Letigio: Almost 30 and still good for nothing

I am 27 years old. Three years from now, I will be 30. I should have been working towards a settled life. But right now, I think I’m still good for nothing.

A comic strip released by Singapore-based Facebook page the Woke Salaryman gained a decent engagement on Sept. 20, 2022.

It tells the story of a 50-something father having a conversation with his 28-year-old son.

The father tells his son, who still lives with him, that the latter is living an easier life than he was in the 1980s, during which he had to work two part-time jobs while raising a family until he could afford to buy a house at 28.

The son claps back, telling his father that the economy of the ‘80s allowed his father’s generation to invest in more properties as compared to the current economy that is crippling the working class with high rent and cost of living.

Amid the father-son argument, a roll of toilet paper enters the scene, taking the role of a mediator and discussing the difference between the current economic situation and the 1980’s economy.

The toilet paper says that the father had lived through a time when Singapore was economically unstable and the risk was always high when it came to individual and family-based financial decisions.

The son, says the toilet paper, is living in a highly technological and global society where he has to compete not only with his fellowmen, but also with the entire world in order to succeed.

The comic strip hits me to the core. As a woman in my late twenties, I feel a massive pressure to put my life in order before I turn 30 years old.

When they were my age, my parents already had two children and full-blown careers. By the time I was born, they already had their dream home.

It worries me that at 27, I have dedicated much of my life to building my career but it still remains insufficient to build a substantial investment for my future life.

This is partly because I chose a low-income career in the media. The other factor that affects my current state is the economy, which from the start of my working career has faced challenges, including the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

Half of my working years had been spent in the pandemic, the biggest challenge the world has ever seen in at least a decade.

Despite the economic woes, many of my peers have seen success and stability in their chosen lives, leaving me with a sense of dread that I am left behind with a still unsettled life.

My mentor, a handsome millennial from Cebu’s upper society, once told me that he no longer remembered his age because it’s not important information that he had to store in his memory.

He needed that space for thinking well ahead for the future.

I believe my mentor is around 34 to 36. I greatly admire his philosophy, and I am profoundly envious of his way of thinking that age is of no importance to him.

I dream of the day when I can say that I no longer remember my age because it’s not that important anymore and to feel unburdened by societal expectations of where I should be now in life.

For the time being, I can only take one step at a time.