november 2025
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i turn 21 today.
i know this shows november 2025, but it's actually november 21, 2025 - the day i'm writing this piece.
according to the world bank group (1), the average life expectancy of a vietnamese is 75 years old.
that means i've lived about 28% of my life, and that also means i have 72% left of my life, at least.
that sounds short ngl
people usually say things like "life is short, so try everything now so you won't regret it later."
i think that's only half true.
life, indeed, is short if you zoom out. but if you look at life from a zoomed-in, detailed perspective, then life is super loooooooong.
75 years = 657,450 hours = 39,447,000 minutes = ... (lol i don't want to do more math).
that's hundreds of thousands of hours, and that's also tens of millions of minutes. that's a lot of time.
more than enough to try many things. more than enough to change directions. more than enough to fail, restart, and still have time left.
and when i look back, that's kind of what my life has already been.
at 10, i got into my dream middle school.
at 11, i traveled to another country on an airplane for the first time.
at 12, i made money from my first business.
at 14, i moved to the usa.
at 17, i got a full ride to michigan state.
at 19, i learned how to code.
at 20, i started my first tech company.
none of these were planned that far ahead. they just happened because i tried something, and then something else followed.
now, age 21.
idk what's next, and i believe that's the point.
the future feels uncertain, but it also feels open. like there are a lot of doors, and most of them are still locked, but not permanently—just waiting.
and, the best thing i can do isn't to figure everything out right now. it's to keep trying things.
one year at a time, for the remaining 72% of my life, at least.
img source: unsplash