Meditations on Turning 24
This is a pretty cool life, actually
I had a cat named Snowball,
she died! She died!
My mom said she was sleeping,
she lied! She lied!
Why o why is my cat dead?
Couldn’t that Chrysler have hit me instead?
—“Meditations on Turning Eight” by Lisa Simpson (1991)
On Monday I turn 24 years old. With that, I have entered the final year in which Statistics Canada regards me as a “youth”. I can no longer plausibly call myself a man in my “early twenties”. This is the last possible year I can join the Canadian Armed Forces Primary Reserve Paid Education Program. My prefrontal cortex is about to finish development.
I still can’t rent a car without young driver markups though. Grr.
The age of 23 has been quite transformative for me, more so than any other year in my life, now that I think about it. 13 months ago today I was at one of the lowest points of my life, but now on 24 May 2026 I’m at the best point I’ve been in a very long time.
My life to date has not had much struggle in it, to date, if I am honest. I’ve always had a roof over my head and food on the table. That said, as I crest the age of 24 I find myself still grappling with a few neuroticisms associated with what the APA would call a “scarcity mindset”.
For most of my adult life I’ve been transfixed on this narrative that I either don’t have enough, I will soon not have enough, and/or that there will never be Enough.
Enough money in my bank account. Enough spaces in university course enrollment. Enough friends who care about me. Enough $/kg value on a sack of potatoes at the grocery store. Enough time.
But now I’m at a point where things are different. I’m 24 now and I’m doing okay. I’ve come a long way from my lowest lows. In the short term, I’ve decided to Euromax a little bit.
But in the long term?
Something I’ve learned in the last few months is that I’ve been underutilising this thing we call “agency”. Sammy Cottrell’s piece on agency made me realise that I have the power inside me to just do things. I am an adult male and I can make my own choices. I do not need permission to do stuff anymore. I don’t have to please people or hide my true feelings or put up with bullshit for no reason. I don’t have to do anything at all, actually (except follow through on my commitments and file my tax returns, I suppose).
I can intellectualise this all that I want, but it is takes more time to emotionally grasp these logical conclusions. My spring project, therefore, has been to embrace agency and internalise abundance.
Everything is great. I have everything I need. There is no cause for despair. Lentil soup is delicious and birdsong is beautiful. Things tend to work out fine in the end.
So now that I’m over the hump of unclenching my sympathetic nervous system and allowing myself to take a breather.
In the Summer of 2024 I was a Research Assistant at the University of Toronto; I managed an undergrad RA team and I was overseeing two projects simultaneously. Between that gig and my summer courses I was in a state of constant stress and tension; I found it very difficult to be present and quell my racing mind.
But every now and then, just for a moment, my mind would quiet down just for a moment— temporarily discarding my anxieties about graduating and sampling and lab equipment— and I’d look up over the side of our pontoon boat in the Toronto Inner Harbour and take a look at the trees of Algonquin Island and the skyline of the Financial District, and I’d remember “oh yeah, this is a pretty cool job actually.” And I’d be at peace, just for a few minutes, before returning to the grind.
That’s sort of how I’ve felt in the last couple of months or so. “Oh yeah, this is a pretty cool life, actually.”
And now that I can see that forest from the proverbial trees, maybe I can do something with my life rather than spending my days reacting to my life.
Here’s hoping.