What should 20-year-olds be doing?
Yesterday, asked me what I think most twenty-year-olds are doing wrong. My immediate response was that I don’t know many twenty-year-olds anymore. At 28, I guess the time is about now that being twenty is a bit further back than I thought it was before Jordan asked me that.
First of all, I hate advice. It usually comes from people who have done something once and therefore believe that they’re the world’s foremost expert. Instead, I like to share stories of what I’ve seen work and not work and let the audience figure it out for themselves. It’s more honest that way.
I can’t imagine it was too different than it was eight years ago — to be twenty. Everyone runs a different speed. At twenty, I was using my fake ID to drink at bars. I was home brewing beer. I was gunning for leadership in a college club about starting businesses. I was studying history, economics, and trying to avoid math as much as possible. I was reading Linchpin by Seth Godin. I sometimes wore a headband.
Aside from the headband, I’m not sure there’s a whole lot I wish I did differently at twenty. Many of my peers, on the other hand, I wonder what they’d say.
I told Jordan I think it would be a good idea for those who are twenty to shoot for getting a firm idea of what it is they want. Do they want a big house? If so, why? Do they want time with kids? Do they want kids at all? Why? Why not? Are they willing to trade peace of mind for “upward career mobility (whatever the fuck that is)?”
I distinctly remember making a lot of decisions at 19 that I was woefully unprepared to make. Once you get to college, you start to set in motion a whole chain of events that are hard to unravel once it gets going. Not only do very few people tell you that, but you also don’t listen when they do, and your brain won’t even be fully equipped to handle long-term thinking for a few more years.
In The Road to Monticello: the Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson (which I was also reading around 20), the author, Kevin Hayes, shares how Jefferson had a regular meeting of brilliant young minds while getting an education at what would later become UVA. I don’t think I was quite as intentional about it as I’d like to think I was, but I found a group of people at Ohio State that was truly the driving force for my growth in college. One of them was a professor; almost all the rest were students. We learned how to organize people together.
All of us have gone on to be lifelong learners, and a few of us push each other to take risks we may not have taken otherwise. So actually, at twenty, I think it’s a pretty good idea to spend time finding your tribe, figuring out what you want, and understanding that the “degree + hard work = safe job” promise is a lie.
What do you think 20 year-olds should be doing?
🎉 🍻 ❤️ — Andy
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