20 Things I Regret Believing When I Was Younger

Last week I read an article on Medium, the first to really (irrationally) irk me. It wasn’t so much the content, but the title: 20 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 20*.

Why would anyone want to wish away the time spent learning and becoming who you are? Sure those 20 things you now know would have been great at 20, but then you’d never have lived them to experience what you did to learn those lessons. Those moments, the regrets, the successes are all what make you. Plus, some of them just seemed daft.

So I sent an email to my friends, whining about the message it was portraying and how it had ruined my day. Not really of course, but in the way it ruined my day in my bubble of first world problems. One of my friends, who I run many of my worldy issues by, replied with answers to each of the points. Knowing him as I do, I’m not sure which parts are serious and which aren’t, but that’s up to you to decide.

1. The world is trying to keep you stupid.
> There isn’t a massive conspiracy against you, your life is as complicated as you want it to be. Most problems or answers can be solved with a phone call or internet message (email). Just make that call.

2. Do not have faith in institutions to educate you.
> The education system is full of people with vast amounts of experience, take advantage of this and trust them. If you do not have faith in them they will not have faith in you. People will blame the education system for their own failures.

3. Read as much as you can.
> Read the right things, not as much as you can. Reading a book by Danny Wallace is a complete waste of time, especially when you could have bought the audio book and absorbed it at twice the speed. Make up your own stories.

4. Connect with everyone, all the time.
> There isn’t enough time for this and will cause you to have a breakdown. Having tried this for several years I discovered that I no longer had a single evening free. With no time to myself I was eventually found naked on a tram screaming “We’re on the sausage roll express, punish me!”

5. Don’t waste time being shy.
> Being shy isn’t a waste of time, a sense of caution stops you making mistakes. Having believed that I wanted to be one of the cocky, confident quarterbacks, I learnt that it doesn’t lead to happiness. Instead you become the guy who’s always talking about what could have been.

6. If you feel weird about something during a relationship, that’s usually what you end up breaking up over.
> It’s just a line used to try and make sense of why a relationship failed. But relationships aren’t all logic, sometimes it just wasn’t meant to be so don’t over think it, move on.

7. Have as much contact as possible with older people.
> Older people have outdated views and poor hygiene, wash your hands after every visit. If you want to believe that “the country is getting too full” etc, then have that contact but I’d rather look forward, not back.

8. Find people that are cooler than you.
> Nobody is cooler than you, never forget that.

9. You will become more conservative over time.
> You might become a Conservative but not more conservative. Over time you’ll become more comfortable with who you are, this will allow you to express yourself.

10. Reduce all expenses as much as possible.
> Spend whilst you can, tomorrow you might be hit by a shop mobility cart.

11. Instead of getting status through objects, do it through experiences
> Status? Who gives a fuck about status?

12. While you are living on the cheap, solve the money problem.
> The money problem can never be solved, trying will just make you miserable.

13. Learn to program.
> Learn to use your hands. Programming can be wiped in an instant and is just used to distract you from doing something meaningful.

14. Get a six-pack while you are young.
> If you do this you’ll end up with bad knees and realising that you’ve wasted most mornings and evenings. Extra years in life equal the time you spent in the gym, so only go to the gym if you enjoy it.

15. Learn to cook.
> If there is one thing to leave to the experts it’s this. Pop down the stairs, turn left, chicken place. Jamie Oliver is a bell cheese.

16. Sleep well.
> Work until 18:30, cook, exercise, go to bed at 21:00? This is no way to live, stay out late, watch American sports live and use the phrase ”fuck the tile!”

17. Get a reminder app for everything.
> The NSA will then know everything you do. Another problem is if your device runs out of battery, you will forget everything. If you’re not able to remember it, then it’s not worth doing.

18. Choose something huge to do.
> Do lots of things. Small, large, long, short. Believing that doing something huge will help complete your life is the first mistake. Creating one huge goal will make you miss all the ones staring you in the face.

19. Get known for one thing.
> I got known as the man who emptied the piss bucket, in hindsight, this wasn’t a good thing.

20. Don’t try to “fix” anyone.
> Why not? My mate was really depressed but I knew that I shouldn’t try and fix him. He killed himself.

As it turns out the article had been lifted from another person, Julien Smith, who’s article was titled: 20 Things I Should Have Known at 20. It (irrationally) irked me less. If you’re reading this Julien, please know that no offence is intended, just some friendly banter.

*The article in question has since been deleted.