I’m 23 and trying to get my life together. I’ve made mistakes and I’m learning, but I’d really appreciate the wisdom of older men here. If there’s one thing you’d tell your younger self to avoid doing what would it be?
I’m 23 and trying to get my life together. I’ve made mistakes and I’m learning, but I’d really appreciate the wisdom of older men here. If there’s one thing you’d tell your younger self to avoid doing what would it be?
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Getting married. The stats tell the story.
Learn how handle being dumped, cheated on, ghosted, etc, gracefully.
Wear protection, take it easy on the drinking, don’t be in a rush to get a career.
Too much of what you’re told. You have to go your own way. I hear all the time “I don’t know where I went wrong. I did everything I was told to do.”
Picking the wrong partner
If you’re going to marry someone make sure you really, really, really like them. A divorce, alimony, child support etc will usually be the single biggest drain on a man’s wealth and ability to make a stable life going forward. If you’re not 100% sure and haven’t throughly vetted your future spouse then you’re better off just dating or staying single forever.
I think it’s really important to understand your own values, goals, and priorities. I’d tell my younger self not to listen to society’s expectations of them, or the expectations of others, and simply figure out what they want. Not what someone else wants or expects them to do.
There’s no such thing as a failure, or a loser, or whatever else people call themselves. There’s just… people. Some people seem practically made for “success,” but some people have a different definition of what success means, or they have to work harder or take more time to see it happen.
But for example, I think it’s really easy to look into careers that other people (your parents, friends, etc) respect. But what if you don’t wanna be a lawyer, or an accountant, or whatever? What do you personally, actually want out of a career, and how can you get that with the resources you have?
In other words: what would you do if you made your decisions based on your own values and priorities, and not based on what you’re told you should be doing?
IMO, values-based decision-making is also really important because it gives you a lot more flexibility. If X doesn’t work out, then you can figure out that Y is also an acceptable option based on these things. It’s a lot harder to get stuck.
enjoy life, dont rush, avoid marriage, be careful with women. one mistake will turn you into a miserable payslave. dont fall for the toxic ‘real man’ narrative.
The two most important things in your life will be choosing a partner to take on life with and not getting addicted to anything.
From the men that have been in my life, gambling & betting (animal, sports). Just get into the stock market with mutual funds instead.
Honestly, not a lot.
There are so many ideas about what is the right thing to do and what should be avoided but real life just doesn’t roll out like a text book.
If I had to choose something it would probably be to take life in your stride and stay open minded.
Don’t get some psycho pregnant would be number 1.
Start putting money in your retirement fund early, and DO NOT CASH IT OUT UNTIL RETIREMENT.
Don’t get married because of pressure from other people. Get married because you see a future with them and few others. Things to consider. #1 how you resolve conflict and how you handle disagreement. #2 how you manage money, #3 can you carry your share of the household outside of bringing a paycheck (dishes, laundry, tidying, kids, etc). I got married the first time because I thought I was in love. It turned out I was just in lust and having the best sex of my life. This ended up being a huge mistake. The relationship lasted 5 years, but half way in, it all fell apart. The divorce cost me $14,000 and half of my friends (people choose sides) and left a crater in my heart. It all worked out 10 years later, but I could of saved 14k and a lot of heart ache. tldr: don’t confuse bomb ass sex with love and don’t buy a ring because she gives you an ultimatum and her friends pressure you too.
Don’t date someone you wouldn’t marry. It’s a slippery slope and eventually you end up with someone wrong for you.
You need to be looking for a partner. Would you feel comfortable starting a business with this person? Are they honest and trustworthy? Etc.
Thinking that you’re old as you go through each year of your 20’s.
So so so much can happen in a year, literally frame your mind in to a “I have sooo much time” mindset and fill that time with things you enjoy.
Take stock of your company. Do the people you spend time with make you feel good, supported, at ease, like you can be your full authentic self around, secure? If not please respect yourself enough to leave and find new friends, however difficult it may be.
Try to become self assured. It often takes people into their late 20s to do this but it will change your life when you simply accept yourself and stop caring what others think, especially strangers.
Spend some honest time getting to know yourself – spend some time alone and think about what makes you happy, what doesn’t, what kind of person you are, what kind of person you want to be. Self reflection is such an important skill that a lot of us miss out on. Especially given how easy it is to distract yourself.
Don’t gamble
Don’t cheat on your SO
Don’t stop going to the gym
Don’t smoke
Don’t miss out on time with your aging parents (if you’re good with them)
Don’t sacrifice personal time for work cause they DGAF about you or your effort
Don’t get fat
Start saving/thinking about your retirement.
Don’t tolerate bad people. The second someone proves to you they’re a jerk, a liar, or unreliable get rid of them.
Wear protection
Save atleast 20% of your net income in a indexfund
Dont overuse substances
Dont buy that new or flashy car
Dont neglect physical training
Booze and drugs.
Just ignore them both.
Avoid hard drugs
Regular exercise. Even if it’s just going for a walk every other day. I spent my 20s and 30s partying hard and not worrying about what it was doing to my body. My knees now hate me. The other one would be ear protection if you like gigs or clubs. Having tinnitus by 36 was not ideal.
Having a child with someone before you are ready. Condoms are the seatbelts of life.
Gambling.
I never did it but I’ve seen it damage lives and completely ruin lives.
Special event? That’s fine. But never let it become anything close to a habit.
This is going to sound dick but It will save you a lot of problems: don’t date women with mental health issues.
Be very aware of everything in life. Think outside the box. Don’t settle. Protect your joy. Don’t take everything seriously. Not everyone will like you…keep away from them. Protect your heart. Know when to leave. From a 75 year old.
Gambling
1 thing, learn the power of compound interest. The difference in paying a little in credit card debt every month over the course of your life vs putting that money into assets that grow makes a world of difference.
Around your age I started investing. Just $100 a month to start, but after that my contributions grew. When I totaled my car, I had no stress, I bought my new car by writing a check, no debt. When I got married, I had all the money I needed saved up. Even if it only a small contribution, if every month you are saving a little (or paying more than the minimum on what you do owe), it will compound in your favor.
Just one? Well. Don’t get fat. Taking the weight off has been a real pain in the ass.
Don’t settle. Hoping you grow together is not smart.
Fighting gets legally dangerous the older you get. Even if you’re fighting for the right reasons like protecting yourself or someone vulnerable, the courts and cops don’t give a shit. Learn when to walk away and work on cooling your temper when you’re young.
Make sure you are truly happy before even proposing to a potential partner. Open communication and make sure your needs are met as well.
Do not get a girlfriend pregnant. Having children too young is one of the leading predictors of long term poverty.
From a relationship standpoint – Don’t get married if you’ve been together less than 4 or 5 years AND you’ve already tried living together. And probably wait until you’re both at least in your late 20s, if not 30. Divorces are super common, people change.
From a financial standpoint – don’t try and keep up with the Joneses and waste money on shit you don’t actually care about. Make a budget and stick to it. Save at least 10% of your income in a 401k/IRA and emergency fund. Compound interest over 20-30 years is crazy. Can retire comfortably or even early. Like over half of people today are relying primarily on social security and are gonna be screwed
The ol’ adage to stay away from hard liquor and loose women still rings true.
Learn about saving and investing. The earlier you build a habit of saving a percentage of your income, the better your life will be when you retire (and the earlier you’ll be able to retire).
Sticking their D in crazy is never a good idea no matter how good she is in bed.
Get out of shape. It is much easier to remain in shape and healthy than dig your way out of a pit.
Manual labor will destroy your body. Do it in moderation or safely. Your health in 15 years is more important than impressing a boss.
Learn some outdoorsy skills like hunting, fishing, hiking & camping. Know what a couple days hunger feels like. Also, don’t date sluts, I’ve seen this ruin so many men financially before they can establish themselves careerwise. If you’re financially, mentally or emotionally not prepared take care of a spouse or mother of your children…seriously consider the judgement of a female throwing herself at that unprepared version of you.
I’m 51 and I’m a leader in the org that I work for. Having gotten there from the ground up, here’s what I have to offer:
If an employer offers any 401k with an employee match, take advantage of it at least up to the matching percentage. Don’t leave free money on the table.
Take every hour of PTO your employer offers as part of your yearly timeframe. It’s your time that you’ve earned, take it. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about it.
The only thing that can’t be taken from you is your integrity. Don’t give it away or damage it. Don’t lie. Say what you mean, and do what you say you’re going to do. When you make mistakes, own up to them. Don’t make excuses for why it happened.
Don’t flake out on people, especially at the last minute. If you say you’re going to be somewhere, be there. Be the person people can rely on.
It’s always better to have someone else in your debt because you’ve helped them, vs being in someone else’s debt. 2nd part of that – don’t call in those favors you’re owed until they’re absolutely needed.
In work, be dependable. You may not like the work, or the project or who you’re dealing with, but do it anyway to the best of your ability. While you’re doing that, plot and plan your way to something better if you don’t like where you’re at.
Don’t be afraid to express your emotions. Don’t bottle up your feelings continuously until you explode. It’s not healthy and too many Gen-Xers and Millennials learned the lesson hard way.
Don’t be afraid to say no if you can’t do something. If you’re busy, or if you don’t have the skill set, be open and be honest.
If at all possible save some type of money each month. It could be $20 dollars, it could be $100, whatever. Put it in a savings account and don’t touch it. Preferably have it direct deposited into an account from your paycheck and going to a bank that isn’t where you do your primary banking so you can transfer money out of it easily.
Guard your credit score with your life. Don’t over extend yourself, and don’t have tons of credit cards available. That can get you in trouble real fast.
The only things I truly regret are the situations where I was unkind in word or deed to someone. It is something that I can never take back.
Don’t be unkind.
Do not get addicted to opioids. It’s a real bitch and you’ll probably die because of it, and if you’re lucky enough to make it out the other side, you’re permanently scarred from the damage it’s wrought to your life. Just because you stopped using doesn’t mean you’re cured
Work aggressively to payoff all debts as early as possible. Your 20s is the time to be paying off debts and working more than one job (if you can) because when you get older and have kids it becomes that much more difficult.
64 years old with an 8 figure retirement. I wish I could have done this at your age: put a profile up on Tinder and count how many hundreds of matches you get in the first hour. Because I can assure you that handsome men will get several hundred. If you are handsome, divorce/dead bedroom/fat wife is probably only a 1 in 20 chance. Those odds are terrible but most men are stupid.
And if you are not handsome, do not, under any circumstances, get married. The chance of failure for you is probably 80%. Sure, sleep around but never, ever get married. It will be the biggest mistake of your life. I bailed out on my wedding with ten days to go and it was the smartest thing I ever did. She had pushed and pushed for the wedding and then when I called it off, she admitted she had never been that attracted to me, she had just given up on the handsome men she wanted and was out of time. She now weighs about 400 lbs, and was 90 lbs soaking wet when we were dating. Do not get married unless you are handsome.
10,000 women on Tinder don’t lie. The problem with the divorced/dead bedroomed/fat wifed men is they thought they could beat the miserable odds that 10,000 women were screaming at them that they would not beat when they put up a profile and heard crickets.
Try to maintain as many of your [positive] friendships as you can. It requires effort but far less than having to make new ones. The early investment is worth it as it just gets increasingly more difficult as you get older. Do the opposite of “men don’t make new friends, we cross old ones off the list”
Don’t marry, western laws (for most countries) favor women
Its harder to lose weight or get healthy again then it is to stay healthy.
Its easier to avoid debt then to get out of debt
Its easier to wait to marry the right person then it is to divorce because you married the wrong one.
Take your time to make the right decisions, get healthy habits now, prevention is so mich easier than recovery. And don’t be an asshole, and make friends everywhere, 100 connections is worth more than $100k.
Don’t get married unless you have a burning desire to have children and your wife is on the same page.
You’re 23. At that age I wish I quit the social drinking on Friday and Saturday, locked into a long term fitness plan and stayed consistent, and dumped all my extra money into VTI or a stock I really believed it.
If you aren’t planning on marriage and kids in your 20’s, don’t bother getting into a “serious” relationship. It’s a waste of time if that’s not your immediate goals.
Relationships. No gain, only pain.
I would recommend that you don’t live your entire life in one place. The world is huge, and getting outside of your comfort zone and living life somewhere else will help you in ways that I can’t describe. Do what you can. 2 years is a solid amount of time for you to experience some ups and downs and see the beauty in the world.
Learn to fight.
Don’t fight.
Do the hardness things you can do now and say yes to anything. You’re never going to be this young and able to recover from the abuse of sleepless nights and too much coffee.
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Use hearing protection when in noisy environments and do not blast music too loud with headphones on. Hearing damage and tinnitus is a bitch.
Get to know yourself, become friends with the person in your head, you’re going to be spending the rest of your life together, make sure you’re on the same page. Take stock every now and then and look around to see if there are any hidden opportunities near you. Don’t stop yourself from doing something you think is cool because there is someone in your life who will criticize you negatively. There will always be somebody to criticize you. Just watch, this post will receive negative criticism. If you still live where you grew up you might want to think about traveling somewhere and trying to make it there, you can always go back. But beware of crabs in a bucket (look it up if you don’t know what that means). You’re going to continue to make mistakes you’re going to have to go through some shit but remember they use shit for fertilizer it helps things grow.
Having a child young and with the wrong person is damn near a death sentence. The amount of trauma and sacrifice involved, especially the more involved you are. I have full.custdoy but it took until I was 33 (daughter 10) to heal and start working on my career and shit.
Stop cat calling women and sending dick picks unless asked. If a woman is venting about something, just listen and ask questions, don’t offer advice unless she asks.
Those are the basics for staying out of trouble with the fairer sex on any given day. Not the only rules by far, but you’ll at least not be killed on the first round of executions.
“two can keep a secret if one of them is dead”
Don’t buy a property with a partner that you can’t afford 100% on your own. It’s bad enough breaking up with someone, never mind losing your home.
Be financially independent from others as much as you can.
Don’t take life too seriously. Avoid political arguments and conflict.
Either stop drinking or don’t binge drink. I’m trying to stop drinking now well into my 30s. I spent way too much and wasted so much time on my 20s. But I was so stressed, so you need to find something like the gym or other hobbies to get out of drinking
Good luck
Never get married
Stay faithful. You can build something amazing if you and your partner are truly honest with each other. Love is what it is all about.
avoid debt 100%
Skipping college. You are condemning yourself to a tough, low paying career.
If you are trying to get your life together do not bring a woman in to your life, women only destroy men there is nothing to be gained by having one in your life
Drugs. Every person I’ve ever known who fucked up or ended his life because of drugs thought they could handle it in the beginning.
Thinking with your dick. I know guys who allowed their little head to do their thinking for them, only to wind up writing child support checks to a woman they didn’t even like for 18 years.
Pissing away time on stupid shit. Video game and watching sports are great. But do not let it take over your life. Don’t let it be your automatic thing to do when you get home from work. There are people to meet and things to do. I just sat at a party watching six or seven attractive, smart, and accomplished women wondering where all the guys are.
Your twenties are for learning, your thirties are for earning. Learn everything you can and meet everyone you can.
Not taking care of your body. In your twenties, you have the metabolism of an English sparrow. That won’t last. Keep eating like a teenager and don’t have an exercise routine and you will pay the price for it in your thirties and beyond.
No debt outside of a mortgage for real estate. Pay off the student loans, don’t go out and finance a car just because you can afford the payment. invest as much as you can in tax advantaged accounts into good ETF’s. It put me miles ahead of my friends…
My friends after college went out and financed 50,000 cars. I still drive an old car I bought for $5k. They’re in debt and upside down on their car loans and can’t get out of them because the negative equity is too high. I saved up 150k over that same time period simply by not taking the $500-$700 car payment most think is normal.
Don’t date disagreeable women who just look for a reason to make your life difficult. Don’t tolerate disrespect from a woman you’re dating. And don’t marry a girl just because you think it’ll stop whatever issues she’s causing or she’ll change. Just stay single or keep dating until someone’s on the same wave length as u…
But on the money aspect. Me not financing the 40-60k bmw or Audi after college is the reason I’ll be able to pay cash for a Ferrari in my 50’s with ease. Keep on investing and increase the savings as your pay goes up. Don’t upgrade your life. Upgrade your savings…
For example I got a $15,000 raise after taxes this year. Could’ve got a nicer house, car, anything… instead I saved 70% of it. And used the other 30% of the raise to increase my “fun” budget. You need to enjoy life but do it smart!
Don’t be lazy in the gym. This is the easiest time in your life to build muscle.
Prioritizing a job over what makes you happy. Even better try to do a job that makes you happy. It’s more important than the paycheck. Do something fulfilling.
Travel while you’re young. Don’t put it off.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Talk to a financial advisor and start saving for your retirement.
Compound interest is your friend and the earlier you start consistently putting money away for your future, the better.
Don’t put your Di€k in crazy.
Student loans now are only worth taking for a very small subset of degrees/careers.
Do NOT get married early. Live your life and enjoy it!
If marriage is in the cards for you. Learn about divorce laws/proceedings and general outcomes.
Don’t be afraid of asking girls out
Fast women and fast cars aren’t worth it, it will end up ruining you.
Breed.
Children are fine if you can return them after a bit. They’re shit otherwise and when they stop sucking and become interesting they move out.
Lots of great advice on here already. Good question, young man.
The only thing I’ll add is don’t buy anything you can’t afford. In other words, don’t get into credit card debt. Pay that credit card off IN FULL every month.
Do not marry before 30 years old.
Do not do it.
Get money. Fuck bitches.
Seriously, concentrate on giving your future self as much money as possible, and completely disregard any distractions from that. You don’t have to obsess over it, just make a plan and be prepared