🧠 From “Find Yourself” to “Find a Filter” 🫠📸
How Life Goals Went From Soul-Searching to Scroll-Worthy 📲✨
Once upon a time — back in the dark ages of the 90s — people had something called inner values 🧘♀️.
They had life goals like “be a good person” ✨, “build a stable family” 🏡, and “retire with enough savings to not die in a cardboard box” 📦.
How quaint. How emotionally mature.
How… un-Instagrammable 📸.
Fast forward 30 years and welcome to 2025, where your life goal isn’t about who you are, but how good it looks in a 15-second Reel 🎥✨.
Let’s take a nostalgic stroll through the graveyard of personal growth 🪦, shall we?
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1995: “I want to find my purpose.” 🧠
Translation: I’m confused but willing to do the work — maybe even read a book 📚.
2025: “I want to move to Bali and sell matcha online while manifesting my dream life.” 🍵🌴
Translation: I saw three influencers do it and I also hate working 🥱.
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Dreams Then: “I want to be a teacher, nurse, scientist.” 👩🏫🧑⚕️🔬
Dreams Now: “I want to be a content creator with a skincare line and a podcast about healing trauma I never actually worked on.” 💅🎙️📦
Because why invest in therapy when you can trauma-dump with ring lights and sponsorships 💡💰?
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The Rise of Pre-Packed Dreams™ 📦✨
Forget self-discovery. That’s so vintage 📼.
Now you can pick your life goals from a menu of pre-approved options like it’s a damn brunch list:
Digital Nomad Starter Pack ✈️
Corporate Boss Babe Bundle 💼💋
Momfluencer Deluxe Edition 👶📷
Each comes with a mood board, fake humility, and burnout — free of charge 🫠.
Why ask “What do I actually want?” when you can ask “What would this look like on Pinterest?” 📌
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Life Stages? Who is Disrispectful? 🤷♀️📉
Once upon a time:
20 = exploring ✈️
30 = stabilizing ⚖️
40 = discovering your back now cracks like a glow stick 🦴
Now?
Being 35 means booking a solo trip to Bali to “find your truth” 🌺 — aka ignoring your mortgage 🧾, your screaming toddler 🍼, and your decaying sense of self 🫠.
Life stages aren’t real anymore. Just vibes, escapism, and impulse-spirituality in between paychecks ✨💳.
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No Mirror, Just Filters 🤳
Back then, people reflected on their values 🪞.
Now we reflect on our pores.
Deep questions like:
“Am I being true to myself?” 🤔
have been replaced with:“Does this angle hide my double chin?” 📷
Self-awareness is now algorithmic — if it gets likes, it must be growth, right? ❤️
If not? Sorry, you’re just not “high-vibe” enough ✨🙃.
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The “Aesthetic” Crisis 🌈💫
Career crisis? 💼
Relationship crisis? ❤️🔥
Existential crisis? ☠️
Slap a pastel filter on it and call it a healing journey 🌸.
Don’t admit you hate your job — just say you’re “pivoting to a more aligned path” 🔄.
Don’t admit your relationship is emotionally hollow — post a couple’s yoga pose and caption it: “Doing the work together” 🧘♂️❤️🧘♀️.
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Reality Called. You Blocked It. 📵🚫
We replaced long-term goals with dopamine loops 🔁.
Replaced depth with digestibility 🍬.
Who has time to understand themselves when there are 124 TikToks on “How to get rich with zero effort” waiting to ruin your attention span? 🧠📱
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Final Thought (Don’t Worry, It’s Slightly Depressing): 🫣
Maybe the biggest shift in life goals isn’t what we want —
But how little we know why we want it ❓
Maybe we’re chasing dreams that look good on a screen because we’ve never had a real convo with ourselves that wasn’t interrupted by a push notification 🔔.
But hey — at least your existential crisis will look amazing in your highlight reel 🌅✨.
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Written by Sarcastic Panda, who still believes in inner peace — but only if it comes with WiFi, snacks, and the ability to block people. 🐼✌️
