Keyvan Nayyeri

Looking in the past is usually nostalgic for many people including myself specifically in the past few years after passing 20 as I ought to waste much time for things beyond my power like the military service.

One of the advantages of having an old blog like this is the opportunity to go back and read your own archive to see what has happened in your life, and how you’re changed! Yes, it’s now the fifth time that I am writing about my birthday on this blog. It means that I’ve been blogging here non-stop for the long and important era of 20-25 when many things happened in my life. I began blogging when I was 20 and today I become 25 to hit one of the important points of life! By the way, it may be interesting to go back and read my posts for 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th birthdays!

A few months ago I read an article about aging and feelings that come to a person from a psychological point of view. In that article the author had mentioned that there are some milestones in our lives in which we go back and review what we’ve done. Such milestones are 10, 18, 30, 40, 50, and 60.

We all have some goals and plans for ourselves and less or more try to achieve them. For each milestone we have different types of demands. For instance, at 30 we may be looking for education, job, and relationships, but at 40 we may be looking for family, kids, and their future; however, at 50 or 60 we may be looking for the same stuff that we had in our 20’s or 30’s, but for our children. The author has mentioned that each of these eras are like an stage of a game and if our achievements can’t satisfy us, then it’s like a Game Over because neither we can go back and change them, nor our age and new demands allow us to continue trying for the same goals. Therefore, if we don’t get them by that point, we’re failed and this brings sadness and a bad feeling.

Although 25 is not such a major milestone, it’s an important point when you leave the first half of the youth with some characteristics and become mature in some aspects. There are some teenager-like behaviors that you start to leave and some higher demands you start to have. You also learn to put closer goals to reality that are achievable for you in regards to your qualities and time.

I always hope that I don’t have the bad feeling of failure at abovementioned points especially at 30 that in my opinion seems to be the most important and sensitive milestone. To now, I’ve been satisfied with what I’ve done specifically when I consider my geographical location, the environment, and all the limitations imposed by the surrounding world, and contrasting it with the fact that my achievements were also very high that mark me as one of the special members of this society. I’m already at a point where many others like to be at, but just speak about it. Of course, no one is perfect and there were some parts that I could act better.

The most notable difference between my situation in the past 25 years and my current situation is that in the past, I mostly used to be stuck with classic stuff, the stuff like education or conscript that were coming to me one after one like they come to others, but this time I’m on my own to decide and feel some kind of freedom for myself.

Fortunately not only I earned good knowledge, expertise, and skills from the past, but also could get much experience from all the difficulties that I faced with, and I’m happy to say that I have more experiences than the average of the youth at my age, at least in Iran. This softens my path in the future and helps me make better decisions and achieve my goals.

Speaking of the difficulties that later helped me earn much experience, the conscript was one of them. Most likely you can remember that how difficult it was for me to pass my days during the service, but now it turns out to be an influential part of my life that indirectly helped me learn many things. Last year I celebrated by 24th birthday when I was very close to the end of the service, but now I’ve been able to adapt myself with the new life, and see things from a better perspective. When I compare myself with other people at my age, and see the huge differences between us, and the fact that I’m far ahead of most of them, I believe that after all, it was a positive yet an arduous part of my life specifically as it trained me in a relatively long time to work hard and resist.

But some good stuff happened in the past year in my life that I can share here. I completed the military service after 20 months, and since then have been recovering myself. It can be seen from my photos and the smile that is being expanded on my face! Besides, I could publish my fourth book that I co-authored with Simone for Wiley/Wrox and seems to be one of the best titles in this field. As I stated before, there is a high chance that I stop writing books for a few years and concentrate on other stuff. I used to be one of the youngest (even the youngest) author for this publisher as I wrote my first book at 22. I also had some resolutions for 2009 and luckily have had good progress with them. I could have more fun, gain a much better fitness by losing 22 pounds in less than two months and exercising, and fortunately, leaving some fancy noise on the web.

There isn’t much to say for this year except the fact that as always, some unfortunate events and issues outside my realm didn’t allow me to achieve everything that I had planned to achieve, but I hope I can overcome them in the future.