If you're not getting better, you're getting worse.

Entropy is a son of a bitch. If you're like most people, you get about two decades, give or take a few years, when you're 'growing up.' Physically, mentally, and financially, your first 16-24 years are a rather steady progression of acquiring more physical, mental, financial, and legal capacity. Then right around your early to mid twenties, entropy catches up like the asshole it is.

All of a sudden all of that progression you've enjoyed reverses. You're up to your ears in debt so you get a job that you're likely woefully overqualified for, yet still have to sink 8-12 hours of your day into. You stop walking places, you spend what money you have on shitty food because you're too tired to cook, and you forget what a gym looks like. You suddenly have no time because of your professional and social obligations. You rack up bills for your car, your home, your entertainment, and suddenly you have no money.

Call it what you want, but I call it decay. Entropy grabs you and doesn’t let go.

It's fucking RARE to see someone at 30 who is in as good shape as they were in college, much less better shape.

It's RARE to see someone at 30 writing poetry or doing art for fun, and in college you can't walk to the next building without tripping over a circle of kids doing both at the same time.

You get $20 in college and you're set for a week; a few years later that won't even buy your Starbucks and takeout for the day.

You're getting older, slower, more set in your ways, less introspective, and are taking on more obligations every single day. And all of that holistic natural progression you took for granted your first two decades comes to a screeching halt.

If you're not getting better, you're getting worse.

If you're over the age of 25, your base metabolism will never be any hotter than it is right now. You think it's hard to lose weight now? You think sitting on your ass for the next few years while your body withers from atrophy is going to make it easier?

If you're over the age of 25, your creative mental processes will never be more acute than they are right now. And you're going to wait until you're retired to write a book? Sure, if your book is just a bucket for you to regurgitate everything you've read into.

If you're over the age of 25, it will never be easier to change your bad habits than it is right now. You've smoked for 5 years and quitting is hard? Try it after 10. You lose your temper with your spouse? Try dealing with a kid.

Time is not on our sides, friends. Every time you put your personal development on hold for any length of time, for whatever reason, you slip a little further. You will not have more time later to get your shit together. You're fighting the current at this point, and doing nothing for one day means you have two days of work to get back to where you were.

Start paddling.
Onward...