[dropcap size=small]T[/dropcap]here are thousands of articles about how to live life in your twenties, and they all follow the same dogma: don’t stress, just live, travel, enjoy your freedom. They also all seem to be written by someone who regrets not doing these things, and it often makes me wonder if it is actually impossible to truly enjoy your twenties without turning into a ball of stress? Even I have something to tell people in their early twenties and I’m still twenty-something…

My mom is different. She says it time and time again:  if she had to go back and change anything about her twenties not a single turn will be made. She certainly lived out her twenties. She must have listened to her Mom. I’m finding it hard to pay attention to mine and all the articles that support her. I think it is pretty inevitable to stress in your twenties: You are no longer a child after all. There’s pressure to know everything you want to do with your life, including who you will marry and how you will retire. Certain things become abnormal like why you are single or why you don’t have your own place or why you don’t have your dream job yet. However, the more I think about it, the more I think it’s completely avoidable—the stress. If you make a conscious effort to not stress and, instead; have fun with it, I think your twenties and beyond could feel a whole lot better.

My mom is always reminding me about all the strength I have in my youth, all my freedom and opportunities, all the fun; and I’m always countering her with a big old “but,”and a lot of “you don’t understand”s.

I know I will regret those statements. I am most certain, I will.

Frankly, between her and me, I feel like the older boring one.

You see, I’m a perfectionist, and I think special articles should be written out for us. Maybe that’s why God gave me a mom like mine because it looks like I’m going to need all the help I can get. I am at the age where I can no longer get free entry into the Louvre or youth discounts at the bank, and that in itself makes me want to curl under my sheets and never come out till I’m 18 again.

My biggest problem has been that I’m never really here. I’m always reminiscing about the past and trying to configure the future, but here—the present, what I actually have in my hand, what is not gone, what is still here, what I’m certain of—is completely ignored.

But I discovered a quick solution to that issue:

Live in the now, enjoy, try things a lot of things out.

My mom’s advice is to feel free to try it all and be okay with mistakes. My rendition of that and my new way of thinking is that your twenties is for getting your hands messy. It’s really for experimenting and figuring things out. It involves saying yes to everything, (but drugs).  It’s like a testing stage: this is where you play with ideas not where you have to know them for certain. It’s where you let your heart lead, and if it makes you feel any better,  it’s the stage where mistake and failures are the least expensive and the most forgivable (Don’t go to jail though!). Your thirties are for refining—dusting up the mess a little to start to see the bigger picture. Things start to make a whole lot of sense in your forties. Life begins at forty after all. and by your fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, hundreds etc you probably got the whole “just enjoy life” mantra down pat or maybe it’s that retirement money talking…who knows

And here’s the thing…

It’s true, You Only Live Once! And even though I’m not entirely happy with Drake for that daunting reminder, I know it’s a good reminder. I don’t want to sound cliché, but here goes: Life is what you make it. As a perfectionist and a chronic worrier You Only Live Once scares me because I believe I have to get it right all the time, but I have to constantly remind myself that that’s impossible and a mindset like that will only cause more failures than necessary. The best way to look at it is the way Drake intended it: To Live Life to the Fullest.

Being aware that You Only Live Once should not make you stress out, it should remind you to make the best of life, and it should actually make you feel as light as air—floating wherever you pretty little heart so desires. And that’s how I intend to do it, (God help me!!!!) because I too want to be happy when I look back at my twenties like my mom. And I’m writing this in my present twenties as opposed to when I turn 30 because I know you won’t listen until you can relate and because that is clearly not frickin’ working!

Lastly, I will leave you with the most important advice, have a little faith! It has worked for me, and I don’t doubt its power to see me through.  I pray about everything, and I try to live it up there with God, and that confidence that God will work things in my favor is what is going to allow me to dance the dance of the twenties and just to live life with hope. I always pray for guidance and direction, and once I have done that my next step is to just go with the beat.

HERE’S TO LIFE!

I hope that this was helpful to you guys…no matter the age. I am challenging myself and I challenge you too: Wherever you are in life right now, I hope you remember to have fun with it, chase your dreams, try new things, educate yourself, learn some more, read, travel, take care of your body, breathe, pray, be true to yourself, and be especially kind to others! 

And like I said, I need all the help I can get so any advice you have as a 20 something year old, a 30 year old, 40, 50 60s 70s 80 90 100s bring it on!!!

P.S If  this website is here after 10 years, I hope to be back here with positive feedback, God willing, on how this went.

Some inspiring words on worry and stress:

Matthew 6:34 : Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Proverbs 3: 5-6 :  Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Luke 12:25,29-31   And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ! ²⁹ And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. ³⁰ For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹ Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

Philippians 4: 6-7  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,  with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 

 

…Basically stress is bad for your health, darlings!