12 Gamechangers I Wish I Knew in My Early 20s

They may be valid for all ages — if you’re late to the party

No, you don’t have time.

This is urgent.

Because, as you probably know by now, once you’re in your 20s, time starts to accelerate. Why?

Two reasons.

First — habituation.

The days of wondering what a cat, a seashell, or a washing machine are are over. The fun moments of smearing mud into someone else’s face — or tripping someone up just for the heck of it — are gone.

What’s left is to become good at what you already know. From that moment on, it is only up to you whether you want to learn new things or get into a rut.

The second reason for time speeding up is a mathematical ratio, which increasingly starts going against your favor.

When you’re 10 years old, a year is one tenth of your life, even more if you discount the first foggy years of your childhood. In your twenties, it reduces to one twentieth, and by the time you’re 50, a year is nothing but another cycle past too quickly.

I can still remember thinking of how “I still have my whole life in front of me”, wasting days, months, years of my life on things which were not entirely wrong but definitely took TOO LONG.

I can’t see a reason why you should do the same. Be smart, and take advantage of the list below.

No, not tomorrow.

Right now.

Don’t count on average life-expectancy

I know this is a huge downer, but it is the most important point in the list.

In my life, I’ve already had several friends die very early on. One in his teens, another at 25, and too many in their 30s and 40s to mention. Don’t count on average life-expectancy.

As depressive as it may sound, be aware of death, because today may be the last day of your life. People die of illnesses and accidents every day of the year — why would you think you could not be one of them?

This has nothing to do with being ‘negative’ — exactly the opposite. By knowing death is always a possibility, you start being selective and prudent, spending your time in a much wiser way than you used to.

Instead of thinking “you only live once”, switch to “you only live now”.

Situations may change in an instance

If you can vanish, then friends, family, country, and all kinds of other situations — which you perceive as a given — can perish too.

As much as you want to believe that you’re in control of your life, you’re not. Now imagine how much control you have over someone else’s life? Anything may happen at any time. Situations may change in an instant.

I moved from a first world city to a war-torn country and it was completely out of my control. Overnight, I lost my “world”, my best friend, and many other people which were important in my life (this was pre-internet, pre-cell phones, pre-everything). Even in my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined such a thing to happen, and yet it materialized.

Unforeseeable things are not necessarily bad and should never happen — not at all. I say you should know they can happen. And when you know that, then you cherish the people and situations you’re in with much greater respect and gratitude.

True friendships have an extra long-term element

It may seem obvious, but it isn’t. When you’re younger, you have a certain degree of arrogance when it comes to making friends. You believe that you can “always make new friends”, and meet “new people”. Although true to some extent, most of them vanish as fast as they appear.

Brief encounters have their value, but there’s nothing like a true friendship. Someone you can call in the middle of the night, early in the morning, when it’s inappropriate, and they will be there listening to what you have to say. Even when it’s the most stupid, neurotic thing you can think of.

As you get older, your openness to making new, meaningful relationships decreases. It’s not something you wish for but you become less trusting with age. From my experience, people become more cautious over time because of disappointments and unmet expectations. As a result, one clings more to the known than to the unknown.

In your twenties, you believe that is impossible. But time will prove you wrong again. Old friends have an almost nostalgic pull that you can only experience once you’re older. Of course, under the condition that it is a quality friendship. Don’t hold on to just anyone because you’ve known each other for a long time — not at all!

Which brings me to one of the most important things I discovered in my life.

Basic education in psychology, especially in personality disorders, gives you an advantage

Now this may sound completely nuts, but this thing alone can prevent unhappiness and hardship on a scale you wouldn’t believe possible. See, the problem is, you won’t find it in your school, nor do your parents know anything about it (provided they are not professionals in the field).

Once you do learn about it, you can’t believe it isn’t part of every school’s curriculum. Everyone should know about this, without exemption. It helps those suffering from mental illnesses, and everyone around them.

If no one told you, only by accident, could you find out that some people are not just strange or difficult characters, or hard to get along with. But they are actually sick people who — if diagnosed — would need to get into professional therapy.

Trying to figure out this thing for yourself is virtually impossible, because it goes beyond any concept you are familiar with. It never enters your mind that the intense pain you’re experiencing with someone is not just a result of having different opinions.

As sad as it is for the people suffering from those illnesses, you must know, if you stay uninformed about their mental illness, it is very likely you may end up as a patient yourself.

“It is estimated that 10 to 13 percent of the world’s population suffer from some form of personality disorder.” Let me say, that to my knowledge, I would consider this to be a very conservative estimate. The number of people affected by the various types of personality disorders is likely even higher than that.

This issue is too extensive to go into more detail. If you wish to learn more about personality disorders, I’ve written a whole article about it.

But to give just one example: If you grew up in a family controlled by a malignant narcissist, or happen to work in a job controlled by a person with a narcissistic personality disorder, you’re very likely to suffer yourself: your psyche, your career, and all relationships you will have in the future may be affected.

There are few things in life as influential as knowing about this. It has the power to change your life completely. Educate yourself on this — extensively.

Now to the psychology of yourself.

Speed up coming of age

Let’s face it, even the best families are dysfunctional in their own specific way. Coming out of puberty into early adulthood creates a mess some deal with well into their forties — if not longer. There are too many conflicting ideas and strategies and convictions one experiments with, that in the end, the person we’ve become is a mixed back of other people’s ideas.

Instead of trying to figure out everything by yourself, it’s much easier to fall back on the old wisdoms that have stood the test of time.

I’m convinced that if I had come across certain books earlier in my life, I could have saved many years of aimless “searching”. The only question is if we’re open and ready to consume those ideas. The great ancient philosophers like Seneca or the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius have stood the test of time, and the wisdoms they convey are as relevant as they were 2000 years ago.

If I needed to single out one central revelation from all those books it would be: The person we play off the most is we, ourselves. Understand that all your trickery serves nothing but to outsmart yourself. Learn from the best. Be a person of integrity. You may as well be a peasant or super-rich entrepreneur, it will not change how you see yourself.

By implementing their recommendations early on, you may solve many troubling phases much easier than you would otherwise. And the joy of seeing these things actually work in your daily life gives confirmation that what you do is correct.

It is true that we learn by making mistakes. However, learning from the best can speed up the process — extremely.

Realize how to really ‘make it’

Chasing other people’s concepts and ideas in order to fulfill your own dreams, fails in most if not all cases. A better way is to improve your skills and copy other people’s work ethic and endurance instead of trying to replicate their success.

If you work consistently on improving your competence, other competent people will naturally flock towards you. As a result, you become a person of interest.

The realization that you can never be someone else may seem obvious, but is constantly overlooked. I guess the trap is that instead of letting people just influence us, we end up being obsessed with the outcome of their success. It’s the wrong starting point. Although very cliche-ish, there is no one like you, and all you really have to do is become good at what you want to do.

You can’t skip steps and just get to the outcome. All those people that you admire had to start at the beginning, not the end.

The only takeaway you need is this: what you’re really looking for is how to ‘get good at something’. The truth is — it’s work. In most cases — a lot of work.

And the thing you should really wonder is: Are you willing to put in the hours, days, months, and years to do it?

Boredom is an indicator

When growing up, we can’t choose the people around us. We’re born into a set environment, and only when we make first friendships, do we get to decide what kind of people we let into our lives. You’ve probably heard the saying that you are the average of the five people you hang out with the most. I know that for years I made an unconscious effort to be that average. I can confirm, this is exactly what happens.

If you’re feeling an urge to do more with your life, then listen to it. We often don’t do it because we don’t want to stand out. So I’ve listened to people telling the same old stories, or giving a remark, at the same moment, for the millionth time for no other reason but to be a good person.

Which does not mean, you need to be a selfish jerk in order to be successful, but for a period of time — you should be just that.

If people only bore you, realize you need to adjust your challenge level. It’s not their fault that you want more. I remember complaining about other people’s lack of interest all the time without realizing they were perfectly happy with their life. It was me who was unhappy.

Choose people who motivate you to be at your best.

Be good at one thing

Compromise. Don’t do too many things, because all will be average.

Have a broad education, be well-read, but be good at one specific thing. This makes all the difference in the world. I remember classmates who earned amounts of money I could only dream of. Not because they had rich parents, simply because they could convert a hobby like dancing, playing music, deejaying, or sports into an income.

I did manage to find a way to earn some cash on the side, but I never had this thing that no one could take away from me — a skill as a trade-in for money.

It boosts your confidence and establishes a routine of knowing how to get your hands on some greenery. You recognize early on, the better you are at something, the better the compensation for it.

Later in adulthood, you don’t even think about it any more, because it all comes naturally. In contrast to what most people experience, making money becomes easy for you.

And remember: It doesn’t need to be hip, only specific. If not, you will be the one with the low-paid shitty job that no one wanted.

Know your motive

10 years is a short period of time — when you’re fifty. When you’re eighteen, it seems, you could do anything in this time span. It depends on your organizational skills, focus, and speed, but overall, a 10-year period is not that long.

If you don’t know exactly what you’re going to do with your college degree — then stay away from it. Going to college is not just an education, it’s a lifestyle which will take up on average 6 years (to get a four-year degree) of your life before you can call yourself anything. Now add to this a year off before going to college, and another year or two before actually finding a job, and your decade is gone.

Besides student debt (depending on where you live), and no experience in your work field, you’re on track to enter the 4th decade of your life without having arrived anywhere yet. If you want to be a lawyer, a surgeon, badass engineer, you need to go, but if you unconsciously want to go only because everyone else is there — don’t go.

On average, I’ve seen people far happier and fulfilled by expanding their hobbies into a regular job. I knew people who were a dental assistant, an HVAC technician, or a carpenter, making tons of money and absolutely loving what they do. They had money in their pockets, were able to buy a house or an apartment, get married, have kids, and gather extensive knowledge in their respective fields. By the time they got to their 30s, they were already well-established.

Interestingly, most people I know studied some kind of social sciences for which true jobs hadn’t even been created yet. Usually, they’d spent their time visiting each other’s book promotion, or had tried to secure funding for some outlandish projects no one had any real interest in. I’m not discounting the value or motive of their work, all I say is that if I had the choice again, I would not go to college without a clear goal in mind.

It’s a fact that the average craftsperson nowadays makes far more money than a no-goal PhD trying to find their way through the social jungle. So if you think you’re going to college just to make more money — you’re most likely to fail.

Well-paid jobs are specific; in order to succeed in broader fields, too many stars have to align.

Some of the best entrepreneurs, musicians — even computer experts — I’ve known, have never been to college.

Don’t go to college to see where it’s going to take you — because most likely — to nowhere.

Be consistent

I’ve spent years of my life “preparing” for my working life, missing out on learning the most important habit for a successful career — concentrated work ethic. Work ethic is not the opposite of being lazy; it is the brain muscle you need to develop to do the same thing over and over again. There’s no other way.

In order to become good at something, you need to practice every day. Be it writing an article, or trading in the stock market. If you want to get paid good money for what you do, you will need to become exceptional at your craft.

This may sound very obvious, but the truth is that often we think our talent alone will make up for the missing hours. Wrong — people who work hard will beat you every time.

I myself thought for too long that my way of learning things quickly would make-up for my inconsistency. What I didn’t know was that the best are killers in their field. They live their craft every day of the week.

If you have serious ambitions, you will need to do the same. The best way to build up your mental physique is by never skipping a day without doing at least something in regards to your craft. One day you may work for a few hours, another only for 30 minutes. The idea is not to lose touch with the process.

After a while, you will not only develop a habit, but a need to spend some time around it. If a day passes without your practice, and you feel like there’s something missing, then work transforms itself into fun.

Start by reserving 30 minutes every day for doing just that.

Run with the ball

Go with the one thing that excites you. The older you get, the more you relativize. In other words: You start thinking.

As a kid you have no idea why you like something, you just go for it. If music attracts you, you don’t analyze why this is the case. I still remember the magic of simply being in a room with musical instruments. To me, this was the best place a person could ever be. Touching the strings of a guitar or the keys of a piano struck me with pure excitement.

I now see the difference. While I was mesmerized, others barely felt an emotion. They had their toys, their magic going on elsewhere. In places that didn’t touch me at all.

Adults do self-discovery courses to find out what it is that “they love to do”. The truth is: they very well know, but the nature of getting into adulthood, doing only “what you’re supposed to do”, obliterates all genuine pulls that we once felt when we were kids.

Nature has a very simple way of communicating our “nature” to ourselves. All we really need to do is pick up the ball and run with it.

The most toxic thought we get from our parents is: “But have you really thought about it?”

It is the ultimate thought virus. The rumination. The constant pros and cons of the “situation you’re in”. Once you’re in this mode, life’s difficult.

If you do something that is second nature to you, you never need to figure out what job you’re going to do. In fact, you won’t even understand the question. Job? What’s that, anyway?

Accumulate life force

Some people save money for a reason, others for no reason at all. Because if you save money for a specific reason, it means that once you acquire the item or service, you’re out of cash. That is not money-saving.

Real money-saving is putting your principal to work by letting it earn interest that will outperform inflation and even make some profit on top of that.

Saving $50 a month, at an annual interest rate of 5%, will get you $7,831 in 10 years from now. I never had the patience nor the foresight to see that small monthly savings can have such a compounding effect on your bank account.

This is a very basic example. You may have much higher yielding returns depending on your type of investment.

I was one of those who believed that money-saving begins when you have lots of cash. Until then, you spend what you’ve got. In my 20s, I spent it on “stuff I didn’t need”. In my 30s on “what I did need”, but fell short to see that having all of your money tied up in one project may prove disastrous.

Saving money is like having a workout routine. It’s a lifelong process which has no real end-goal but to stay healthy. Be it physically or financially. You don’t wonder why someone does pushups every day. In the same way you shouldn’t wonder why someone is saving money in the “bank” (cash, stocks, bonds, other).

Money is a crystallized life force. So are your muscles. The stronger you are, the easier you move. The idea of saving money “just in case”, isn’t the right attitude either. You don’t work out “just in case”, as you don’t drink water “just in case”.

Let go of all those ideas and accumulate wealth for no reason at all.

Let’s say you never get seriously sick in your entire life, does that mean that your workout routine was unnecessary? What if you never go bankrupt, never got into a situation where you needed to fall back on your savings — was the money-saving useless?

The truth is you don’t know unless it happens. And when it happens, you will very well know why you did it.

Before I go

You’ve probably heard the saying that “wise people learn from other people’s mistakes, fools from their own.”

In my case I’d say, I wasn’t really a fool, but rather uninformed. I grew up before the information age, when it was still a privilege to meet the right information at the right time. You couldn’t just google your way out of a problem. All you could do is rely on friends and family who often didn’t know that much either.

The internet makes it possible to distribute exclusive knowledge to everyone who is willing and able to absorb it.

Having information is key. Knowing how to evaluate it, even more so.

Some people grow up in families where those things come naturally. Most struggle.

The idea that you’ll just pull everything out of your sleeve in reality never works. It may work accidentally, but not consistently. We live in a very complex and demanding world. Improvising will bring you only so far.

If you start early, you could be one of those rare individuals who don’t waste their twenties only learning from their own mistakes.

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

It’s here already.

*** This article expresses the author’s personal views and opinions only, and is not meant to serve as psychological, financial, or any other advice. All you read on this Site is for informational purposes only. Reliance on any of the information is solely at your own risk. Please seek the advice of a professional with any questions, and do your own research.***