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20 Things To Do in Your Twenties
Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash
Someone I follow on Instagram posted a list of 20 things to do in your twenties. It got me thinking of my own experience and what I would encourage someone else to do. A couple of caveats are worth mentioning: I haven’t done all of these things, or at least not as much as I wish I did, looking back in hindsight. I also avoided putting in generic goals like “eat healthily” or “try new experiences.” Instead, I thought about the concrete things that someone can do that will inevitably lead to them accomplishing those goals. So, instead of “travel,” I include going to a state in a different time zone because it’s like the culture is going to be different and the experiences will change your view of the world.
What would you substitute? Give me a cut along with a replacement. I have a feeling we’re going to see some interesting edits.
1. Get out and stay out of debt
2. Build an emergency fund of $15,000
3. Open a Roth IRA
4. Become fluent in a foreign language
5. Read at least 12 books a year, 1 per month
6. Go on a camping trip for at least 1 week
7. Read the Bible in one year
8. Travel to a state in a different time zone
9. Travel to a foreign country
10. Change a dozen diapers
11. Practice public speaking
12. Read a piece of ancient literature
13. Master a musical instrument
14. Ride a sailboat
15. Fly in a GA (general aviation) aircraft
16. Go to the range
17. Find a mentor
18. Go on a spontaneous road trip, or do a cross-country road trip
19. Train for a (half) marathon
20. Volunteer to help kids and/or the elderly
Oh man, were my twenties an abject failure! I’ve always gone to the range (I assume you mean shooting range), I did visit foreign countries in the Navy, and I’ve always read a gazillion books a year. Oh, and I was never in debt.
Now, if the list was about my sixties . . .
I love 1, 2 & 3. I wish that I had done so.
Good post, Bereket. As an old curmudgeon, I think that the most important things to do in your 20s are:
In that order. Once you do these, there’s a 99% chance that you’ll be grown up.
They didn’t have Roth IRAs when we were in our twenties. 😁
I’m 20 and I’ve managed 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, and 20, although to be fair some of those happened/started when I was still in my teens. I guess I’ve got ten years to finish the other 7.
These are all good ideas. They are very purposeful, which is probably required today. But I could use a little more frivolity.
For #4 and #13, you had better start quite a bit earlier than your 20s.
Love the money-related ones.
I agree with @arizonapatriot that getting married should be high on the list. Then you have a buddy to do the other fun stuff with (among other delightful benefits).
I’d get rid of the camping one, because camping sucks. Mankind has spent millenia getting to the point where we don’t have to sleep outside. Camping erases all of that progress.
Yes–I have a friend who says he is camping when he’s forced to stay in a hotel room that’s not a suite.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that progress has also helped mankind do camping well–in 150K Winnebagos with wonderful gas grills, high-end stereos, and wine racks. I’m good with it. Just don’t make me sleep on the ground.
My rule is that I’ll do absolutely anything for the duration of one day, but there needs to be a shower, a nice meal, and a bed (inside a building!) at the end of it.
I don’t even know what number 3 is. Is it a pension plan or something?
And is a GA an old-timey plane?
Yes there’s nothing about sampling the finest wines known to humanity there for one thing. Now that was on my list when I was in my twenties.
Yes, for number 3. It is part of US law that was passed in 1997 that exempts a certain type of retirement account from taxation on the growth.
General aviation aircraft basically means non-commercial, not necessarily “old-timey.” It could be a brand new aircraft just off the assembly line. My cousin used to refer to it as “flying, rather than taking the bus.” (“The bus” here meaning a commercial flight.) So, generally a smaller airplane, like a four-seater, or an experimental craft, like @gldiii plays with.
If I had a time machine, I’d go back and give this very advice to my 20-something self — but I doubt that snot-nosed little brat would listen.
This reminded me of a great story. When we went to Russia last year, our tutorial was pretty evenly divided between first years (18/19 turning 20 year olds) and third years (21/22 year olds). Naturally, the first years were a little more eager to sample the finer things in life, so to speak, because it was our first time out of parental control. One guy, who I’ll call G, decided that the smartest thing he could do upon arriving in Russia was bring a bottle of Jack Daniels for his hosts from Heathrow and buy some native alcohol for himself. Being the discerning man of culture that he is, when we all got in the creepy white van to go from the airport to our respective host families’ apartments, he excitedly appeared bragging about the fact that he had bought a bottle of some kind of Belarusian brandy/grain alcohol (he had no clue what the hell it actually was) for $1.35-ish. Well, that night he decided to indulge in his prize and discovered that syphoned gasoline probably would have been more pleasant. He ended up sharing the bottle with Alexia, the 90 year Stalinist grandfather of his mid-40s host parents. Mind you, this is the same genius that, mostly because of his poor linguistic skills, ended up at some kind of homeless flea market and accidentally ordered a lady of the night in a hookah bar on that same trip.
“Accidentally.” 😉
Normally I would agree with that assessment, but in this case it really was a mistake.
“He and some friends went to a bar (that they hadn’t bothered to check the reviews on), and, after they got their drinks, the waiter said:
“Ты хочешь стриптизе?” Do you want a striptease?
He’s not exactly a Russian scholar, and decided that “стриптизе” was just a word that he had forgotten, maybe a drink or some brand of cigarettes. So he responded with:
“Да, что это?” Yes, what is that?
The waiter assumed he had mixed up “что” (which means what or that) and “кто” (which means who), and reappeared two minutes later, proudly declaring:
“Это Светлана!” This is Svetlana. (Svetlana, by the bye, looked like her prime had come and gone during Gorbachev’s reign).
He presumed that our friend was in the mood for a striptease, but needed to know exactly what he was getting, which is why at that point she began unbuttoning her top, and the three guys started shouting in any language they knew to make it stop. No one was surprised that they didn’t get any change back when they paid for their drinks with a 500 ruble bill. Frankly, they got what they deserved for going to somewhere called Russian Paradise Bar.”
@kirkianwanderer might only be 20 years old, but she’s already won the “Things to do in Your 20s” sweepstakes.
Absolutely. Got caught up in one of those discussions with a bunch of late born only children. They argued that they waited until they were mature enough. I argued that a twenty year old woman is better equipped physically to safely produce a healthy child and that the number one experience for maturing any reasonably centered human being is parenthood.
Postponing your maturation twenty years translates to offspring you will never meet, never love, never nurture, and starting parenthood about the time your body is geared to slow that all down. A tired parent without the help of other offspring is not the perfect outcome for that late life child.
Youth is wasted on the young.
Spend two hours with your grandmother listening to her story of her childhood. Record her story.
“Write a book” should be on the list somewhere.
I did about 9 of those things on your list. A couple of them don’t translate outside of the the US, the traveling to a different state one or the one about the range.
I think it’s a good list but there’s an assumption that a career is already chosen and embarked upon. I’d include something to the effect of rigorously exploring career options. In my twenties, having raced through the university system aged 17 to 20, I thought my time for education was over and I had to make the best of the choices I made as a teenager. It took the recession to get me back to full time education and a change of career in my early 30’s. I wish I’d done that sooner.
I learned this well after my 20s, but here goes: The differences between a half marathon and a marathon are that (1) you don’t have to train half as hard, and (2) you don’t hurt half so much or as long after it’s over.
Speaking of old-timey planes, I saw a bi-plane land at a little grass field airport near the house the other day.
Sounds like the time part of my work crew “accidentally” ended up at a brothel when we were building a restaurant in Reno.
I lived most of my 20s in foreign countries on two different continents. So rather than just traveling, I would say live in a foreign country. By the time I was in my 20s, I had learned three foreign languages with different degrees of fluency.
My father had planes, so that was done early. I never got my license though. Never had the flying bug. Been in too many thunderstorms to really think it was a good idea.
I looked at the list again, and it seems to me that numbers one, two, and three depend on something that is not on the list but is absolutely essential. That is get a job! You can’t build wealth until you earn it!
I’d kind of like to go on one. But I‘m not as mad for these kind of things as I used to be. I did a skydive years ago, I wouldn’t dream of doing that again.
Point taken, but what would you tell anyone in their twenties to do, not knowing if they will change their career path? What is something concrete that anyone can do that will address that concern?
Right on! The best things I ever did. I was 27 the last time I had a credit card balance carried over to the next month, but didn’t get into IRA-type savings till I was over 30. But finding a wife- a “good thing” (Proverbs 18:22)- followed by a sweet daughter are the things that last if you are blest.