Why Being Successful In Your 20s Doesn’t Matter
Take it from someone who didn’t amount to much in their 20s.
I’m nearly a month into my life as a 32 year old and I can tell you with confidence that there are times I feel like my life shouldn’t have ended up like this. At 32, I can’t really point to one big over-arching achievement that defines my life.
I’m single.
I lack any sense of a stable job.
I’m contemplating going on welfare while also thinking Canada’s government might pass a universal basic income and save me the struggle of applying.
And to top it off I’m out of shape and I have very few connections in my life.
For me, I’m past my 20s. But these days, a lot of people experience this existential crisis while still in their 20s. It got me thinking about why that is and it hit me the moment that I saw yet another article about what people should be doing in their 20s.
For sure, the advice in the article is pretty solid.
It’s important to take failures, have some kind of financial plan, make connections with people and so on.
But what’s with the idea we need all of this stuff going for us within our 20s?
To me, it’s all one big conspiracy that we honestly shouldn’t be paying attention to. Here is why.
Your Life Isn’t Over At 30
To start, the average life expectancy is hovering around the 72–73 mark. In other words, when we hit our 20s, all of us have roughly 50 or so years left on Earth to do what we want.
That means we have 50 years of trying to “make it” in life. And while the days are going by faster it seems, 50 years is still quite a bit.
It’s not a reason to be complacent and to put off things for decades at a time mind you. However it’s also not a reason to obsess over trying to get into Forbes 30-Under-30 club and be a multi-millionaire by the time you get to your late 20s.
The only issue is the fact our environment encourages the latter for us.
In Canada and America, we generally feel the intense pressure to perform. We often hear that by our 30s we should be able to afford a house — or at least the mortgage payments and a generous down payment. Therefore, our 20s should be spent saving up as much money as possible, having a partner to split costs with and provide more stability, and having a stable job that can keep us afloat.
These expectations create these overarching goals that society expects us to achieve.
We’re expected to be in a serious relationship if not married.
We’re expected to have a stable and successful job that pays us well.
We’re expected to have a lot of money tucked away.
But there’s a problem with all these expectations.
In America, being sent to the hospital for basically any reason ruins any financial stability someone has. You have to be one of the fortunate souls to have an employer with a strong medical plan to cover anything in that case. That can be few and far between and even tougher if you have an employer who thinks employees are a waste of resources.
Not only that but the reason previous generations could afford housing and schooling was due to unions actually forcing employers to pay what they’re worth. Unions are coming back steadily now, but there is a wide gap where unions were gutted. Conveniently when Millennials and Gen Xers were in their 20s.
In Canada we’re experiencing something similar. It’s difficult to afford homes these days when rent is sky high and there is little to no oversight or rent control. It says something when Quebec — the province that wants to separate itself from Canada — is actually the cheapest place to live in Canada.
All in all, there are nuances behind a lot of those goals and by your 20s, you don’t actually realize them until you start sinking your teeth into them. Some of these problems are deeply systemic while others have been from overarching elements — such as that societal expectation, hustle culture, and so on.
One of the biggest is of course the fact that there is this belief that by your 30s, you ought to be in a very cushy position in life.
The fact that we as a society don’t facilitate this at all really makes it clear the advice and this way of thinking really doesn’t serve us.
Some Of The Advice Is Misplaced
The Insider article I linked to early on has some good advice for sure. I think it’s important for us to have some semblance of a financial plan and some budget skills. I think it’s important to know where you want to go in life and why you want to pursue something.
However there are some pieces of advice that are flimsy at best. This issue isn’t just directed to Insider, but to a lot of self-help advice.
In some cases it lacks context such as some of the arguments I mentioned earlier. In other cases, the advice is focusing on something that honestly doesn’t matter too much. Like dating and getting married in your 20s.
Life simply doesn’t work in a linear fashion and as a result people at various points in their lives have very different problems.
When I was in my 20s, I didn’t care about dating or sex. I cared more about how will I become more financially stable and find a career I wanted to pursue. Especially after spending most of my 20s chasing after something I didn’t care much about.
Obviously advice as a whole is going to be hit or miss. In a list of general advice of what to do in your 20s there’s going to be some good ones and duds. However in a world where we’re expected to set up our entire life foundation in our 20s it seems, it’s smarter for us to focus on specific pieces of advice.
Not to mention offer great support in that area.
Telling people to be as financially sound as you can without any practical support or programs to facilitate that will be tough these days. Meanwhile, telling people to spend their 20s making mistakes here and there is more on track since rejections and failures happen at any stage in life. Learning to handle them early on when you still have at least 50 more years left sounds like a smart plan.
The fact a lot of advice is flimsy and pointless in some cases to people in their 20s while being emphasized as super important shows just how truly unimportant some of it actually is.
Your 20s Aren’t As Important As You Think It Is
I remember when I turned 30 my personal trainer at the time told me I’m still in my prime in terms of looks. And he was right. You don’t have to worry too much about “feeling old” until your mid to late 40s most likely.
And even then it depends on the habits that you have in the first place.
If I want a healthy body in my 40s, what I do in my 30s will help define that. This whole cycle continues decade after decade.
The reason so many push for this idea of doing so much in your 20s is because when you get older, you can reap the benefits of it. But there is nothing stopping you from reaping the benefits later on in life. Let alone trying something different when you’re older.
Some people don’t figure out what they want to do in life until later. Some people don’t reach financial stability until the mid-point of their life. Others don’t get married until much later too.
And all of that is okay.
It says something when a lot of the practical advice of what to do in your 20s is less “do all the things” and more like “hey you’re going to fail, struggle, and not get everything off your list”.
It almost gives the impression that our 20s aren’t as important as we think they are. That reality especially sinks in when you get to your 30s or have been living in them for a bit.
In a world where we want instant gratification and stimulation is everywhere, it’s easy to get sucked into that trap of getting everything done in your 20s. I’ll admit in my teenage years that I was hoping to find the career I wanted to be in by my 20s.
I did thankfully, but not without pursuing a different field of study. Not without being saddled with a lot of student debt and wasting most of my 20s chasing after that goal.
Those expectations were passed down by my high school, the pressure I put onto myself, and some key people I respected.
But that whole journey of figuring out what I wanted as a career and carving out my little corner in the industry I love, it’s made me realize how so much of my 20s didn’t matter too much. In fact, reading a lot of the articles of what to do in your 20s to be successful honestly feel depressing to an extent.
Because success and life fulfilment don’t always have to be achieved at that particular point in your life. In fact, recognizing that in your 20s is probably the most important thing to realize.
Enjoyed the article? Please consider offering your support!
👉 Subscribe to my email list here and receive emails whenever I publish on Medium!
👉Buy me a Kofi and join the community there for article updates and more!
