Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could lie on your deathbed and have the answer to this question be NO? To be able to say that you have followed every dream, trusted every gut feeling, followed all of your own advice, made every change, and been the leader of every revolution you set out to lead?

There are different tragic realizations you hit at different points in your life. I am at the “time is moving with a frightening speed”- realization right now. There are just not enough seconds in a minute, minutes in an hour, hours in a day, days in a year, years in a lifetime, etc. Or maybe there is. Maybe there is just enough, if you work well under pressure.

I will most likely have said more than I have done. I say A LOT. I am full of words. I spew words like dragons spew fire. And some things that I have set out to do are just plain unrealistic. Like for instance moving to a desolate island, becoming the president, and only allow people who are less than five feet tall to move there so my short stature complex won’t be triggered. On my island, everyone will be given free health insurance and free education and a daily hug and a cookie at the castle (my abode). The only thing I will not allow is bone extensions. That is strictly forbidden.

And now I see that that is unrealistic, and so I have had to let that go. It’s as simple as that.

I will do whatever I can to make sure that my time here is not wasted. At the same time, I also have to accept that sometimes things don’t turn out the way you planned… sometimes you are forced to go down another route, one that might delay you. Some things you will have to compromise on. Some things you will change your mind about. And I think, honestly, that most of us have the absolute best intentions… and while we might not all be able to change the world on a larger scale, it is about seeing the difference we make on a smaller scale, and accepting that as being valuable, too.

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I am currently participating in the “50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind”-list from Marc And Angel Hack Life.

(I started this entry fifteen billion years ago, but never got to finish it. Ever since I became, well, let’s call it immobilized, it seems like all I got is time.)

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Out of all of the questions, this has been the most difficult question to answer thus far, because isn’t the answer to this question terribly individual? That is why this entry is going to seem a little half-assed. The subject is just too broad and comprehensive for my little morphine-dazed head at the moment.

Truthfully, I know some people who have made a decision long ago to only do things that they find to be fun, rewarding, and have managed to avoid any compromises that work in their disfavor. They have worked hard to get to a position that allows them to pick and choose, but the road to getting there hasn’t necessarily been one that they didn’t enjoy. That’s why the answer to this question is so hard to define, because not everyone has this problem.

But, luckily for this entry, yours truly often find herself doing stuff she doesn’t really want to do, and very rarely gives herself permission to do things she enjoys, so I guess my life is pretty suitable as a point of reference when answering this question. Whoop-dee-doo.

In my case, it is a mix of being a people pleaser and an emotional masochist. No. KIDDING. In all seriousness, I am a very conscientious person. If people expect something of me, I do it, and I guess I don’t believe it is possible to lead a totally compromise-free life without stepping on somebody else along the way. I find it difficult to give myself things, because it makes me feel guilty. I just shopped for clothes online for the first time recently, and the act of shopping FOR MYSELF felt like such a milestone in my personal progress that I dedicated an entire entry to it in my journal.

We do things we don’t want to do. because it feels like we have to, because we feel obligated. Obligations — I personally wouldn’t want to live life without them. In life, you have to make sure that there is constantly a steady balance between the two poles, and that is in every regard and every field in life. It is all about the attitude with which you do things.

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I am currently participating in the “50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind”-list from Marc And Angel Hack Life.

I have spent my entire life trying. Trying, trying, trying. Trying to go to school, trying to stay in school, trying to make friends at school, trying to dodge the sticks and stones every day all day forever amen.

I failed it all. It took me seven years to set foot in a classroom again. Twenty-one years old. It makes sense… every seventh year is a new milestone. I was fourteen years old, when I was finally able to convince everybody that I couldn’t handle it. A message I had tried to get across for so long. I tried to deal with what was considered the absolute banalities of life and I failed. It sounds so cliché on the Internet, but most things do – have you noticed?

I waited seven years before I tried again. Other than wanting to protect myself from the pressure of having to co-exist with people who seemed to speak a language from another planet, one of the main reasons for the long wait was the fear that I wouldn’t be able to handle it and thereby fail, AGAIN. Having hope and then having it be crushed in front of everybody seemed ten billion times more horrible than just admitting defeat and living some kind of shadow-life.

I have always had a lot of willpower. Of course it’s nowhere to be found now that I am trying to diet, but in general, I can make myself do a lot of things. I really needed those seven years of escape as a kind of personal rite of passage, and holy shit did they give me a lot of strength and courage and experience. As did failing to begin with. I learned a lot of things about myself, too, like the fact that I am the kind of person who tries again.

And then I went back. And tried again. I got back on the horse and it hasn’t thrown me off yet. Yet. I am almost done with my second year of school, I am now speaking the same language as everybody else albeit with a slight accent that will probably reveal to the most perceptive of the bunch that this whole business of existing used to be pretty hard for me.

So this story had a happy ending. But the truth is that I live by the philosophy that every day is trying. Every day that you decide to be alive is you trying. That’s a decision you make for yourself every single day. Do you want to live? If yes, how? By not trying ever? Life requires chutzpa, every day, all day, amen. Trying and failing are as intertwined as Siamese-twins. They need each other in a way, and here is why. You can’t fail without trying. But the only way you can make any sense of your failure is by trying again. Our failures are like bricks that will eventually path the way to the best situation for us.

So to the answer the question of which is worse, failing or never trying, I would rather know in my heart that I have tried, really tried, than having never put myself out there at all.

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I am currently participating in the “50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind”-list from Marc And Angel Hack Life.

Little Sofie, circa 1991-1992.

I recently read a blog post by my favorite blogger in the whole world, where she talked about spiritual ages – our inner ages. Her mother had told her that she believes we are all born with spirits of a certain age, an age that represents us with all its charm, for better or for worse. That is just who we are, that is the age of our soul, and no matter how far time will have us scroll down to find our birth year in a dropdown box, our inner age remains static. That post made a big impression on me, as it verbalized every thought I have ever had regarding growing older, only much more eloquently.

And then I thought… less than three months from now, I will be turning twenty-three. I am not sure how I feel about that. I know I feel fortunate to have made it this far; not everybody does. I also know that twenty-three will most likely feel exactly like twenty-two does.

The sociologist Erving Goffman said that all individuals have roles that they step into when needed; that we all alternate between existing “frontstage” and backstage. Fronstage is where we play the role that we are expected to play in the given situation, whether it be a patient daughter, driven student or somebody who is totally in tune with being almost twenty-three. I think most of us play those roles better than we think. I also think most people who know me would be shocked to find out that the girl who from her earliest childhood has always thrived in the company of adults, who has never been financially irresponsible, who you can always trust to do the right and responsible thing, whose shoulder kids can always cry on, who you can ask to keep your precious jewels safe for you, wakes up every morning and put twenty-two on like a suit.

Then I venture out into the world and give them what they expect, when really, I am just a young person who has gotten older. That’s all.

It’s a role that I play every single day, this role of a twenty-two year old who has everything under control. Who thrives with the responsibility. Because I have always been so responsible. And it feels like one big charade, this game we are all playing. The award goes to the one who can play the role with the most conviction.

I think everybody believes that my inner age and my physical age are finally matching each other; that I am finally where I have wanted to be for so long. I no longer stick out with my interests or my maturity. Twenty-two should fit me like a glove, in every way.

But the truth is that if I close my eyes, I am still eighteen. I am fourteen as soon as I walk through the door to my apartment. I am both thirty and thirteen when I look myself in the eyes, amazed that I know myself so well and yet not at all, that I still have all of these things to learn. I am fifteen when I sit in the evening deciding whether or not to do my homework, and fifteen when I look at my boyfriend and my stomach gets filled with excitement and butterflies. I am sixteen when I dance. I am sixty when I choose which detective shows to watch, and forever twenty-one when I choose which nail polish to wear.

I am five years old when I cry.

But in my soul, I was born eighteen years old, an inbetweener. Always an inbetweener. A Gemini, where one twin is playing with Polly Pocket and the other twin is having conversations about politics and Kirkegaard and past Danish queens.

So perhaps nothing is ever static. Perhaps everything is static. Perhaps every age has left such an impressionable mark on me that I will keep a little bit of them all inside of me forever.

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I am currently participating in the “50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind”-list from Marc And Angel Hack Life.