So, What Are You Up To These Days?

 

It’s perhaps the toughest question you can be asked—especially when you’re (still) in the trenches.

It rarely comes from a place of genuine concern. More often than not, it feels like a subtle weighing scale:

  • To see if you now qualify for alumni hangouts.
  • To check if you’re finally “corporate” enough to join their investment clubs.
  • Or if they can start adding you to wedding committees and sending pledge cards.

It’s rarely about you. It’s about where you stand in the unspoken race of life.

So, what are you up to these days?

How do you even respond?

Do you tell them you’re dodging the landlord’s calls and texts?
That you walk 15 kilometers into town to hand-deliver your 100th job application—because the cyber café guy has started charging you on credit?
That you’re applying for a master's scholarship—though God knows what you're hoping to master at this point?
That you’ve gone days without food, and your name is in the credit book at the neighborhood shop, restaurant, and, yes, even the bar?

Do you tell them the truth?

That you're registering your 10th company, hoping it finally works after burying the previous nine?
That you printed business cards with “Founder & CEO” on them—but the company doesn’t even have a bank account yet?
That you rented land and planted maize with all the optimism you could muster… and then the rains never came?

Do you smile and say, “I’m keeping busy”?

Because the truth might be too heavy for the setting.

That question—"So, what are you up to these days?"—has become a sort of rite of passage, especially for those of us navigating the wilderness of our 20s and early 30s. It's loaded. It’s not just curiosity. It's an audit.

A silent exam:

  • Are you successful yet?
  • Can we finally respect you?
  • Are you still struggling—and if so, how much?

And it hits deep because no matter how polished someone may look now, everyone remembers a time when that question made them feel small, uncertain, or exposed.

The irony is that most people are grinding quietly, trying to build something out of nothing, facing real battles behind curated social media timelines. Life is hard. And society still expects us to have shiny answers—even when we’re just trying to stay afloat.

So maybe the better question should be:

How are you holding up these days?

Because sometimes, just surviving the day is a win.

And if you ask me that?
With genuine care, no performance required, no checklist in hand?
Then maybe, just maybe, we can have a real conversation.

 

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