I turned 25

This read and honestly, any other one would be nicer if you had Juste une chose by Kaky and since it's short you should have next 1er Avril by Kaky playing in the background.

A few days ago, I added another year to my life.

Usually, I don’t really care about birthdays. They usually pass like any other day a few messages, a few calls, a quiet acknowledgment that time is moving. But this one felt different, I'm 25 years old now.

I’ve always seen life as a timeline. From 1 to 25, you just go through life. Most of the time, you’re unconscious. You follow paths that were drawn before you even understood you were walking. You do what you feel like you have to do. People like to say that it stops at 20, but for me, it didn’t. From 20 to maybe 22, I was still vibing. Moving with the current. Experiencing life without fully confronting it.

The second phase of life, from 25 to 50, is different. You can’t live the same way anymore. When you enter that period, responsibilities start to grow. Everything you do has an impact not only on you, but also on the people around you.

Then comes the period from 50 to 75 if you’re still alive loool. That’s when some people look back. They think about their lives and wish they had done certain things during the 25 to 50 phase or they enjoy what they have took time to build and i don't necesseraly talk about money but relationship, family, love.

I’m writing this article at 25 to reflect on what I did in the first phase, and to think about what I plan or hope to do in this second phase of my life. For these reflections, I will try to follow the same pattern that I follow while writing my year-end review reflections by analyzing different areas of my life: School and work, friendship, love, and family.

School and work

When I look back at my academic journey, I realize that I don’t share the common narrative of struggle that many people describe. For me, school always felt more like a playground than a battlefield.

And yet, I wasn’t a particularly disciplined student. I wasn’t a calm kid either. I was restless, often distracted, frequently somewhere else mentally. Despite that, I somehow always managed to get through. Even when I only completed 20% of what was expected, I still ended up passing.

From primary school to middle school, and probably even high school, that pattern stayed the same.

The first time I felt something that resembled pressure was at university. But even then, it wasn’t because the material itself was too difficult or because I struggled to understand it. The pressure mostly came from structure: multiple deadlines, assignments piling up at the same time, and the need to adjust to a new level of expectations.

The same pattern followed me into the professional world.

I started working in July 2020, in the middle of the Covid period. My entry into the workforce was almost accidental. University had paused, and life felt suspended.

My mother had sent me money to cover my tuition for several months. Instead, I spent most of it on food deliveries and random purchases. To this day, I’m not entirely sure what was going through my mind. But when lockdown ended, the reality was simple: I didn’t have the money to pay my tuition anymore.

So I thought, why not look for a job?

I applied to two positions. One never responded. The other did. I went to the interview, it went well, and I got hired. I ended up staying there for four years before eventually moving to another company. And even now, in this new role, things are going well.

Looking at this entire journey, I can’t help but feel that most of my experience with school and work has been driven by what I can only describe as vibes. I followed my mood. I adapted when necessary, but rarely pushed myself to the limit.

I’ve also been fortunate in one important way: most of the things I’ve had to do never seemed overwhelmingly difficult at first glance. That made it easy to adapt, to learn quickly, and to get by without putting in the maximum effort that might have been required.

Friendship

When I think about friendship, two quotes immediately come to mind.

The first one says: “In the story of life, friends are the chapters that make it worth rereading.” And the second: “Friends are the family we choose with intention.”

And when I reflect on my life, I realize that I almost always see it through the lens of the people with whom I experienced it.

I’ve been fortunate to meet incredible people. I have friends I’ve known since I was about ten years old Lune, Aïcha and Maxime. At this point, they’re not even just friends anymore; they’re almost like sisters to me.

I also have a friend I’ve known since we were maybe six years old Raven. We’ve been friends for almost twenty years now.

At one point, I also had an incredible group of friends (Alex, Analberto, Lopez, Ivan, Hurdy) with whom I did all the stupid things of my teenage years. Back then, we were convinced we would stay friends forever. But today, I couldn’t even tell you which country some of them are living in.

And it’s not necessarily something sad or negative.

That experience simply taught me that life sometimes separates people. And if you want to keep certain friendships or groups of friends, it requires intentional effort.

Beyond those people, I’ve also met many others (Elenga). Some were part of my life only for a certain period of time. But those friendships and relationships also helped shape the person I am today.

Even now, I’m fortunate to have an extraordinary group of friends (Tito, Kofi, Phlo, Bertrand, Ulrich, Bachir) with whom I spend a lot of time doing random things, laughing, being silly.

I also have other friends (Cléclé, Rodney) around me, and I would like to keep those relationships. Because, as the quote says, friends are the family we choose with intention.

And I would like to keep choosing, every day, to be friends with these people.

Love

Oooh love. It is a strange feeling. I would say that during this first phase of my life, I’ve been in love. I’ve broken some people’s hearts. I’ve had my own heart broken. And I’ve been in love again. If there is one area of my life where I can say I’ve been truly resilient, it’s love.

And when I think about it, I believe I inherited that from my mother. My mom is someone who seems genuinely in love with love itself. Even at her age, it’s something beautiful to witness.

But this idea of resilience shouldn’t mislead you.

It doesn’t mean I’ve always been a good person in my relationships, or that I’ve always loved people well. On the contrary, I think that for a long time I loved people… the wrong way. There were many things I had never really thought about. I had never considered that you can love someone and still love them the wrong way. I had never thought about the fact that loving someone also means being able to project a life with them. And I had never realized that you can love someone deeply and still be the wrong person for them.

Unlearning some of the ideas I had about love took time. Many of them came from simply observing other people and assuming that what I saw was the right way to love. It took effort to question those assumptions, to accept that some of them were wrong, and slowly build my own understanding of what love and relationships should be.

At the end of the day, love also feels like a long process of trial and error. You try, you learn, you fail, you adjust, and you try again. And I think I’m ready to continue experimenting with it, with the hope that one day one of those attempts won’t just be another experience, but something that actually lasts.

Final Thoughts

After all these reflections, the word that comes to my mind is gratitude.

Gratitude, because when I look back, I realize that I lived this entire first phase of my life somewhat unconsciously. But that also makes sense — when you are a child, that is how you are supposed to live.

Even later on, I realize that there were moments when I took paths that weren’t necessarily the ones I thought I wanted to take. And yet, somehow, I always ended up finding myself on a path that felt like the right one.

I also feel gratitude for the people I have met so far. I’ve encountered incredible individuals. I’ve made connections that, in their own ways, helped shape the person I am today.

I’m also grateful for my parents. They are incredible parents who simply do the best they can with what they have.

And all of this sometimes makes me feel like there might be someone or something greater watching over me, whether I want it or not.

And for that, I am grateful.

And next ?

For this new phase I’m about to enter, I want to make one promise to myself—one promise that captures everything I hope to achieve. Marius, you must be intentional in everything you do. Being intentional means acting with purpose, with full awareness and choice, rather than just reacting automatically or drifting through life.

There’s a quote in my Instagram bio that resonates with me:
"An ordinary person who works hard to design his life" — Jim Rohn.

I truly believe we can design the life we want, and that’s exactly what I aim to do in this phase:

Work as hard as I can. Let’s not kid ourselves money is important, and I don’t want to worry about it in the later stages of my life.
Build relationships that last a lifetime, always being there for my friends and family.
Build a family. If my kids don’t hate me, I’ll consider that a win.
Not focused on building a company or an empire like many people but who knows, maybe that will change someday.

Also I pray for grace. Life isn’t always about hard work. It’s more about alignment, meeting the right people, grace, mercy, and favour.

Before you go

Reading this, you might think that I’m someone very confident someone who knows exactly how he’s going to live his life, what he’s going to do, and how he’s going to get there. But the truth is, that’s not really the case.

For a long time, I believed that the best way to live was to maximize experiences. My reasoning was simple: in the third phase of life that I described at the beginning of this article the one where you look back memories might be the only thing left. And those memories would be what allow me to know whether I lived a good life or not.

Because at that point, memories might be all that remains.

But while writing this article, one name kept coming back to my mind: Bruce Willis. Yes, Bruce Willis, the actor.

He’s probably one of my favorite actors of all time. I’ve watched the Die Hard movies maybe ten or twenty times. And I’m planning to watch Die Hard 3 and Die Hard 4 again very soon.

But the reason he came to my mind is different.

Recently, he was diagnosed with a form of dementia. Which means he may no longer even remember who he used to be.

Yesterday, I was scrolling through Twitter and saw a post saying that he once received one of the largest paychecks in film history. For The Sixth Sense, he reportedly earned around $100 million.

And yet today, he may not even remember that.

That simple fact challenged the way I had been thinking about life.

Because if someone like me wants to maximize experiences and memories, but there comes a time when I’m no longer able to remember those memories… then that whole philosophy suddenly changes.

It forced me to rethink things.

I think a few things remain true.

First, I will probably always have regrets. That’s inevitable. I don’t think I’ll live a life free of regret, and maybe that’s not even the goal.

I will probably continue trying to maximize experiences and memories. But I’ve also realized there is another important factor I should consider: relationships.

I mentioned this earlier when I talked about wanting to build relationships that last friendships, romantic relationships, and the bonds within my family.

And that’s where Bruce Willis made me reflect.

Even if he no longer remembers who he was, the people around him still know.

I know who Bruce Willis was. I know what he represented to me.

And that made me realize that the relationships I build with friends, family, and the family I might create one day will also tell the story of who I was.

Even if I no longer remember what I did, those people will remember me.

But I also don’t want this to become an obsession. I have to accept another reality: people might remember me for one generation, maybe two. If I’m lucky, perhaps a third. After that, most likely no one will really know who I was.

And maybe that’s okay.

All of this may sound a bit confusing, but I think there are some things in life that we don’t necessarily need to understand completely.

Marcus Aurelius wrote Do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life at once.

Sometimes, it’s enough to understand just a little… and simply live.