Discontentment loves company

Time is running out.

That seems to be the undercurrent coursing through the various conversations I've been having with friends. Everyone seems to be talking about how we're nearing 30 and time is not on our side anymore. I can feel the anxiety as well but yet also exasperation.

Sometimes, when alone, I actually admit to myself that I feel grateful. I may not be successful, married, or rich. But I feel grateful because there were junctions in my life where I might have made the wrong turns and ended up worse.

Maybe others, too feel grateful to be alive. But when we come together to talk, all the discontentment and insecurities start to crowd out everything else. Discontentment about our career, lack of money, single status, aging....why can't we ever talk about things that make us feel happy?

I have very little but I know I can get by. But the grumbles and complaints sometimes make me shame-faced, like how others are worried about their future but I'm still being indifferent, insensible, maybe unmotivated.

How strange that our daily defeats can be shared so readily and easily, that discontentment should be our common conversational currency. But after writing this out, I've come to realise something...you only let your guard down with people you trust. That they fretted at me may actually be that they trust me with their insecurities. That I wouldn't think any less of them despite their fears, their cynicism, the same way I wish they wouldn't judge me in my moments of discontentment.