What to do in your 20s to avoid regrets later?

[Mrs. Dinero]

Hi all,

We have 2 kids in their 20s. We've told them numerous times to:

• Stay active & eat healthy
• Take care of dental health
• Live below your means
• Invest early.  Fix it & forget it.
• Choose relationships carefully

What would you tell your 20 year old self?

[tallguy]

Not to tell my 20-year-old self, because I'm pretty sure I knew it before then, but to add a couple of more general things....

1.  If you think that anyone else is "better" than you, you don't know them well enough.  Don't let "them" define you.

2.  The majority of other people are full of sh** too, and that goes triple for anyone who thinks they can tell you how you should run your life. 

Be you, but be the best you that you can.  You owe that to the people around you, but mostly and most importantly you owe that to yourself. 

[pulmonarymd]

It seems like-

Everyone is richer or has more money than you
Everyone is having better/more sex than you
And when you are older, everyone's children are smarter than yours

 Try not to focus on the above. You have no idea what goes on behind the scene. Figure out who you are/ want to be and focus on that. That will make you far happier.

[andi9899]

Never date anyone you work with.

[Cookies Galore]

Travel before life gives you excuses for why not.

If you fuck up, you fuck up. Live, learn, become a better version of yourself.

[Mrs. Dinero]

I really like those tallguy & pulmonarymd.  Great advice!

[Mrs. Dinero]

Apr 19, 2023 15:37:05 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

Never date anyone you work with.

Yikes! DS has already done this with newly divorced manager.  Hoping he lives & learns.

[wvugurl26]

Andi had a much politer version of my brother's rule regarding that.

I would add be careful who you hang out with. Not everyone is going to have your best interests in mind.

[andi9899]

Apr 19, 2023 16:07:35 GMT -5 wvugurl26 said:

Andi had a much politer version of my brother's rule regarding that.

I would add be careful who you hang out with. Not everyone is going to have your best interests in mind.

Don't get laid where you get paid. It's pretty high up on my list of rules to live by.

[Opti]

Apr 19, 2023 15:01:39 GMT -5 Mrs. Dinero said:

Hi all,

We have 2 kids in their 20s. We've told them numerous times to:

• Stay active & eat healthy
• Take care of dental health
• Live below your means
• Invest early.  Fix it & forget it.
• Choose relationships carefully

What would you tell your 20 year old self?

Life is not going to end up the way you expect. Be flexible, adapt, and do your best to head to what you really want.

Of what you listed only the last to me is more important than the rest. That said, we can only learn from own failures
and need to play our game not someone else's.

This is from someone currently 62 who hasn't had enough funding in at least a decade to always do the top 4. Wish sometimes I had been born later when the Invest early was more of a widespread thing. My first large employer was known as a lifetime employer as was IBM, Digital, etc. You can't prepare for things you don't know are coming, so don't.

[Deleted]

Don't confuse what you do for a living with your life.  You might need a job, but you are not your job, you are you.

[minnesotapaintlady]

This is a really hard question to answer because it's all in hindsight.  I mean, I regret not putting all my pay into Microsoft in the 80's I guess...

A lot of my bad decisions had good things happen because of them too, so who knows.

[haapai]

I have plenty of regrets.  I won't include the advice that I'd give to myself here.  It's just too personal.  It's effectively a list of my mistakes. 

Also, if I wanted to get twenty-year-old me to listen, I'd have to lard the advice with a ridiculous number of compliments regarding what 20 y/o me had done right so far.  The resulting text would be pretty nauseating for y'all to read.  And it still probably wouldn't get through to 20 y/o me. 

[TheOtherMe]

Apr 19, 2023 15:37:05 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

Never date anyone you work with.

Learned this one the hard way, twice.  

Didn't learn the first time.

At least they weren't my managers.

[tallguy]

I have plenty of regrets.

I don't.  Regrets don't help anyone.  Besides, I am always of the belief that I made the best choice possible with the information I had available at the time.  There are certainly things that didn't turn out as well as I would have expected or hoped, but that is not due to the decision-making process that I used at the time.  It is due to things that I either did not know or could not have foreseen.  To truly "regret" anything would be an indictment of the decision-making process, not the actual result of what happened.  Sometimes things just don't work out.  It happens.  

[souldoubt]

I'd tell my 20 year old self that no one else is thinking about what I said, did or didn't do as much as me, i.e. don't overthink or worry about the little things.  I'd also tell myself to not pass on trips and experiences because family and the moments pass and you can't get either back.  Far too often I used work and school as an excuse to pass on things I thought at the time were "boring" while I did the same stuff I did just about every other weekend.  I'd tell myself to treat my true friends better and to make more time for them.  I'd tell myself not to be afraid of failing and to put myself out there more.  Last I'd tell myself to enjoy it all because it's not that next decade or decades are worse they just come with a different set of responsibilities and an aging body. 

[Deleted]

Make sure you are moving towards something, instead of away from something.  We all have a past but it doesn't have to be our future

[Deleted]

Damn, there's a whole lot of painful and valuable truths here, and I thank you all for this

[haapai]

Apr 19, 2023 16:59:35 GMT -5 tallguy said:

I have plenty of regrets.

I don't.  Regrets don't help anyone.  Besides, I am always of the belief that I made the best choice possible with the information I had available at the time.  There are certainly things that didn't turn out as well as I would have expected or hoped, but that is not due to the decision-making process that I used at the time.  It is due to things that I either did not know or could not have foreseen.  To truly "regret" anything would be an indictment of the decision-making process, not the actual result of what happened.  Sometimes things just don't work out.  It happens.  

Yeah, you are right. 

I'd probably confine my advice to financial topics and leave out all of the highly personal stuff that has probably made much more difference in my life. 

It would have helped to hear that paying attention to how much you are making and where it is going is not a sign of small character or financial desperation. 

[souldoubt]

The interesting thing about this concept is while I say I'd tell myself all that and I mean it I like to think I ended up in life where I was meant to and I hope the rest of you feel the same way.  If making other choices at different points along the way put me on a different path then I wouldn't change a thing because I love my family and the life we've created.  That said I'd definitely impart the advice in this thread on any teenager or 20 something who asks or needs it.

[Deleted]

Try to buy the house you want to stay in first.  Some of our friends are now retiring early and one thing I noticed is that they never upgraded housing.  DH and I have owned 3 houses and we still aren't in our last one.  I wish we had stretched the budget for house 1.

We also broke the don't date at work rule.  At least we were in different departments.  

[Tennesseer]

Your most valuable currency in life is your name.  Invest it well.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Stop being a stick in the mud.

Take risks, get drunk, go to a party.

Do stupid shit you can only do in your 20s.

Because once real responsibility starts that's it. You're going to find yourself with few stories to share and your kids will call you boring.

Being super responsible. trying to have your whole life mapped out and achieve being practically perfect in evey way isn't what it's cracked up to be. You'll find yourself stuck in the same title you started with and not even close to your original goal.

What you mainly achieved is giving yourself anxiety and depression.

So have some fun! Experiences matter more and you can take those memories with you. Nobody lies on their deathbed worried about their GPA.

[chen35]

Apr 19, 2023 16:28:14 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

This is a really hard question to answer because it's all in hindsight.  I mean, I regret not putting all my pay into Microsoft in the 80's I guess...

A lot of my bad decisions had good things happen because of them too, so who knows.

Along these lines, I tell the kids just make the best decision you can with the information you have at the time. It won’t be perfect but most of the time you’ll be able to figure it out when things inevitably go wrong.

[Deleted]

As I have posted elsewhere, I am transcribing the autobiography of a 76-year-old friend for whom I used to work.  I'm approaching the end of his lengthy saga, so we spoke at length this morning about his core message in writing it; he said it was to share the story of a life where ultimately nothing happened according to any plan he created, where much resulted from things far beyond his control such as his parents' divorce, global financial crises, the dot.com bubble.  All of which he writes about in hindsight and all of which dramatically impacted his life, to the tune of many millions of dollars.  He has no regrets, no handwringing, he just looks back and sees that much that occurred, both good and bad, was actually outside his control.  

I could dispute some of his perspective, because there were definitely moments that keeping his trousers zipped would have made a difference, but I get his basic drift.  Perhaps resilience is an important message for the 20-year-old selves.

[nidena]

Don't let people who don't pay your bills dictate your life decisions.
Don't talk yourself out of the things that you want to do but are scared of doing.  Do them!
Social Media is a highlights reel.  Don't strive for the façade that is seen on the little screen.
The person who dies with the most toys still dies.  Invest in experiences and memories rather than toys.

Those are the platitudes.

Real talk: Don't get drunk around people you don't know.
Don't loan money to anyone.  Give it without strings or don't give it at all.
Leave your hometown.  Even if you move back, still leave so you can see something other than the place you grew up in.

[laterbloomer]

I would tell myself "You have 2 mental health issues that need to be treated, that is what is making life so hard. Get them treated and life is going to become much easier."

For those that wonder - anxiety and alcoholism

[busymom]

Don't worry about what others think of you.  They're so busy with their own life, that they don't think about you as much as you think they do.

Start investing right away for retirement.  Even if it's only a small amount each month.


Take chances.  Once you get married & have kids, you'll have a lot more reasons to NOT take chances. 


Don't loan money to friends or relatives, especially if you'll need it back.  (I didn't make that mistake, at least not more than lunch money, but I sure know others who did.)

[Opti]

Apr 19, 2023 16:20:50 GMT -5 soupandstew said:

Don't confuse what you do for a living with your life.  You might need a job, but you are not your job, you are you.

So so hard to get bosses to realize this especially if they are proud about their position in the company. I'm going to go full disclosure on my birthday that yes I am 63 (soon) in hopes I can get boss a decade younger than me to hmmm have some come to reality moments.

FWIW, my car was drivable this morning and was going into the garage to be fixed. Life/the universe had other plans and the tow guy wrecked my car into what I assume was a non driveable condition. I haven't gotten back to my boss yet on status, because its been a traumatic day ... but I got a bad worded text basically informing me I needed to find a ride into work tomorrow afternoon because someone else in the office took the morning off. 

If I was dead or seriously injured you would have to deal. I have called out sick a couple days recently and this has pushed me over the edge. I am not coming in for a half day, and I am on a planned out for jury duty starting Friday ...


I have words. They are not nice. I will not reply until after I sleep tonight


Summary version is sometimes you will look like a bad employee or judged wrongly because of biases, etc. 

[Opti]

Apr 19, 2023 20:08:26 GMT -5 nidena said:

Don't let people who don't pay your bills dictate your life decisions.
Don't talk yourself out of the things that you want to do but are scared of doing.  Do them!
Social Media is a highlights reel.  Don't strive for the façade that is seen on the little screen.
The person who dies with the most toys still dies.  Invest in experiences and memories rather than toys.

Those are the platitudes.

Real talk: Don't get drunk around people you don't know.
Don't loan money to anyone.  Give it without strings or don't give it at all.
Leave your hometown.  Even if you move back, still leave so you can see something other than the place you grew up in.

I will do loans, or would, but I would have a contract and be prepared to lose it.
I would say leave your state if possible, and live there or elsewhere for a minimum of a month.

Sometimes toys are experiences.    (Car enthusiast, I bought it for me not you. )