21 going on 22

The Freshman Year of Life

On Wednesday, I turn 22. Looking back: 21 was an important year for me—but not in the way that I had imagined.

Last year was about Growing Up and Taking Responsibility.

It started with the birthday party—an intimate dinner for four in New York to celebrate 21, rather than the all-night blowout parties in Hong Kong and Singapore clubs of years past.

But it was also things like graduating college and starting a company.

Starting a company with a cofounder is the equivalent of getting married and having a child—it’s an immense responsibility and after the initial honeymoon period, you’re just in the trenches together, all the time. But it has also been positive. It has helped me realize values like self-respect and empathy for others. It’s helped me create a new roadmap with new goals for the next decade and making a conscious choice to change course in other areas of my life which were previously on autopilot—to the wrong places.

Honestly, after this, I think having a real marriage and real children will be a piece of cake.

The #1 feeling I have after graduating from college and completing this year is, Wow, I feel like an adult.

To be clear, 21 was not about the loss of idealism. I have not—and I refuse to—give up on my dreams. I am still hacking away at it. But it was a careful evaluation of how I can nurture that idealism successfully.

Whatever attraction there once was to the idea of just fucking around and doing things I know are going nowhere has completely dissipated. Time feels very precious. Maybe that has to do with my teenage near-death experience. Maybe that has to do with the fact that two of my grandparents passed away in the last year. But I do feel that time is more precious than ever before, slipping away, and that you have to seize it and make the most of it.

That TED video was not kidding: in your twenties you are supposed to lay down a foundation for your future. Seize this decade. I would only add: don’t do it for society, do it for yourself.

22.

I don’t know about you but I’m feeling 22
Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you
You don’t know about me but I bet you want to
Everything will be alright if we just keep dancing like we’re 22

It’ll be the first full year out of college, so let’s name 22 “The Freshman Year of Life.”

Freshman years are always crazy and full of the unexpected…so get ready ;)