What does it mean to "throw away your early twenties"?
I am a 21-year-old building out a SaaS. It is tough to define what "throwing away" my early twenties means but I hear the advice all the time. I'm guessing no one consciously decides too and it happens accidentally.
Do you feel you made the most of your early twenties?
What would you've done differently?
You can say the same thing about your 30s, 40s, 50s. Your entire life. Let other people give you their advice. It is warped base on their own perceptions. Be respectful and nod, and then get back to what you want to be working on.
We are all trying to carve out a path through the forest. There are beautiful trees scattered all over the place. Go find yours. Good luck!
It’s just nonsense people say when they regret the path they took or when they’re dishing-out advice to others (usually younger than them) in an attempt to make themselves look like the wise old souls. They’re not. Ignore it. Follow your own path and have fun.
Don’t worry, be happy, things will work out fine. 🙂
I believe it depends on how each one lives their own life. There are people who spend their early twenties just hanging out, drinking, going to parties, and when they reach their thirties, they get frustrated because they only enjoyed life at parties and didn't generate anything of value for the future.
There are other people who know how to share this, they enjoy it and invest in something that will add in the future.
I myself don't go out much, I have few friends, I'm 25 years old and when we make an appointment to go out, we go out. Although they also reach adulthood, they are busier.
You just need to know how to divide it: time to enjoy / time to invest in your future.
If partying is what makes you happy, I think you should do it while you still can.
If creating products makes you happy, I think you should do it while you still can.
Not everyone enjoys creating things or providing value, many people get happiness from doing what they enjoy, even if it's not productive in any way.
Currently, my philosophy is to just do whatever I enjoy doing while I can still do it. I am lucky that I enjoy building things, but I also enjoy doing many other activities that don't generate value for others in any way (e.g. playing table tennis or playing the piano).
If I had to guess, the recommendation to "throw away your twenties" is a reference to compound interest. I think the common refrain is that if you skill up early in your life, you can reap those rewards for the rest of your career.
That recommendation assumes a lot of things- like for example that you'll stay in this line of work forever, but there is some wisdom in investing in compounding effects.
Though, there's a big difference between the binary outcome of having fun in your life vs a totally deferred life plan. You can both work hard and have fun. You can save your money but also take vacation.
The only change I'd have made is to leave the Montreal winters for the beach a couple more times. Doesn't cost much, but man what a quality of life upgrade.
I don't feel like I made a lot out of my early twenties. But it's going through those years that made the man I am today.
I have for a long time struggled with self-esteem. I'd say most of my twenties were a long journey of self acceptance and learning to love myself for who I am.
I still achieved important milestones that paved the way for the life I have today. I made the decision to go back to school and to college. I and had the grit to go through it, even tho it was hard (felt like I was wasting my time).
My first few jobs in software development made me feel miserable. Move positions a few time to eventually get the job I still have to this day. Got promoted a few times and now have a pretty good salary.
That's about it for my early twenties. Then, late twenties I met my current girlfriend. We got 2 daughters out of that relationship. We're still together.
And I'm now late in my thirties.
I'm 23 now. I just explored a lot of different things starting from 20s.
Those included starting a youtube channel (didn't go anywhere), tinkering with sales & marketing, working on building a lot of products but I found that experimenting and then narrowing down on what makes you happy is a great way to start.
In the end, just do what makes you feel exciting everyday. Because showing up everyday and doing something might be really helpful later. Just don't mind what others have to say.