20 Unique Life Lessons I’ve Learned in my 20s
That are relatable to you no matter your age.
After reading Anne-Laure’s article and Sahil Bloom’s thread, I got inspired and thought of creating my own 20 valuable life lessons I learned in my 20s. I turned 30 six months ago and I believe it’s not too late to write this.
1. You’re going to be depressed more than once, and that’s alright.
In his book, Scott Peck M.D said depression is a normal and healthy phenomenon.
People will be depressed more than once in their lives because it’s a sign of growth and rebirth right after they overcome the depression. It only becomes unhealthy when it’s prolonged and the person never gets over the process.
So it’s alright to be depressed once in a while.
Just make sure you let go of your old self and welcome your new you!
2. Not all friendships will last forever. Only a few will stay.
During our 20s, we have a chance to create friendships with a lot or few people, depending on our personality — how introverted or extroverted or friendly we are.
In the end, not all friendships will stick around. Some will break our hearts, some will only be there during happy times, and some will forget the bonds they make with us after years of separation.
This is normal and it’s part of life.
So treasure those who stay and let go of those who aren’t.
3. Your family will always be there through thick and thin.
If there are people who will linger in your life no matter what, they are your family.
Family doesn’t only mean your parents, sister, brother, or relatives — you can find family in friends, in your partner, in your boss, etc.
They are your people.
And they will always be there for you no matter what.
4. Your career is only a part of life. Never let it define who you are.
I’ve always been a career person and I learned this the hard way in my late 20s. Society subtly influenced our minds on the importance of building our careers, making it the whole part of our lives.
Career is just one part of it.
We should not let ourselves be defined by it.
5. Believing in oneself is a superpower.
Relying on yourself and trusting yourself are superpowers.
Once you create a strong belief system and trust in yourself, you can do anything in this world. You’ll be unstoppable! Although this is easier said than done, it can be achieved through daily persistence.
Build this belief system inside you until no one can destroy you.
6. Choosing the person you want to spend your life with is one of the most important decisions you’re going to make in your life.
This is one of the most important topics we never tackled in school. There was never really a How to Pick a Life’s Partner 101 or How to Recover from a Breakup 201.
Fortunately, a guy named Tim Urban wrote two long-form articles about this topic, and how society blinded us not to put effort into choosing our life partner.
If we only learn it earlier, then maybe there’ll be more successful relationships than failed ones, and happy families than miserable ones.
7. The same shit you love to do right now may never be the same in the next 10 years.
We are constantly changing.
We evolve as human beings, and so do our interests.
So don’t expect that what you love to do right now will still be the same in the next 10 to 15 years.
Finding what you love to do is a lifelong process.
Change is okay. What’s essential is you enjoy the process.
8. Failure doesn’t only happen when you’re young. It happens in every stage of life.
I guess I believed this so well that I thought growing old will give me more successes than failures.
Society told us that maturity and expertise would likely bring us success. It’s kinda true though, but we should remember too that sometimes, things may not go in our way. Some things are still out of our control.
Failed relationships can happen in the early 20s, and even in the late 60s. We may lose our jobs during our 30s, or even in our 50s.
And that’s okay.
9. Everything in life is compound interest — from health to career to relationships.
Have you ever heard the saying, “what you sow is what you reap”? It’s similar to the concept of compound interest.
Every aspect of our lives from health to career to relationships is built by compounding interest. Some only relate it to business but I relate it to life in general. You can write a book for 5 years and get recognition after another 5 years. You smoke for 15 years and get sick in the year after.
Whatever we plant, it compounds.
Then we will harvest the interest later.
10. Self-awareness is your armor in all the battles of your life.
I guess this is the hardest to acquire, yet the most worthy.
It’s the pavement of self-acceptance, self-love, and self-respect. Being aware of oneself teaches us the most lessons we need to know about ourselves.
So be careful with self-aware people. They are dangerous because they can almost win any battles in their lives.
11. Good health is true wealth.
My mother is one of the most overreacting people when it comes to taking care of one’s health.
When I was younger, I hardly understand her.
But I guess, when we get older we learned to accept the fact that our health — mind, body, and soul will deteriorate over time when we don’t take good care of it.
12. Invest in yourself. It’s the best investment of all time.
Go and invest in a place where no one can steal your investments.
Where investments grow over time as you grow. Where you’re mostly sure of because there won’t be any losses.
Only lessons learned.
13. Perfection doesn’t exist. Progress does.
We will never find any perfect person, thing, situation, and circumstance in this world.
Because even the world isn’t perfect at all.
So don’t look for perfection. Instead, work in progress. Work on yourself. Work on the project that you dream to launch. Work on your relationships.
Start even though you don’t feel ready. Start even though you’re imperfect.
14. Learning doesn’t end after school. It ends after your death.
In my culture, there’s a mindset that goes like, “after college, I don’t need to study or learn any more.” Little did these people know that learning goes on even after school.
Learning is a lifelong process. It’s what makes us alive.
We only stop learning after we die. So develop your learning mindset and you will be surprised at where life takes you.
15. Live below your means. Nothing beats a simple life.
If nothing beats simplicity in the context of writing, then nothing beats simplicity in life too.
Try to minimize your things and you’ll be happier. Try to minimize your wants and you’ll be more peaceful.
A simple life doesn’t only save you a dime, but it will also help you find real happiness.
16. Time is the most valuable asset, not money.
We can always earn money, but we can never bring back lost and wasted time.
Funny it is that we are all procrastinators, and procrastinating is one of the problems we (I, most likely) haven’t solved yet with all the productivity apps created in this lifetime.
I’m slowly learning this lesson and practicing to give value to my time and someone else’s time.
17. Being interested is the key to being interesting.
Some people want attention but they don’t know how to give attention to others. If you want to become the most interesting person, learn to be the most interested first.
This is one of the major major highlights in Dale Carnegie’s book on how we can influence people.
So start first with yourself, and then the rest of the world will follow.
18. You can always start somewhere, anytime.
In contradictory to what I found untrue in lesson #8 — failure only happens when you’re young — we can always start somewhere, whatever stage we are in our lives.
If failure happens in our 60s, we can always start all over. We can start our long-lost dream. We can start making our mistakes right. We can start changing ourselves, and so on.
Beginnings can happen in our mid-life or late-life stages.
19. We can create everything in this world. Ourselves. Our lives. Our environment.
The power holds to ourselves only if we look at it with a different lens.
It’s easy to blame the outer aspect of ourselves, like our family, the government, society, our neighbor, the girl next door, etc. when things go wrong.
We forget the power that lies within us to change and create the life, the environment, and the self we want.
And this is one of the hardest lessons,
yet super powerful that I’m still slowly learning it.
20. Never compare yourself to others. Everyone has their unique journey.
The lessons I’ve put here will be 100% different from yours.
You won’t agree with everything because you have your unique journey that is very different from mine, and vice versa.
So never compare yourself to others.
Stay authentic. Stay who you are.
And enjoy your unique self… Because you are the only person who can tell your life journey to the world.
That’s it! These are the valuable lessons I’ve learned and it won’t always be the case for every person.
What you can do is create your own too. You don’t need to wait until you turn 30, you can do “27 things I’ve learned before turning 27”, or “43 things I’ve learned before turning 43”.
Depending on what stage you are at, you can start something like this. It’s a good exercise to reflect and see what lessons you’ve got from the past years.
And let me know what resonates with you and what’s not in my version. It’s interesting to hear your thoughts!
