By: Colin Emerich
December 30th, 2023
20 to 25 years old. Whether you have already experienced this stage of life, are approaching it, or are currently living in the midst of it. It’s a period of so much unknown, so little idea of the world.
In honor of recently leaving this period of my life with my 26th birthday. I began to reflect on life, on this span of life in particular. All the lessons, growing pains, successes and failures. I felt that perspective from this period of my life would be appreciated and hoped that it may be deemed valuable by many of similar age and even beyond.
YEARS OF DISCOVERY, CHANGE & GROWTH
Early Twenties. What a whirlwind time in our lives. Whether already working or finishing up college. First promotion or finishing up graduate school. You finish the pinnacle of schooling just to be out at the bottom of the totem pole in the real world. Just to realize many of the tools you learned don’t necessarily translate to the real world and many tools you aren’t taught in school at all. You go from parties and a built-in community of buddies to quieter lives with infrequent check ins with friends a couple times a year.
So much change in a small 5-year period. Friends seen every day for years, all of childhood in some cases, are suddenly hours away. People you have known your whole life change, sometimes for better and other times for worse. Everyone is at different stages than each other. You learn deeply about yourself.
Maturity happens at different paces from different life experiences, adult figures, and childhoods. From the wide range of responsibilities thrust upon individuals at a young age. Some of us are very mature at 20 entering the twenties, some of us lack that maturity and understanding of life until closer to 25, and some lack it even further beyond our early twenties. Some truly never find it unfortunately. For me, I feel a lot of my maturity has occurred in my 24 and 25 age years, and it has surely opened up a new window into life and how I see it.
Within this stretch of life, birthdays come and go, you turn 20 and it hits you are no longer a teenager. You turn 21 and it’s a big deal. Your first time out with your friends. You’re fully considered an “adult”. But the next couple you almost want to stop counting. None of them really “relevant” per se until the big 25 and even then, it’s not that much excitement, possibly even disappointment if you’re not where you thought you would be at in life.
In this stretch, you hit a huge milestone you’ve been building toward your whole childhood then fall back to reality. You hit rock bottom but it causes you to grow closer to your true self. You meet new people and it brings joy. You lose someone you love deeply, whether still alive or up above, and you struggle. You find God and you try your best to always hold the faith, though it would be naïve to say it is easy.
Ups and downs. Ups and downs. Ups and downs.
The endless cyclical nature of life it seems.
As there wouldn’t be the good moments without the learning and lessons from the bad. There wouldn’t be the bad moments without the beautiful memories and experiences of the good.
You begin to learn firsthand that’s what the rest of life entails. You learn to appreciate the highs in the moment and surround yourself with a good support system for the lows. You hold onto the moments of joy with loved ones and survive the sadness of moments fighting within your own head. The more things you regard as sacred, the more magnificent everything becomes.
Hold the faith, as Matthew 17:20-21 describes “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
It can take a long time. But you set the goal of being a steady presence. A compassionate friend. A thoughtful lover. A person that others know will always be kind to them. A person that others know will always listen and try their best to lift them up. A person that people can see the trust that only God could provide.
Nothing is impossible for you under God.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCEMENT
Early twenties have a lot of learning moments, have a lot of instances where you could have done better. Where you hide yourself and may be someone you’re not to fit in with the crowd or to fit in with certain ‘friends’. Where you sought validation or lacked self-esteem. Where your true self or ideals maybe weren’t showcased because you wanted to impress or get the attention of others. College, especially is full of this behavior and full of comparison.
I recently read the book Tuesdays with Morrie and while I highly recommend reading it yourself. One of the quotes stood out to me: “If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it too. They will only envy you”.
As you advance through your early twenties, you start to grasp that you shouldn’t feel the need to impress anyone else. That for the rest of your life, you only need to be yourself and authentic and others will see that. Yes, some friends or people may leave your life. But for the people that stay, you know they like and care about you for who you are, and not some persona you try to showcase. That they truly care about you. That should be the goal in life, be surrounded by people who make you more you.
If it is not who you are, then be who you are.
Early twenties. There are regrets. There are hard lessons. There is pain. Times you may look back and look at old versions of yourself as if they’re a stranger. Not recognizing how that person ever could have been you.
We must make corrections within, as Proverbs 15:32 says “If you refuse to be corrected, you are only hurting yourself. Listen to criticism, and you will gain understanding.”
We start our twenties so raw, so unaware of ourselves, living in the day to day of tests, events, parties. The future plans and outlook of life often too much to try to process or think about. There are a few that have it figured it out in their early twenties, but it is nowhere near the majority. As we leave our early twenties, life slows down, the big picture often is the only picture. We think more and more about our family, close friends, about what our future holds and the love and family of our own that we crave sooner than later.
It is known that the prefrontal cortex continues to evolve throughout our early twenties, up until about 25 years old. As this happens in individuals you may almost feel a sense of enlightenment to the world around and what’s really important. Especially when a major life altering event has taken place, like the death of a loved one, a debilitating illness, devastating heartbreak. Especially if you’ve hit rock bottom. You can feel the change within you, and how you think. You can feel a shift in the priorities in the life to be lived ahead.
For others you may not wake up and suddenly feel different at 24, 25. But that couple year difference of time and experiences causes so much difference in the way emotions are processed, decision making is more based on the life we want, we see the world for how it really is. The good and the bad. We recognize how our relationships are so important to our inner. Heart and soul deeply changed.
For every increase in consciousness, we experience, we not only become more sensitive to the joy and beauty of this world; but we become more sensitive to pain, both pain we’ve caused in our past and pain we’ve experienced ourselves.
You may stay up late at night, before going to bed and wish you had the chance to go back or change life with what you’ve learned, with who you’ve become. For what we didn’t do, all the things we should have done or accomplished. To do something better, to do right, to do good. To show how deeply you truly love another. To change any sins that eat at you. To have caused minimal pain. To have felt less pain yourself. To make more kind moments live within this world.
Unfortunately, we can’t. As mysterious as time is, that is not one of the options. None of us can undo what we’ve done, but there is no such thing as “too late” in life. You have the capability to change until the day you say goodbye to this Earth. If we get stuck in the regrets of our life we’ll fail to live, we’ll fail to maybe even recognize the opportunity to make things right, to do better. I still struggle with this premise from time to time, as I would do a lot of things to make things right and to show actions were not my genuine soul, but no time machine is available.
We can only do so from right here, right now, knowing if ever given the chance we would showcase the change so clearly. We must pray that it is enough for others to see. We must pray that others can believe and see change within us. We must trust that though others cannot see our hearts, that God knows our hearts and trust He will showcase it to others.
One of the verses you must hold faith in is Exodus 14:14 “The Lord will fight for you while you [only need to] keep silent and remain calm.”
HANDLING PAST DEMONS
To fully evolve though, to fully take advantage of our early twenties and beyond, we must take care of our past. It doesn’t mean we can change the past, as discussed we can’t. But we must face it head on. While we can’t alter it, we must examine it to live a smarter, brighter, more gentle future.
A lot of us in our early twenties still haven’t processed a lot of what happened as kids. What our past consisted of. We never dove into what may have deeply affected us in a negative manner. What parts of us we developed to protect our childhoods that may no longer serve us. What aspects of us we incorporated to mask our insecurities. We never sat and analyzed what triggers negative behaviors within us. Many of us run from our emotions our their whole lives, many of us spent college running from just that. Still on the hamster wheel that we grew up on. Involving ourselves in endless activities; sports, Greek life, work, nightlife, and hobbies to always be on the go. Always preoccupied. Not any time to feel. Turning to alcohol, drugs, sex, sports, gambling any vices that give thrill or excitement to our lives and distract ourselves from any of the built-up worries or negative emotions within.
As the reality is, while people are better at hiding it then others, we all have our vices. We develop unhealthy coping mechanisms; one’s some may never recognize about ourselves. Often latching onto anything, even if it is negative, that gives us validation. Instead of focusing internally and coming to find it within ourselves.
We live in constant comparison with others especially during this period of life. Though we compare ourselves only to each other’s highlight reels across different avenues of social media. Whether friends, followers, likes, popularity. It can quickly become a dangerous place to live, if social media is all your living for, and one that will drive you crazy if you let it. We are young and dumb and inexperienced. A lot of us don’t know how to process the dark aspects life has cast upon us in childhood or may bring us during this stage of life. A majority of us don’t know how to sit alone with our thoughts.
After this, take 30 minutes, an hour, a night and sit with your own thoughts. No distractions, just you. Maybe you’re lucky and your mind is calm. But for many, at first it can be a terrifying place to be. The few first times may be the same. Every time may be the same. Negative thoughts may creep in and out. Now imagine someone depressed or with anxiety or with trauma that they can’t get out of their own head, that can’t get out of those thoughts at all. Your moments alone are their moments every second of the day. No matter how hard they try. It’ll give you a different perspective of how you see others. I know it has for me, as it’s a practice I’ve incorporated regularly over the past year and a half. To learn myself and see how another’s mind feels and triggers, and it has drastically changed how I see what ways my actions affect others. It has made me more compassionate and empathetic when looking at those around me.
For me, I’ve dealt with these aspects of severe depression and trauma in my own head. Unfortunately, in my past I have caused the same within others. I have never intentionally set out to hurt anyone, but trapped within my own insecurities and issues, losing battles within, I recognize I have hurt others deeply. Destroys me that I’ve caused people to feel similar or worse to what I’ve felt in my own mind since I was young. While only the first step, realization of past faults is taking the first step to bring better to the future. The earlier the better in handling your own demons, as the older you get, the less likely you are to ever actually take the steps, to make the changes required that take time, and have the courage to do so.
EXPRESSION AMONG MEN
As boys, we grow up and we are not taught to express our emotions. It is a big stigma, that guys are not meant to feel or show emotion. With time, it leads not only to an inability to express, but also an inability to react with empathy to another’s expression. Guys in general but young guys in particular, especially in our early twenties, don’t get deep in our feelings or emotions at all. It is almost like forbidden grounds to have those man-to-man conversations. There are a variety of factors that take effect, as it could be a lack of a male presence to talk to vulnerably in childhood, could be society’s expectations, could be the fear of those confidential conversations being used against them by ‘friends’ due to lack of trust. I have had many friendships over my lifetime. That being said, I can count on my one hand the number of friends I have truly talked about my life and emotions with, who I felt I could trust. For some men, the number is even less, for some none at all.
It can be a scary place to be and I don’t blame other men either because it’s easier to be cold or act unfazed. I don’t blame them because it’s easy to look around at the college scene and feel like the odd man out if you actually do feel deeply. I don’t blame others because it is easier to hold everything in, to appear on the outside like everything is all right. I don’t blame them because for a long time that was me. That was how I was, hardening my heart, nothing really bothering me, not allowing anything to make me feel vulnerable, pushing people I cared about away to protect myself due to the broken parts of me. I excelled in school, sports. High GPAs, captains of teams. To those around me I am sure I seemed to have it all together. Though in reality, I was far from it.
I was closed off because it meant I was safe. It is easier, it is harder to choose to be vulnerable, to choose to open yourself up. I went through a lot of things in my life within this past year or two and it vastly changed that outlook. I have learned to appreciate the parts of me that kept me safe or kept the peace inside me even as I work to let those parts that became harmful go. I realized that having that thought process, being numb, made me numb or blind to the feelings of others, made me lack the ability to put myself into other’s shoes. Made me someone I am not. We’re human, and even as guys we are meant to feel. Living means you can show emotions and feelings. You can talk with them, feel the world around you with those emotions. Take that away and you’re not living, you’re just existing. We’re meant to feel life fully, to feel deep love and deep pain, deep grief and deep excitement. That’s is the authenticity and beauty of life.
Oftentimes as dudes we don’t have the right responses when a friend or another guy comes to us with their thoughts or with vulnerability because we have had such limited experiences doing so. Guys may think it is soft or that their humiliating themselves. But I want everyone to know and for all my friends to know, it is not humiliating. It is not embarrassing. It is strength. It is courage. It is. Anyone that tells you differently lacks depth and I feel bad for them and their superficial nature. To live life on the surface level, is a life not fulfilling. Those aren’t people you should seek to have in your life anyway. Vulnerability and self-awareness are powerful and along with youthful energy and an old soul, I have come to value that more than anything in a person. If you feel you can be vulnerable with me, I see you in a more positive light no matter what. It shows you are human. Therefore, know I actually gain respect for others including you in those instances. I encourage you, and us as men collectively to do the same for our buddies. Even if we don’t have the right answers, that we are there for one another.
Men isolate and battle life on our own, battling the darkness and lows within them seemingly alone. If you are my friend and even if you are not, please know you never have to feel alone, that you can count on me. I have felt alone in my lowest moments, and I will do anything I can for the rest of this life so that others do not feel alone. While as men we might not have the right response for others, we can show others they are not alone simply by our presence in the moments that presence is needed most.
In the beginning, when we are infants, we need others to survive. At the end of life, we need others to survive. But the thing we lose sight of is, that in between those two endpoints, we need others as well.
WRENCH IN THE SYSTEM
You would think from the context above, there’s enough to handle during this period of life. In reality, there is. 20 to 25 is stressful enough, so much rides on these years. But then for my generation, life throws in a pandemic.
COVID-19. Where no one knows what is going on or what difficulties it will cause. Everything is shut down; a vibrant social life becomes a more isolated one for a year and a half. At a time of our life, you are already trying to figure yourself out, a whole other challenge comes into play. Everyone is divided. We get complacent with working from home, sitting around, school online through a computer screen.
The whole pandemic stretch feels like a blur looking back. I felt like I went from 22 to 24 in a blink of an eye, good moments with amazing people but different moments. Just everything jumbled together. Like the same day on repeat. I think part of that caused me not to evaluate the future, because every day was alike. Masks, mandates, a country in turmoil. One day you’re out at a bar with all your buddies jammed packed with people for St. Patrick’s Day and the next the whole school and state are closed down. Your country closed down not soon after. The whole world essentially closed down for months on months not long after that.
Your closest friends go home, you are in your house with family 24/7 for 2 straight weeks that turns into months. You can not see your extended family. Life just becomes totally turned upside down. Days run together; time slips by. Feeling complacent and lacking inner drive became more prevalent. We can’t socialize the same. Many of us get out of shape, as the gyms are closed. A lot of us felt a sense of feeling alone as life we knew suddenly became a life spent at your home. The dependence on phones and social media increased for a majority to feel still in touch with the world and friends. Loneliness for many increases, as we take in more of that screen time and having to live by our self becomes more prominent.
Fast forward, we thankfully make it through this stretch, and now we snap out of it. The world opens up and suddenly we’re nearing the end of our early twenties, full-blown adults. The important aspect of the transition period into adulthood just kind of passes us by in the snap of the fingers.
Adults now, on our own trying to navigate the world and be there and help others while still not knowing who we are, and in some cases what we want to do. Even what we want in life. Most of us are out on our own at college. After school though, many of us return home to save money in an economic climate that almost requires it nowadays. You go from college with ultimate freedom and little responsibility to back under house rules and the accountability of adulthood. After some time goes by, you may find your first place and be truly independent, but still having to work every day in the changed norm of the mundane of adult life.
FINDING FOOTING IN THE CHAOS
Early twenties. Times of accomplishment. Times of immense doubt.
You succeed, you hold that degree or degrees and cross that stage. You get your first big job. You hold enthusiasm and excitement for the future. You meet new fellow students, coworkers, friends. You make your parents proud. You feel that there is nothing but time ahead. You feel like the world is at your fingertips.
On the flip side.
You fail, you can’t find a job or feel stuck in the one you have, your friends are finding their niche faster than you, you let people you care about down. You lose people you hoped would be in your life forever. The things you looked forward to don’t feel as fulfilling as you had thought. You lack maturity, understanding, and you feel lack of hope for the years to come. You feel like the world has already passed you by.
All of these thoughts bundled into 5 years. Talk about life being thrown at you. Tornado picking you up and spitting you out along the path of life you still have to live.
You can’t even slow down to reflect on these years until it’s past you. Just recently leaving my early twenties, and looking in the rear-view mirror now. From 20 to 25, I can’t believe all the events, all the experiences, all the moments I’ve lived. All of the triumphs but all of the setbacks. All of the love and happiness but all of the regret and shame. The moments with family, teammates and friends that make me smile and replay in my head but the memories with those I’ve lost or no longer in my life that fill me with immense sadness that also replay in my head, leaving me wishing for one more moment together to tell them what they mean to me.
I stand here at a fresh 26 and think back to who I was at 20 and I see a small part of me in that boy. I see small details of me. Maybe you feel the same when thinking back.
But a large part of me doesn’t recognize him, who he was, whether physical features. How I cut my hair, the amount of acne, the skinny frame, how I dressed, the lack of commitment to exercise or the unhealthy lifestyle of vastly too much fast food and soda, how I desired to fit in. But I lack the ability to recognize the emotional aspects of myself just the same. My lack of security within myself, the shortage of emotional intelligence, the absence of self-awareness, the narrow-minded view and lack of recognizing how I affected the people around me.
I’m still learning, still evolving, I always will, we all always will. But I look back and don’t recognize a wide portion of who I was.
As a good quote that touches on this, “Each day when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning when I was up, I am reborn”.
21-year-old me didn’t recognize 20-year-old me. It was a completely different life. I could go out to the bars; I became a lot more social. 26 doesn’t recognize who I was a year ago. It is a completely different mental makeup and discipline within me. 25-year-old me definitely didn’t recognize 24-year-old me. It was before I truly found God and started building a relationship with Him that began transforming from my old self that hid a lot from the world.
26-year-old me to 20-year-old me might as well be 2 different lifetimes. 2 strangers who wouldn’t recognize each other if they passed one another on the street.
We must come to realize, so many people from our past know a version of you that doesn’t exist anymore.
Surely many of you, think of these years and may think the same. Even comparing yourself many years ago to who you are now if you’re older.
OPENING OUR EYES TO ANOTHER’S STORY
The sad part of life is we hold people to these ingrained versions within our mind. Our biggest defect as human beings is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be, but we also do not allow others to show up as evolved versions of themselves.
We hold onto a version of them from middle school, we hold onto a version of them from being a teenager. We hold onto to them as an athlete. We hold onto their best, or hold onto their worst. We often hold our impressions and opinions of people to a period of time from the past. We don’t allow them to show up as who they are now. We don’t appreciate how they have changed, grown up, matured, or advanced. We do not allow our minds to see the new, Myself included from time to time.
Others say people can’t change. I find this fixed mindset to be limited and narrow-minded. As if we do not believe in others being able to change, how could we ever believe in ourselves to change. People that truly believe that, I want to ask them “do you feel that you yourself have never changed”?
If faith is apart of your life, then you recognize the full change of heart that can take place through faith in God. As it is reiterated again and again in His Word.
As two of my favorite verses explain just that.
One that I got customized on marble and I look at everyday when I wake up is Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
The other, 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”.
Early twenties are an age where many of us get caught up into our own world, all the main character of our stories and we lack compassion without that realization at times. I know I unfortunately did. I did not see how my actions affected others for longer than I had even known. We don’t see life through another’s eyes. We aren’t taught to learn another person’s story. We don’t ask why someone is a certain way or grasp that childhood was different for each and every one of us. As we advance out of early twenties, majority of us start to see it more clearly.
We learn about others, and we expend effort to understand our peers.
How someone who grew up with a disability, addiction, physical ailment, mental illness or grew up in a household that had such, have a more seasoned open-eyed perception of life than someone who luckily lives without any issues in a “head in the clouds” manner.
How divorced parents blurry the idea of there being true love and change the lifestyle for a kid growing within 2 homes compared to those with parents happily married under one roof.
How loss of a loved one as a young kid shape someone compared to someone who hasn’t experienced any loss.
How struggle of working, saving and paying for yourself helps one learn responsibility compared to the lack of it within someone who might get handed everything.
How experiencing abandonment of a parent or loved one as a child causes intense fear that anyone can leave you compared to a kid who has a deeply connected base and parents who are always there every step of the way.
These are just a handful of a wide variety of ways we can begin to understand others in a more complete way. To ask the hard questions. To come to learn the depths of another soul. I’ve experienced some of these, some of them I have not. Although, I do know all of these and also many I didn’t mention, shape us when we’re young and continue affecting how we think until we heal it.
Many of those who have went through these aspects of life, are the most soulful people you’ll ever know. These individuals feel things deeply, and sometimes feel in unbearable ways because they know how unforgiving the world can be.
In our early twenties, we really start to examine these elements of another’s life and notice how certain aspects have shaped them into the person they are. The triggers they live with, the insecurities they deal with, the mannerisms. If you really take the time and just get to know someone else, you’ll understand them so much more deeply. But you also feel comfortable expressing yourself and what has molded you.
I encourage you to try it, to really place yourself in another’s shoes as you expound on each other’s life stories.
I encourage you to take a look around, at family, at friends, at people you’ve known over the years and examine the different versions of them you have known and how they have evolved.
We must see our own faults and shortcomings and push to work on them. We must also see our strengths and use them to make good in this world. We learn to make room for vulnerability and do so for those around us.
More importantly, we should strive to see the good in others, and want to make that come out. We see the bad, the mean spirit, the anger, the sadness in others and give compassion. As we have no idea, what battles unknown to us that each person we know is experiencing behind closed doors.
I despise holding hate or negativity about others within my heart.
It is draining of the human spirit. There is light and darkness within us all. At my core I believe in the good of humanity and that there are parts of good within each and every one of us. I strive to see that good in others because it can help make the world a brighter place, it can help me become better myself.
We come to recognize we’re all humans living on this planet for the first time. Being dealt cards of childhood a lot of which we couldn’t control. Learning behaviors, tendencies, protective measures to survive as we grow. We give grace and try to help others expand just as we work too. We give love because we know the feeling of being unloved or not feeling good enough ourselves. We show kindness, because maybe just maybe that could make someone’s day.
INTRODUCTION TO LOSS
We live our early twenties like we aren’t going to die, like we are invincible.
But even if you have little to no loss growing up, your twenties are where everyone begins to experience it in one way or another. Both in body and in spirit. You feel what others may have felt since they were young. Grief. You realize that the grief means the love was real, your moments with them cherished, your world forever tainted with their favorites shows, favorite things, or the places of moments shared together. You look at life differently. We begin to grasp the reality more and more that we have less time than we think with our loved ones, and more and more that our time will come sooner than we think one day, and we never know when that day is.
The laws of life bring us loss, you lose a parent, a grandparent, a cousin, a sibling, a friend to Heaven above.
It really wasn’t until my father passed away last September, that I had experienced loss. That I realized how stupid the idea of a grudge was. That I regretted every time in my life I may have held hate or anger. That I wanted to give deep honesty so that others could see me even if it meant they would leave. That I wanted to right every wrong I have made. That I just want to be at peace with myself and everyone around me. With my only hope and commitment being to make others’ lives better. It wasn’t until I lost my dad, that I truly realized all I want to do is to love and be loved. That I will always look and express the good in other people.
Shortly after the aftermath of my father, I lost my dear Gram, lost a friend, lost a childhood pet but extending deeper, I also watched others lose their son, their husband, their dad. People I considered cousins and uncles myself even if far removed. I had to watch from afar as a loved one lost their grandma and their Papa. Good loving people, many of which I had made memories and special connections with. People I had shared laughs with and wanted to know more about. These experiences only enhanced that way of thinking for me.
Loss has helped me see, all of us people are more similar than we think. We want someone to notice us, to recognize we exist, someone to truly believe in us. Though we come from different backgrounds, lifestyles, and see the world differently, we want others to take the time to understand us and accept us even if we do not always see eye to eye. To see that we are genuinely trying. We crave connection, and someone to open our hearts up to without fear of judgement. That’s why we’re so guarded, why we protect ourselves too much that it hurts us. That we all at some point along the line weren’t listened to, our feelings weren’t validated, our experiences not taken into account, our mental not factored in. Even amidst all of our differences, we are so much more alike than we think, if we just take the time to see it.
Questions emerge and thoughts change.
- If your breath slowed, if your body was breaking down, if your mind was failing. Would you really be upset over a test, traffic, or an inconvenience in your day?
- If we truly behave as if we are going to die, we would do a lot of things differently. Learning about death, being close to death and loss, makes you grasp how to live.
- If every day when we wake up, it was as if there’s a voice in our head, asking “is today the day? The last chance? The last day I have? Am I being the person I want to be? Am I loving those I love the best I can? Did I tell them I love them today?” How differently would our attitude towards the days look.
Early twenties, a majority of us begin to see this loss and experience death, luckily, we hopefully still have many years to use the perspective gained to make others lives and the world a better place day in and day out. To love our loved ones still here in a deeper manner. But we never truly know how long, so make today count.
TRANSFORMATION OF A LIFETIME
20 to 25, overall, is a period of personal transformation. With it comes a variety of obstacles and disappointments.
The college we go to may not be what we envisioned, the major we picked might not interest us after all, the job we always wanted doesn’t turn out to be what we expected.
Our time spent by ourselves in the tail end of this time period, while friends have moved away or are in relationships. No one really checks in, a lot of time spent alone, growing and learning and it is amazing. But it is lonely. It can feel like we haven’t grown.
We go through difficult life altering relationships. Both romantically and platonically. Friends we grow up with move away or we don’t keep in touch with as much. We lose lovers, whether still cordial or unfriendly due to our negative actions, our insecurities, different desires in life, differences in maturity between the two, differences in growing together, the inability to communicate or work as a team.
We lose important people. We lose some people we love and care about deeply. We meet some people we learn to care about immensely. We hope one day we can find certain individuals again in a new but same light.
We learn from each and every one of these experiences in our life. Difficult lessons of life. We lean on God to get us through, to give us purpose, to make us whole.
There’s a lot to take away from our early twenties, lots of life’s wake up calls, calls to action, and moments for growth and learning to live on your own take place in these years. The most important takeaways from my own personal experiences are:
- Learn about yourself
- Why are you who you are today? What can I do to keep the good and change the bad for better? What aspects of myself are not a part of the best version of myself? Who do I want to be? How do I want love? How do I want to be remembered?
- Experience, experience, experience
- Try new things, make new hobbies, go new places, introduce yourself to new circles of people. See the world, embrace it, hand in hand, side by side with the people you love. Live. Feel.
- Understand you are where you belong
- God has a plan for you, you may see the short road in front of you and His plan may be the long windy road. The craziest part is they may have the same designation, you just can’t see it yet. The long windy road is for a reason. It’s to make you better, kinder, stronger, more forgiving. To make you see clearer. It’s to make you into the well-rounded and loving person God created you to be. To maximize the believer you can be, not only for yourself but more importantly for others.
I hope this insight gives those still in their early twenties some reassurance that they’re not alone, that it can give those entering their early twenties some pointers to help them navigate, and I hope it can bring some nostalgia and even some realization to those who are out of their early twenties recently or even decades ago that there is still so much room for growth. You are not tethered to who you have been. That there is still so much time to change who you are and how you are seen and what you hold dear in this lifetime. Whether you are 15 or you are 75.
TIME STILL TO COME, LIFE STILL UNLIVED
The crazy part is a lot of us have a whole other half of our twenties left to go. Another whole 5 years of our twenties to grow, to expand, to learn, to find ourselves, to love others. It can be scary not knowing if you’ve found your dream job, if you don’t have a partner, if you haven’t figured out what your purpose is. We’re young but the internal clock is alarming for many of us. We had timelines, we imagined graduation, our own place, a certain job, marriage, kids by certain ages. We imagined to be to a certain point by now, or maybe imagined a certain life with certain people.
Maybe you have it, maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re grieving the idea of your future kids meeting a parent that passed away, maybe you’re grieving the idea of a city you wanted to live in, maybe you’re grieving a lost relationship and all you had in your head or all you had planned together for a lifetime. It means everything to you. You may feel lost, and it can be terrifying. I understand you. I relate to you. It’s natural as a human being. You are not alone. But continue to attack life, continue to improve, and continue to put love out into the world. Control the aspects you can control. Don’t be a prisoner to the aspects you can’t control or change. It may be days, months, years or decades, but one day your heart will shine through.
At the end of the day, God knows your heart and that is all that matters when our time here ends.
These next 5 years are just as important as the last 5. We are still so far from a finished product. Whatever you do, try to just hold onto hope that by loving and living in every moment the people that love and care about you will one day be there.
The key is to ingrain in your head that you’re not stuck being the same you were even yesterday. Your childhood, your high school, your college years; they may affect you deeply but they do not define you. You made terrible choices, your actions were ones of immaturity, actions of sin, you made mistakes, you failed. All of us have and all of us will. A lot of us unconsciously did negative things that we did not understand or to protect ourselves from what we may have experienced in the past of our own lives. But realize you did a lot of good, you made kindhearted decisions, you excelled, you chose grace over anger, you loved, you laughed, you tried and are trying to improve every day.
Do not feel that change is too far out of your reach. As 2 Chronicles 7:14 says “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Our early twenties are a time of finding ourselves, learning who we are and growing. Some do it sooner than others. Some may never grow up. But it’s an opportunity to evolve. Don’t let the opportunity go to waste.
MY CHALLENGE FOR YOU
The basis of this blog is to help others. I chose this topic because it was important to me and I never really had anyone that I talked to about these aspects of life in most of my early twenties. I held everything in. People wanted me to open up, and I wanted to but I did not know how. I never sought out people close to me on my own to have them tell me about life, love, school, adulthood, relationships, how life is meant to be, how to be content. Growing up I wasn’t comfortable talking about these things. I was very closed off, unemotional. I kept things bottled up, a shell within myself because I did not trust people with my emotions.
I have learned to talk to those who have experienced more life than me to learn about these aspects. My mom, my stepdad, my aunt and uncles, my Gram and Pop Pop, my cousins, my friends. My advice to you is to communicate, be open, to ask and be curious about these things before it is too late. Every day is a day to learn from someone with more life experience or wisdom than yourself, there is always something we can learn, there is always something to take to make life easier, to make life more satisfying.
My challenge for you is to learn not only about yourself, but to strive to know those around you on a deeper level. We know so many people superficially, but how many people do you truly know to their core? My challenge is for you to change that.
My challenge for you is to forgive others, as you pray to be forgiven.
My challenge for you is to love others, as you pray to be loved.
My challenge for you is to grow in every aspect of life: physical, mental, and spiritual.
Evolve into to the best version of yourself. Not only for yourself, but for all those that you love and care for that deserve that version. Be better and be there for those you love. Strengthen friendships and relationships, make amends with those that are open to your apologies, try to reconcile with those that are willing to see you in a different light. Be thankful for those people who are willing to say I’m lucky I get to know this version of you. In the same breath recognize and tell those around you how lucky you are to get to know this version of them. That you are thankful for them being there for you even when you may not have deserved it. There’s so much hate, fear, and darkness in the world already. Try to be a light to those in your life.
It is what I strive for daily now, but I know in my past I have failed and at times I still fail.
I’ve held grudges, ones that did not need to be held.
I’ve failed at love, in all facets.
I’ve lied to hide myself from people that would have accepted me.
I’ve hurt people, people closest to me that I have genuine love for.
Being honest, I have struggled with depression and anxiety because of these very things. Because with growth and knowledge, it is like the clouds cleared from living life blind, and all my sinful choices in life shine so clearly along with the wisdom.
As Ecclesiastes 1:18 says “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief”.
I am an imperfect person and a sinner, plain and simple, I am the first to admit that.
To change core beliefs and deep rooted flaws, it can take years. I have taken significant time and worked really hard to continue changing them within.
You got to grow and love. Love is the only rational act; love is how you stay alive even after you are gone. Love hopes all things, love holds onto inner development and recognizes where we are is not where we will always be. So, love, seek amends, seek reconciliation, seek to understand, and pray for those you love and those struggling and those going through difficulties of life. Prayer is the strongest form of love we have.
Once you see life for these important questions, you can’t see life as anything less meaningful.
My challenge for you is to take something from this, so that you can live this period of time better than me, that you can have a better base to be who you are destined to be than I had before this period of my life. I don’t want you to make the same missteps I made.
Take this same challenge whether going into your early twenties yourself, into your late twenties or any other period of life you are in now.
Time flies, that is what everyone says. But it really does. We do not have much time here. Our time left only gets shorter. Today is the youngest you will ever be.
As Inky Johnson, one of the motivational speakers I listen to from time to time, says “Every next level of your life will demand a different version of you”.
Make it the best possible version you got at each next level.
Make this your day one. Commit to a better lifestyle, a better mindset. Commit to something, to anything. It can be one positive thing. One meaningful change. But commit to it, hold yourself accountable, have a loved one hold you accountable, and see your life begin to change.
See your life become more special.
Don’t let your life shape you, take a stand and shape your life.
You are here to create yourself continuously.
I leave you with a graphic I found inspiring about the essentials to find in our 20’s, but these essentials apply to our entire lifetime. I, more importantly, leave you with Philippians 4:8, a verse about focusing our energy in this life on the beauties of this world, on the positivity we can bring to it.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”
The Eternal Pursuit of Wisdom 
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