To anyone older reading this—
I have a question for you. If you were given the chance to be 20 again, what would you love to do the most?
I’m asking because at 18, I keep hearing different voices. Some say, “Focus on studies, build your future.” Others say, “This is the time to live, to make memories with friends.”
So I’m genuinely curious—looking back, what truly mattered to you? What would you chase if you had this age again?
Would love to hear your honest thoughts.
Comments
Not be 20 again?
I think we’re meant to screw up (or “win”) and learn from it. I just don’t want to do it again.
That being said, when you are young is when you have the freedom to risk and try things and see what you love and what you don’t. It is possible to study, build and live and make memories. Have you considered study abroad?
I wouldn’t get married
Travel more! Travel travel travel! And take something useful at post secondary. Not political science.
I’d switch my major to trauma nursing and become a travel nurse.
Save for retirement, take care of my teeth, stay fit (run every day,) finish college.
Stretch every day, use more sunscreen, take better care of teeth and posture, appreciate friends more, don’t get married, don’t stop sewing, don’t compare yourself to others. Make better investments.
Not get a credit card, or get a small limit 🙂
Travel! (Study abroad semesters of years are the easiest and best way to do that.)
And while in college, learn everything you can and don’t focus too soon on one field of expertise before getting a very broad education; only in grad school should you specialize too much. Socialize but not so much as learning/studying. You’re laying down a lifelong foundation so make it a strong one.
Don’t waste time with too much partying. Especially not with frivolous or dubious people. Find people smarter than you are and hang out with them.
Definitely don’t get married or have kids until you’re 30, well established in a career, secure financial future set in motion.
If you’re a woman, added to that, be sure your finances are strictly independent of the finances of a spouse. Support yourself and always be able to support yourself at a moment’s notice (“always be able to walk out easily, and you probably won’t need to” said a very wise woman to me long ago).
Delay kids until you’re really ready. And don’t feel as if you ever have to have kids if you’re not sure you’re 100% into it.
Stay physically fit, eat right, avoid alcohol and strictly avoid drugs; make sunscreen and floss your lifetime habits if they aren’t already.
You can do both. I did
Major on something else (not journalism) start saving sooner, and spend my discretionary income on travel at every opportunity.
Move far enough away from family so it is at least a few hours drive. Finish college. Avoid the Disco scene. Don’t do social drugs. Try and spend 3 or 6 months traveling Europe. Camp more. Avoid serious relationships if possible because I will change so much after 18, with different expectations, goals at 28.
Save more, dont take on any debt , never get married !!
Move far enough away from family so it is at least a few hours drive. Finish college. Avoid the Disco scene. Don’t do social drugs. Try and spend 3 or 6 months traveling Europe. Camp more. Avoid serious relationships if possible because I will change so much between 18 & 28.
Make your own choices. Other’s expectations just weigh you down. Forget romance and seek friendships. Travel! Travel! Travel!
Study abroad and not come back.
Almost 80, so talking about a much different time, many of the things you most likely take as just given, did not exist for me. But if I were 20 again, and was willing to listen to advice (I was a stubborn, mule headed, know it all) I would say, do not get married now. Wait, there is someone who is much better, smarter, and kinder, waiting for you. Take that scholarship and do it, do it right. You are not in college to party, or get laid, or get drunk. Learn, love learning, take every hard class you can. I would chase learning, much as I actually did, but I would do it earlier, with fewer distractions and far fewer obligations. Freedom is precious and fleeting. Once you have a child, you are never free again.
Get diagnosed and medicated for ADHD sooner. Then either go to college to become an engineer or join a trade union. Avoid romantic relationships until the one I can’t live without comes along, and save as much money as I can to start my own business.
Go to the Cherry Hill school of broadcasting. I always wanted to be a sports announcer.
Finish my studies. Look for a job somewhere away from my hometown. Thats the time to go work in a new city or part of the country. Both of my, now adult kids, did this. They loved it. In fact, they met their spouses and settled down in the areas they had moved to.
Go to the dentist more often.
Not getting married!
Get into therapy as soon as you can figure out what unhealed shit you’re bringing with you into adulthood from your childhood, and don’t feel like you have to make your first serious relationship work at all costs. Take your early relationships as opportunities to identify and fine-tune what works for you and what doesn’t, use them to help you identify your values, goals, boundaries, expectations, perceived wants and needs, top love language(s), etc.
And if you aren’t in a long-term committed relationship by the time you’re 25, don’t despair that you’ll be alone for the rest of your life and commit to someone who you know in your gut isn’t a healthy long-term partner.
Not let my lower parts rule my thinking parts. I hope.
My wife says she wouldn’t smoke.
I would cut my mother out of my life sooner than I did. It took me until I was 33 to realize that I didn’t have to dread interacting with her…I could just go no contact.
For everyone saying travel, I did travel, as a missionary. I ate cheaply, stayed in shitty hostels, rode in cheap buses, and saw 24 countries over 7 years. It completely transformed my concept of myself, and I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. I have a friend who got a nursing degree, then became a travel nurse. She did travel much nicer than I did!
I came back to the US to go to school when I was 25. It was rough. I worked three part time jobs for most of it. I shared a house with 3-4 other people, ate the cheapest I could, and did my first two years at a community college before going to a state university for the last two years. Best advice I got in college was to buddy up to professors and do an internship. It got me a free trip to Namibia, South Africa, and Canada, as well as excellent references.
I got out of school at 30 and have never had a job where I actually used my degree. I’m glad I did it because it taught me how to think.
My advice would be to invest in good relationships with people who have solid track records of being good, mostly honest people, for a long time. They’re not always the people that make you feel good in the moment. Sometimes the best people are the ones who will stare you down and call you out when you just want to give up on something or you want to take a day off or you don’t want to put yourself into a new situation.
Also, I have gotten almost every job I’ve had based on referrals. I met someone at a community event who said, “Oh, you should reach out to so-and-so. I hear they’re looking for daycare teachers.” I literally left that conversation and went straight to the daycare to apply. It was a shitty job, but it got me one of my jobs to get through school. My current job came because a friend sent me a link and put in a word with her boss. In today’s world, networks of reliable people can get us through hard times.
I’d stay in college and pursue my dream job. Didn’t do it because I thought it would take too many years to complete.
stay sober and save money
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Nothing. After my first 19 years was a living hell. 20 and onwards proved to be a beautiful life. Ver hard at time but wouldn’t change a thing.
Assuming I would have the knowledge of today, with what life and the world offers today, I would wait to get married and have children. I would do trauma therapy. I didn’t know how to dream or even wish for better. I thought it just “is what it is.” I had no clue what life was about or how to navigate it. I would take the time to see who I was, where I wanted to go in life. I would learn that it’s okay to put me first. I would learn how to set strong boundaries with others and myself. I would use my education in the way I wanted to. I would learn to laugh and not take myself so seriously. I would pursue my love of clouds. I would hike more. I would start my flower garden much sooner in life.
Nothing.
Ride bikes! I’m 48 now and man I coulda been faster and had even more fun dangit.
Leave the false church/cult that we were both born into. Get married civilly. Never raise our kids in that cult. Get back all the time and money given to the cult and use it for our family. Me, get a university education before having kids.
I would go on to get my higher education finished before marriage. I made a lot of mistakes in the first decade after college. Too many to list here.
Travel and hike the Appalachian trial.
Join the military. 100% value
Take school more seriously, save more
I would not focus on romantic relationships.
First guarantee yourself a good profession: it might be university or trade school. Then you can consider saving for travels and visits with friends, or even switching to other profession later on. However, you have to have a way to keep yourself afloat first.
I would work harder in college and go to law school. And in the summers I would travel the world (which I have but it’s different when you are young).
Travel, learn, make art, have lots of lovers!
Realise it’s fine to live life for you. Don’t bother chasing status or trying to impress others- those who value that are not worth your time. Be very choosy who you’re close to, and nurture those relationships that matter. Don’t be afraid to take the path less travelled, to make mistakes or to switch track all together. Life is short
Take proper care of my teeth.
Less social media and more real life experiences.
Seriously, I don’t think I’d want to do it all again. I worked a long hard life. Engineering in the 1970’s was fucking tough as hell and then working my way up over decades.
I’m done.
I would have stayed away from drugs. I would have had stronger boundaries and stayed away from people that did drugs and not tolerate that shit. It wreaked havoc on my life in early to mid 20s. Still dealing with the emotional toll 6 years later.
Probably not a popular answer, but work hard and actually try to learn more. I spent my 20s having fun – glad about the social fun, but man, all that time I spent binging video games . . . I could have been even farther ahead in my career if I’d actually tried.
I would go to university’s student counseling to deal with my sucky childhood experiences. Learn to love myself and establish a vision and plan for my future. Then, I would throw myself into my studies with realistic and disciplined habits.
Literally everything.
Nothing. Life has been challenging and wonderful, and I wouldn’t trade where I am or how I got here.
About the only thing I would change is I would have invested 10% of my income and then added at least 25% of any raises (I was military so those were very consistent). And left it alone to have for retirement. I would have found a way to save in other ways for other expenses like down payments.
I did invest in like, savings bonds, but cashed them out every so often, like for a down payment on a car.
I would never go back to my 20s. Too much anxiety, too little security, so much effort to put into building a life. Now, I’d be tempted by my 40s, but I wouldn’t go back for that decade either. I want to see what the rest of my 60s hold for me, my husband and our adult children.
20 is too late for me. By 19 I was already doomed.
I wouldn’t want to be 20 again. My 20s weren’t that great. I wasn’t really content with life until my late 40s / early 50s.
Different major and go to a college in a city.