One of my favorite movies besides Interestellar and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is In Time. It's a 2011 sci-fi drama in which the currency is not money, it's time. It portrays a dystopian society divided into zones from 1 to 12. And as you may imagine the higher the zone the wealthier the people.
The premise is simple, everyone stops aging at 25, and from that moment on, a clock on your arm starts counting down. When it hits zero, you die. The rich have centuries stored on their arms. The poor hustle every single day just to make it to tomorrow.
I've watched this movie at least seven times and funnily enough, now is when it makes the most sense to me. I've come to realize that money comes and goes but time doesn't. It's always been that way, of course, but I genuinely believe we're living in a moment where that truth hits differently.
Being almost 30 has had quite an impact on me. I used to, and honestly still do sometimes, compare my journey with my friends'. I love them, but at times I feel like I'm always behind, like I'm running out of time. The funny thing is, no one is actually asking those questions about my journey. It's just me, putting pressure on myself for no real reason.
I'd also argue that social media plays a big role in this feeling. It has made many of us believe that if you can't hit certain milestones by a certain age, you're a failure. But what gets lost in that comparison is that not everyone starts the game the same way. Some people come in with perks: wealth, good health, a supportive family and a long etcetera. Others start several levels behind. That's not anyone's fault. But it is everyone's responsibility to make the most of whatever they were dealt.
What I've come to realize is that no matter how much I complain about not being where I want to be, complaining is useless. I'm wasting time by dwelling on it instead of doing something about it, and as I wrote before, time is the real currency. The one thing that, no matter what, never comes back.