You Didn’t Waste Your 20s, You Were Untying Knots
You are not behind in life, you will get where you need to be at exactly the right time.
I was floating around YouTube when I came across a video called “I wasted my 20s” by a creator called SHOW NEMOTO, and I must admit, it tweaked a nerve in me. Although, it didn’t affect me for the reasons you might think.
I have spent a lot of my time feeling “behind” in life or like I wasn’t living up to my potential. Unfortunately, a lot of people worry that they are not progressing through life’s “levels” at the same pace as everyone else.
(There are, unfortunately, also a lot of people who take joy in making sure you know that you’re “failing”.)
I’ve been working on myself for a while now, so my immediate thought when I saw this video was “That is such a dumb opinion, I feel bad for this guy”. (Turns out that title is a misdirect, and SHOW has the same opinion on this subject as I do.)
When you really think about it. Assuming people are behind in life because they don’t meet your arbitrary timeline is incredibly stupid. We all live our lives differently, have different experiences and mature at different rates.
Some of us value gaining experiences, and some of us are more interested in amassing resources. Some of us have emotional scars and traumas that require our attention more than forging a career.
Life is about finding your place in the world, not trying to do the same thing as everyone else.
There is an analogy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Buffy says that she is still forming as a person, referring to herself as cookie dough that is not yet done baking. This is an apt description for every person trying to find their way.
Even if cookies are in the same oven, on the same tray, at the same temperature, they can still bake at different rates. So what happens when you bake those cookies in a different oven, on a different tray, at a different temperature?
We can accept this from cookies, yet, for some reason, our society expects every person to bake the same way, at the same rate. We come from all different backgrounds, parenting styles, cultures, even genetics. So why do we insist people meet the same goals at the same time?
I don’t think I’ve ever been behind in my life. In fact, I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do since I was 15. The problem was I listened when people told me what I wanted to do was unachievable.
You’re expected to know who you are at eighteen. Unless the thing you want to do isn’t deemed feasible by those around you, then you are supposed to just pick another path and identity from thin air.
You’re thrown into the world without any proper support or guidance and told you’re a grown-up now “figure it out”.
This is why I spent my 20s job-hopping and constantly gear-switching, because I could never find a path that felt right or fulfilled me. Treading water because I wanted to be writer, but everyone telling me that it was impossible. Not only this, but I was stupid for thinking it was.
All the while trying to survive in a world that felt hostile and unforgiving. It took me until my late twenties to fully understand how much trauma I was carrying. I couldn’t flourish because I was merely trying to survive.
I was moving from one traumatic experience to the next because I had no idea how to set boundaries and constantly undermined my needs through obsessive people-pleasing.
The environment I grew up in taught me to have a fixed mindset. At school, if you weren’t good at something first try then “Whoop, I guess that thing isn’t for you, dumb dumb”. Not only are you not good, but you’re an embarrassment for even trying.
I think children brought up like this struggle to thrive as adults because there is no sense of risk being rewarded. Either you’re instantly good at something, and the path is clear, or you’re an idiot wasting your time.
I have spent the last decade trying to cultivate a growth mindset and train myself to believe that if something isn’t working, it means you need a different approach, not that you should give up.
I am not quite where I need to be, but I feel more fulfilled and on my purpose than ever before. I am finally doing the work and living the life that I want.
I no longer care what people think about my prospects, because I feel that if I work hard enough, bang on the right doors, and play by the numbers, I will eventually get everything I want.
Just because you didn’t get where you thought you should in your 20s, it doesn’t mean those years were a waste. You still had internal work to do. You had emotional knots that people who grew up under different circumstances weren’t burdened with.
You’re comparing yourself to people who weren’t tied down, who had the emotional and physical resources that gave them the freedom to reach their goals earlier in life.
No one is behind in life, they’re exactly where they need to be at this point in time.
Thank you for reading.
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