Must you fit everything in to your life in your 20s ?

Post Reply New Topic

I seem to think there is this assumption that you MUST put all the joy and contentment in your life when you can in your 20s than in your 30s, 40s and so on. I can't quite understand why that is ? I seem to think everyone else but me followed the same route to fit in by spending 20 to 29 going out a lot with friends sometimes regularly to pubs, bars, concerts, getting wasted with drink and sex, and at the same time, already have a job at the height as businessman with lots of money to always have a good time. I feel I haven't always done that, as I have said in discussions before, I have few friends who do that stuff and the people who did at times do that stuff didn't seem to want to befriend me, I have never got drunk or had sex yet, and I am not a businessman I work just as a retail sales assistant since I started at 26 and before that I wasn't in any paid work except voluntary work which I stopped doing at 22.

I guess there's some truth in it for a lot of people. Responsibilities tend to accumulate as we get older - spouses, children, and the extra responsibility that tends to come with promotion in careers. And the human body begins to wear out and pick up ailments eventually, though hopefully it still works tolerably well right into old age. But it depends who you are and what kind of lifestyle you have. The fun certainly doesn't have to be all over by the time you get to 30.

I didn't get married until I was 43. We just celebrated our 26th anniversary. I think I was too immature to have made an intelligent decision of who to marry earlier. I am so glad I waited.

We may find full engagement with the world to be too taxing and only as we slowly acclimate are able to catch up with those who plunged in earlier. Sadly those who plunge in in their 20s often discover that they have made decisions that might have benefited from greater maturity.

No, why are you so obsessed with this?

No, there are plenty of people your age interested in more than that stuff. I know the problem is how to meet them. My advice is to forget about what the crowd is doing and follow your passion and do what you want to do. Hopefully you can include activities that would allow you to meet others like you. I wasn't very good at this in my 20s, but got better at it in my 30s. You may have to try a lot f new things before you find something that works.

It definitely feels like that. The more I think about it the more our culture idolizes and obsesses about youth. So many TV shows take place in high school, or people in the 20s trying to make it in the big city, etc. All your adventures are supposed to happen in your 20s and by your 30s you're supposed to have your life together. I realized how much this has negatively affected how I saw myself and I'm slowing beginning to let it go.

I'm 33. I got an online degree so I never had the college experience, got my first job at 24, finally got a job related to my field 4 years ago and I'm still entry level. I didn't start dating or have sex until my late 20s, and still have not had a relationship, which makes me feel self-conscious but I'm not apologizing for it. I'm just now starting to figure out how to make friends. Everyone goes as their own pace, everyone matures at different rates and may be more ahead of the game in one area but not another, and really there is no obligation to "follow the plan", you don't have to get married and have 2 kids with a white picket fence, etc. You don't ever have to drink alcohol if you don't want to.

That belief is not only "not is," it is patently absurd. It is ruining your current life and making this list a more boring, frustrating place. Pick any biography of someone who didn't die young for contrary evidence. I have trashed my life and re-built about every seven years. Some phases were pretty decently memorable.

I think you have a very unhealthy obsession with keeping up with the Joneses.

I understand where you're going with this. Society tells us to "fit everything in to your life in your 20s." If you do that, what happens to the other 70 or so years of your life?

I don't hear that message in general circulation, but it might be needed by some of the superannuated teenagers out there, goading them to try some adult responsibilities.

Back in the 1950s, there was a panel show called “Life Begins at 80.”

You left out the part where it's explained what advantages of birth and opportunity they had.
- What was the economic situation of these peoples' parents?
- To what extent did the parents fund the fun? university?
- What was the university situations and outcomes for these people?
- What careers were they invited to enter by those who chose to hire them?
- What else, besides having a good time, did these people engage in to possibly stand out and get noticed for opportunities?