dots on our chins and then lay on the bed and just like cover the rest of our like our nose up.
So then it looked like a little mountain talking and there's like viral videos like this on YouTube before that you would copy.
Yeah, I wish we had all this footage from back then, it's all lost. Before we continue with the episode, we want to drop it and share something very special we've been working on for the past year.
We designed a set of greeting cards with a hope to spread more hug hugs around the world one handwritten card at a time.
having written each other warm and fuzzy happy tear inducing birthday cards for the past decade Viv and I realized how meaningful pouring our hearts out by hand in this heavily digitized world can still be.
perhaps it's the intentional act of sitting down and trusting ourselves to share deep gratitudes or even feelings we've yet to properly express in person.
either way we want to encapsulate this hugs personified feeling for us all.
our first collection includes five stinking cute thoughtful and creative greeting cards that can be sent to your loved ones throughout any season of their lives.
Wink wink. You can find these cards on voicehugspodcast .com.
Back to the episode, get into your body's vitals with the vitals app on Apple Watch. The vitals app tracks key overnight metrics so you can spot changes in your health before you feel them.
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Priceline! Why do you think that we chase this next step in life?
Nowadays there's just so much information everywhere.
There's more exposure so there are more pathways that you're exposed to of, oh, you can be living like this way.
You can be like this routine.
You can be looking like this.
I think it's just this very human desire to want more as a society whether you want to chalk it up to capitalism or what have you I mean to be fair, this specific saying really grinds my gears because I'm like okay then what's the alternative?
If it's not capitalism, what is it?
Is it communism? like do we want to talk about that because I can talk about it forever Just a little tangent, a lot of kids our age and younger haven't lived through the other side of what capital like the opposite of what capitalism is so then they just like throw things out and just say things that they've heard other people say but it grinds my gears and then we can maybe talk about in the future but anyway i don't know it's like it's just whether it's through advertising whether it's through lifestyle whether it's through like aspirational stuff from like even way before our time right before
there are cars there's horse carriages and you would be comparing yourself to like, oh, like their horse is better or their carriages a little nicer.
Or it's like the American dream and like when refrigerators started becoming a thing and like, you know, the white picket fence be was like the American dream, right?
You will look at your neighbors and be like, Oh, they have more.
So I want more too.
So I think there's just this innate human desire to want more and then it could manifest in all these different ways.
Right? Like you want more and how you look, you want more and how you appear to others.
you want more in what you have or what you don't have, or your education, or your career, or in your family life, or in your whatever life.
So I think fundamentally, if we do not check ourselves, it's very easy to wreck ourselves.
And get lost in this rat race that's just literally never gonna end.
It makes me think about how like when we talk to people who are older than us, I think like aunts and uncles is what is coming to mind.
the advice is always like, Oh, enjoy your use, you have so much time, like, enjoy it.
And it's interesting, because I don't think we're old.
Some people might think we're old.
But wherever we are in that stage, that idea of wanting more makes us look into the future, right?
It's like yearning for something that we don't have yet.
And so wanting that it ends up being a chase, that whenever you're chasing something, right, you're trying to go for something that is no longer being in the now and enjoying the now.
And it's interesting how we do that to ourselves because time just seems to be passing by so much faster than it did when we were younger.
Just even like the idea of being bored.
Like earlier when you're saying like, I'm so glad that we had time to be bored, man, I wish I could be bored now.
I wish I had time to be bored.
Yeah, bored not tired.
Right? There's a difference.
In some ways, even though it's so nice to have so much information, to have all of these things at the tip of our hands, you know, being able to call Uber Eats, to have food delivered to us, I think stripping all of what is now away and just simply looking at us as human beings.
I really miss just being friends with your neighbor.
You know going over to drop off some pie that you made because you picked it You picked a pumpkin I don't know where I was going with that But there's like the simplicity of life is what I'm trying to save them if you actually might have a pumpkin farm I don't know.
No, this is actually so cute because I was at my uncle's place We're like in the middle of just hanging out with the whole family and he gets a call.
He's like, oh my god I need to pick it up.
It's Mary Beth I don't know if that was her name and he's like oh like I'm gonna go pick it up and then he picks up and then they talk on the phone and she I can just Hear her voice.
Like she's like, would you like some chocolate cake?
I just baked a new cake and I can only eat one slice of it and my uncle's like yeah Yeah, yeah, you know we have we have family over just bring it over and then he like goes and he actually disappears for like 15 minutes and he comes back.
He's like, oh, you know, she's just telling me about how she got a new oven She's just trying it out and it turns out to be his neighbor, his literal next door neighbor, who's like in her 90s who just like is into baking and you know just wanted one slice of a chocolate cake and she gave the rest to us and like it's like such a simple but human experience that, I don't know like you don't do that in apartment buildings.
We're so caught up in wanting more and seeing what other people have that I often forget.
there's so much opportunity simply around me to strike a conversation.
When I think about voice hugs, for example, right?
I'm thinking about like, oh, I want to reach people all around the world.
You know, I want to connect with people and create this kind of community.
And sometimes I forget that there is opportunity for connection right here.
IRL. Yeah, like right here with my mom, with my dad, with my cousins.
And instead of wanting more — not that I don't want this like, of course, I want this, but it's taking that step back and thinking about what do we have now that we can appreciate and we can pour more love and energy in instead of chasing something that we feel we don't have and we want because that will always be there, but right now, will not always be here.
And I, yeah, I think that's something we often forget.
If you guys didn't listen to my solo episode about gratitude and seeing the world sparkle again, I think that was the thesis like the main point that I've also realized that presence really can help you change your life because when we are present, we're able to think about these things and we're able to ask ourselves these questions of do I really want all of these things?
Do I really need all of these things?
Do I really want to grow up?
Do I really want to grow old?
Do I really want to stay young?
And all that. So I think kind of going back to like your beginning question, we grew up obviously very differently from the past generation and the previous generations that came before us and now that we are Older and our peers are I mean not just our peers if you just look around right here our apartment like this little potato man Bunch of smiskies of like I love cute things.
I'm a sucker for cute things Like I wouldn't say me acquiring these things these cute little dolls and trinkets and decor is me wanting to stay young forever but I think there is this argument that could be made that when you're older you want to be young, right?
so now that we're in our 30s and a lot of our peers I think even us included there's just this rise of nostalgia for things that we used to grow up with and loved I love Pompompurin Hello Kitty!
Yeah, from Sanrio did you have a favorite character?
I liked Hello Kitty and Pachaco Yeah, Choco is so cute.
A cute doggo and now you have two doggos.
Yeah, there is this rise of nostalgia and I think we've grown old enough to see a lot of trends that were popular in the 90s kind of make their way back.
So within this framework of now that we have grown up, are you satisfied?
Like, do you still wanna keep growing up in the speed and the, you know how when we're young, like in high school you're just like, I just wanna grow up, I just want to go to college, I just want to make money.
Do you still feel that way?
Definitely not. I definitely don't feel like I'm chasing something anymore.
At the same time, I don't feel like I want to stay young forever.
Like I, okay something that happened to me when I turned 32 and I swear it happened the day after I turned 32 was I started noticing fine lines on my face.
And the reason why I found out is because I was taking a selfie with my dogs and when I took the selfie I was like, I smiled and I just had all of these fine lines like where my eyes are and where my forehead is.
I remember it feeling like, whoa, this is different cause you can't get rid of it, unless you get Botox, right?
And like, this is my skin aging and the first couple of months I was actually pretty bummed out about it.
Yeah and I was like.
Interesting, this is news to me.
I was like, oh this is I understand filters now and I'm not on Snapchat So I don't have those filters and I really just don't take that many photos of myself So when I did have these photos, I was like dang this really sucks more recently I think I've just felt very grateful for where I currently am and how much I've grown I think the other day I was driving and I was checking my face before I left and I saw my little wrinkles and I actually genuinely felt like they were pretty like I was like Oh wow, like this is so different than what I felt a couple months ago when I first turned 32.
And that was very reassuring for me because I don't feel like I've hit my prime.
I mentioned this in the last episode, too, where I feel like life shouldn't feel like you've ever hit your prime.
So if you if you feel like you've hit your prime, there's only like you only go down from there, right.
And I think realizing that there's so much more that I'm looking forward to And I am finally feeling happier where I am.
Even if the circumstances is not exactly what I want it to be.
It was just so reassuring to look in the mirror and be like, you know, you look great, these wrinkles have stories to them.
Yes, they're smile lines, it means that you lived a happy life.
Yeah, and so I'm not chasing anything and I don't want to go back.
Though stopping time is something that I do feel like I'm struggling with in the sense of, it feels like I'm living more in my mind sometimes rather than being present and seeing how the world is already sparkling as is.
So paying more attention to that is definitely what I want to do.
Really quick note, if you haven't listened to Viv's solo episode about silencing the voices within, living in your head.
It's a great episode too.
Thank you. Recently, someone in my office actually passed away and I didn't know her.
she was leaving, like, she was retiring, so had a full career at the company and she passed away, like, a few weeks into her retirement and that really made me think about life and it's always like that, right?
It's always like something happens, death happens, someone gets sick in your family and it makes you change, like, your perspective in that moment, but we easily lose it.
I think I was reminded that we all cannot escape death and we all will one day say goodbye to Everyone that we love it sucks that it takes that kind of a reminder To get into the place of like the present moment and being grateful for like what you do have But that has definitely been shaping how I'm seeing myself and how I'm approaching my early 30s Not my 30s.
Yeah, we're not there yet to kind of give some context to when it comes to like chasing the reason why I think this impacted me so much is I have been planning for my retirement since I started my career like for retirement funds and so it's really ridiculous because instead of enjoying the money that I'm making now while I have this body while I'm 32 while I have you know the friends and family here around me I'm planning for something that's supposed to happen 20 years from now and I think imagining myself what if I'm not there 20 years from now, that was kind of scary for me and made me realize, you
know, it's actually all we have is right now.
And bringing it back to the present and enjoying the fine lines that I have today versus the fine lines or the deep lines that I'll have 20 years from now, that is so much more important for me than trying to, like, chase something that I'm not there yet.
Two things came up, you realized you are you have four retirement funds.
And this is actually something interesting because I also yeah I don't I've just been watching so many reels it's wasting my time and me mom like I wish time would stop but I can just utilize my time better but there's a reel about you know people who are in their 50s and 60s who slaved away their whole life to get that retirement fun I think it's like the fire movement I forgot what the acronym stands for but it's basically like something something retire early but then even then it's like as you why would you not why would you but it's kind of it's just a trade -off right it's either you enjoy
it now and you work longer or you grind now and you end but then when you enjoy it like you physically may not be able to enjoy it as much or you may not be able to travel as freely because you have physical limitations so with that being said now that you kind of realize this is there anything that you're hoping to do or that you're planning to do with this realization?
I mean, just in general, because I feel happier.
Wow, that's crazy to say.
I feel happier in this year.
I just want to live my life now.
Back to what you were saying.
It's a balance, right?
We do want to plan for the future.
If we're in our 20s, we do want to plan for 30s.
If we're in our 30s, we do want to plan for our 40s.
So there is still a sense of responsibility.
I don't think I have a problem with that like I've always been extremely responsible for me.
It's finding that balance of relaxing having fun Spending my money now while I can and not all of it.
No, no, no I'm not exactly like just for context you're going from like not spending anything to spending a little bit.
Yeah Yeah, and then also just thinking about the people that I can spend my money on and it's like they might not always be around forever and so what can I do now and how can I be more open and present and giving, I think with myself and with especially like the people that I love.
And another question was we were talking about how in our youth we really wanted to grow up really really fast and we were chasing all of these things and then we talked about how now where we are you're feeling more comfortable realizing presence the beauty of that where between this timeline do you think what changed and what helped you shift from caring so much about wanting to grow up to kind of like accepting and embracing where you are?
if there's a turning point i think it was a gradual change but i do think that maybe around the time we started voice hugs I think voice hugs have been a very huge blessing and learning opportunity for both of us because it requires for us to be present and to reflect often.
That was the year that my stepdad also got sick, so I think whenever we lose someone or something that is so important to us, it's always a wake -up call.
I think even for you experiencing grief at a younger age, It makes you appreciate life so much more.
It really sucks that we forget in our daily lives that being present is so important and just the gratitude for the now is so important.
I wish we could all do more of that, I wish I could do a lot more of that but I think when you start to see the people around you age, when you start losing loved ones or hearing about people losing loved ones, it makes life so much more fragile and real in your mind.
Again, with someone passing away at work, it made me even more sure of some of the decisions that I've made in my early 30s and to continue the path that I want to live for myself.
That's very beautiful.
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I am curious with your thoughts about like aging and growing older each year.
Do you feel like you are still chasing something or there's this desire to like be younger or like stay younger than we are now?
I think overall we share very similar sentiments with you know, why we wanted to grow up when we're younger and now that we're older, like being more comfortable in our own skin and embracing presence and the finality finiteness of life so yeah when I was younger like ever since I was ever since I could remember cuz you know how at one point when we're super young birthdays were always for the most part like a very fun thing especially if you have a big family because like all the cousins get together there is cake all the kids yeah it's an excuse to hang out and you blow out candles And I think
there comes a point where you start to feel not necessarily like I never felt that way But then people around your friends around you would be like like I'm getting older like why am I getting older?
Like I hate getting older and I think maybe it became it becomes more of a thing in high school in college It's like when you become more conscious of your age, and I've always Remember thinking oh, it's such a blessing to be able to grow old Maybe because I was so fixated on growing up faster and wanting to graduate faster and do all things faster and be independent faster growing up to me was like a great thing because it means I'm getting closer to, you know, whatever it is and every new year brings a new year of growth and new year possibilities and I've grown so much from where I was and I
will continue to grow and that possibility has always been very charming and endearing to me even before I went through loss But I think especially after going through loss, it became an even stronger positive reinforcement that truly it is a blessing that you get to be alive that you get to live another year, that you get to have the problems that you have and have the insecurities that you have and to be able to go through the things that we all go through as humans and to be able to try to make the best decisions that we can even though sometimes they might not be the best, especially when we're
younger but I think as you mentioned definitely helped put things into perspective of..
at one point I was just so sad all the time like I didn't know why I was so sad all the time I kept longing for the past that has already gone and I kept projecting my life into the future thinking about like all these things that are making me anxious not realizing that it's truly happening because I'm not present I think learning about presence and..
I think this is just like the beauty of like online stuff and you know being able to listen and hear other people talk online We really didn't come across this principle of presence until like late into our college No, no, but no but actually right like mid mid 20s is when it like you can hear about these things But to really have it sink in so I think there just came a point where after graduating I was like, let me just live my life.
There's this quote that, oh my god, I'm so sad.
I don't remember the full thing.
It's basically talking about the saddest thing in life is to just exist versus living.
I think like a lot of us just exist, and then we're just going through life and it's on autopilot and we just kind of go through the motions.
Existing is very different than truly living and being happy and being present.
so that was like one thing that like reminded me also of what you said that quote did not hit at all maybe we'll put it on the screen for those of you who are watching and another quote that..
these are all just things I like pinned or reposted on my tumblr another one was just like being grateful for what you have now because like everything that you have now is what you like have longed for so just be grateful for like what you have currently and not to be so fixated on wanting more so anyway, that to me, I remember when I first read it in college I was like, wait, that's so true like I was in a relationship with someone that I really liked and you know, like things ended up working out and I'm at a...
you know, I was able to transfer to like a better college and you know, I have freedom and flexibility and all of these things But then at that time, I was sitting at my desk being like, Oh my God, why don't I have more?
So like in that moment it helped me realize like, Oh wait, like everything that that is around me was something that younger me wished for.
So now that I do have it focus more on being grateful for what I do have rather than focusing more on all the things that I don't have. Cause it just it just keeps going.
Again it's a rat race, it never ends, right?
you always want more you get the car or you get the promotion or you look at the girl and then but there's more there's always more yeah and then I think like when you look back to you're always like dang times were simpler then or like I didn't appreciate what I did have then or there's regret that you didn't spend time with so -and -so or you didn't say this to so -and -so and like it doesn't - it's not that they necessarily had to have passed away it's just might have been an ex it might have been a close friend who you lost Yeah, definitely.
So what advice for yourself and for myself would you share?
Because I think there's a balance between, we all want more, right?
I think it's a natural instinct to want more and want better and want to improve.
How can we find a better balance in still being responsible, still wanting the things that we want while being present, while being grateful for what we have now?
Cause I think that's the billion dollar question here.
I think the thing is priority and like what we prioritize.
Cause I think being where we are now, having lived enough to have enough data points to kind of remember, Oh, when I did this, during this time in my life, I was really happy.
And when I did that, maybe I wasn't that happy, right?
So we've accumulated enough experiences to know ourselves well enough that you know these are the things that are important to us and from the just the necessities of a human being right from physical health mental health food in our stomachs you know shelter whatever all of that also like spiritual health and you know all of all the lees financially physically romantically all of that i mean this is why we do the exercises Rowena puts on YouTube every New Year right?
it's to pick what three to five things we want to focus on for the year and I think it's very okay to want more for yourself but I think where it gets a little tricky is what it is - what do you really want more from yourself?
if it's from like a spiritual perspective or a self -betterment perspective of sometimes you really just need to do better objectively like you know you can do better and so you want to do better and then you do other times you're being very hard on yourself and then the voices in your head again, Viv's solo episode on that is really really really amazing that also is listening to yourself and being like why?
like why? why do I want more for myself?
is it because.. is it coming from a place of like comparison, shame, guilt?
am I just badgering myself for no reason or is it warranted?
so anyway.. I think to kind of sum all of that up I'm just babbling know what you're working towards and why you want more I mean this is what we talked about in every episode, right?
but to truly know that I think that will help drive everything else because I think even just what you've shared so far this episode of because you've reached a great..
like a better place you're much happier you want to enjoy life a little more than you have it's okay to spend time and money on some of the things that maybe you like did not let yourself have before and so I think at the end of the day we're all..
if we're already responsible enough like we'll continue being responsible we're not gonna like completely go out of our way and blow our money and just start living under like a new identity and like do all these things, right?
so I think it's trusting yourself enough to know that you'll make the right decision so long as you are being true to yourself So I think something that really stood out with what you shared and something that crossed my mind as well is I think first and foremost, making sure you have your basic necessities met.
A lot of times we can't even think properly if we are in a position where our basics are not settled, right?
And I think when I was younger earlier, I was talking about how much I wanted money and how much I wanted to make money.
And I think that's because growing up financially, it just felt like that was what was restricting me from like being okay like feeling okay.
So once I got there, that was when I was able to dream more and like think more.
So I think like first step is really figuring out what your basic needs are yourself and then going from there.
What value does that tie into like yourself?
And does that meet a need of yours or is that just this external want that's influenced by society, or social media, or seeing what your friends or your older siblings or older cousins are doing.
Is it something that you truly want?
And perhaps it is because you want to fit in at the time, right?
It all really just varies with your age and with your circumstances.
Every one story is going to be slightly different, but I think just relating it back to what your needs are is going to be a good place to start.
Yeah. And I think that's why we love Treating ourselves to cute little things Right.
It's less about I think for us at least is less about like wanting to stay young and it's more about yeah, like now that we are in a place in our life where we can't afford these little Luxuries in our life these little blind Boxes and go to arcade games and not have to ask our parents or like we can go to arcades and not have to ask Our parents for money.
Yeah, the day I realized I could do that I was at Atlantic City with my friends and with James there's this game that just like you can drop these pearls down and then the pearls kind of like push themselves out and Then anyways just this this like pushing game that it just looks so fun.
So I just wanted to play and At one point I was like, okay Well, I've used up all my coins and my friend goes oh if you're having so much fun We can just get more coins and I was like, oh we can't get more points we spent another $50 oh my gosh but then that was like such a like beautiful moment where you kind of taken back to your childlike self with the child like wonder that you see the world through yeah I love that so no matter where we are in our life right now whether we're on the younger side of the spectrum or whether we're on the quote unquote older side of the spectrum.
It doesn't really matter.
I think so long as we remember that there's sparkles to be seen anywhere and everywhere, that is the meaning of life.
Wow, we just uncovered.
Wow, amazing. Yeah, well, we hope you guys loved this episode.
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