There’s been so much talk about how to live your twenties. What I got from all the talk was that there were only two ways to live. You either worked really hard or you partied really hard. After this week of events I realized my perception has been completely misconstrued.
The twenties shouldn’t be lived one way or the other; it should be the years where we are taking advantage of what we can do now that we can’t do later.
That’s what the YOLO mentality is really about. There’s only a short period of time where you can do certain things before you become too old to do it or worse, too busy. There will come a day where your life schedule doesn’t allow you to be spontaneous because of all your responsibilities. I really hope it doesn’t come to that and I will try incredibly hard to not let it, but the time we’re given now should not be taken for granted.
The best thing the twenties can offer is flexibility. We can do everything with little to no baggage. We can move across country. We can go on a self-exploration. We can stay up all night and then go to work the next day, if we wanted you can always make up for sleep later. We can completely change our life and have little to no effect on the people surrounding us.
That’s the freedom the twenties gives so I think it’s only fair that we take advantage of that. We should be using our twenties to live in the moment, whether it is for work or play. We shouldn’t be afraid to take risks now that we won’t be able to later.
Let’s live our twenties to the fullest by making time for career advances and also taking advantage of what life has to offer.
Ask The Young Professional 
Well said, Katie. You are 100% correct that life becomes less flexible with age, for the vast majority of us. Just this evening I had my senior thesis student over for dinner, before she graduates, and we got to talking about what I miss about my 20s, which basically boiled down to one thing: travel. TRAVEL! Sometimes spontaneous (a weekend away on a whim? no problem!), sometimes very well-planned (two weeks in France and Switzerland? cool!), but in any case, having the flexibility to pick up and go. Life with a child isn’t so flexible, and the adventures are a lot more work when you do manage to make them happen.
So as you said, enjoy AND work. They are not incompatible. After all, how do you get the money to do all the enjoying?
Regardless of age … Living in the NOW is important. In my 20s I was too focused on where I wanted to be by 40. Now that I’ve arrived, I’m glad I’m here, but as you say, at 20 the ability to act on instincts without as many responsibilities and having to take into account additional lives is a great time to explore your passion with minimal consequence.
I spent two years of my 20s serving, exploring, and learning a new language. It was a great foundation for later in life.
Enjoy it!
That’s interesting. I never thought about language. I get it opened yo to a whole new culture. How would you say it helped you?
Katie, I was referencing the ability to serve – but that being said, learning a new language has helped me see you life in a whole new perspective. For example, in English we throw around the word “love” a lot. We love a beverage, we love a person, we love a restaurant.
In other languages, there are multiple words for love that make you stop and think about how much you really think about something before assigning it a word. It hurt my brain the first year or so until I got into the groove of feeling first, then assigning words.
That’s really interesting. It amazes me sometimes how different languages can be. As always, thanks for sharing Pete!
Here, here!
I completely agree, well said.