{"id":8052,"date":"2015-12-01T00:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T05:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/?p=8052"},"modified":"2015-12-03T01:19:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T06:19:19","slug":"my-twenties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/2015\/12\/01\/my-twenties\/","title":{"rendered":"The Talk: My Roaring Twenties"},"content":{"rendered":"

[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\u2019t stress, just live, travel, enjoy your freedom<\/em>. 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\u00a0and I\u2019m still twenty-something…<\/p>\n

My mom is different. She says it time and time again: \u00a0if she had to go back and change anything about her twenties\u00a0not a single turn will be made. She certainly lived out her twenties. She must have listened to her Mom.\u00a0I\u2019m finding it hard to pay attention to mine and all the articles that support her<\/em>. I think it is pretty inevitable to stress in your twenties: You are no longer a child after all. There\u2019s 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\u2019t have your own place or why you don\u2019t have your dream job yet. However, the more I think about it, the more I think it\u2019s completely avoidable\u2014the stress. If you make a conscious effort to not stress and, instead; have fun with it, I think\u00a0your twenties and beyond could feel a whole lot better.<\/p>\n

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\u2019m always countering her with a big old \u201cbut,<\/em>\u201dand a lot of \u201cyou don\u2019t understand<\/em>\u201ds.<\/p>\n

I know I will regret those statements. I am most certain, I will.<\/p>\n

Frankly, between her and me, I feel like the older boring one.<\/p>\n

You see, I\u2019m a perfectionist, and I think special articles should be written out for us. Maybe that\u2019s why God gave me a mom like mine because it looks like I\u2019m 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\u2019m 18 again.<\/p>\n

My biggest problem has been that I\u2019m never really\u00a0here<\/em>. I\u2019m always reminiscing about the past and trying to configure the future, but here\u2014the present, what I actually have in my hand, what is not gone, what is still here, what I\u2019m certain of\u2014is completely ignored.<\/p>\n

But I discovered a quick solution to that issue:<\/p>\n

Live in the now, enjoy, try things a lot of things out.<\/h1>\n

My mom\u2019s 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\u00a0is for getting your hands messy. It\u2019s really for experimenting and figuring things out. It involves saying yes to everything, (but drugs).\u00a0 It\u2019s like a testing stage: this is where you play with ideas not where you have to know them for certain. It\u2019s where you let your heart lead, and if it makes you feel any better, \u00a0it\u2019s the stage where mistake and failures are the least expensive and the most forgivable (Don\u2019t go to jail though!). Your thirties\u00a0are for refining\u2014dusting 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\u00a0after all.\u00a0and by your fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties,\u00a0nineties, hundreds etc you probably got the whole “just enjoy life” mantra down pat or maybe it’s that retirement money talking…who knows<\/p>\n

And\u00a0here\u2019s the thing\u2026<\/h1>\n

It\u2019s true, Y<\/strong>ou O<\/strong>nly L<\/strong>ive O<\/strong>nce! And even though I\u2019m not entirely happy with\u00a0Drake<\/strong>\u00a0for that daunting reminder, I know it\u2019s a good reminder. I don\u2019t want to sound clich\u00e9, but here goes: Life is what you make it. As a perfectionist and a chronic worrier\u00a0You Only Live Once<\/em>\u00a0scares 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2014floating wherever you pretty little heart so desires. And that\u2019s how I intend to do it, (God help me!!!!) because I too want to be happy when I look back at my twenties\u00a0like my mom. And I\u2019m writing this in my present twenties\u00a0as opposed to when I turn 30 because I know you won\u2019t listen until you can relate and because that is clearly not frickin\u2019 working!<\/p>\n

Lastly, I will leave you with the most important advice, have a little faith! It has worked for me, and I don\u2019t doubt its power to see me through. \u00a0I 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\u00a0and 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"RosesHERE’S TO LIFE!<\/span><\/h1>\n

I hope that this was helpful to you guys\u2026no matter the age. I\u00a0am\u00a0challenging myself and I challenge you too:\u00a0Wherever 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!\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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>\n

P.S If \u00a0this website is here after 10 years, I hope to be back here with positive feedback, God willing, on how this went.<\/p>\n

Some inspiring words on worry and stress:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

Matthew 6:34<\/strong> :\u00a0Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.<\/em><\/p>\n

Proverbs 3: 5-6<\/strong> :\u00a0\u00a0Trust in the LORD\u00a0with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;\u00a06<\/strong>\u00a0in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths\u00a0straight.<\/em><\/p>\n

Luke 12:25,29-31\u00a0 \u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his\u00a0span of life?\u00a0!\u00a029\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor\u00a0be worried.\u00a030\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>For\u00a0all the nations of the world seek after these things, and\u00a0your Father knows that you need them.\u00a031\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Instead,\u00a0seek his\u00a0kingdom,\u00a0and these things will be added to you.<\/em><\/p>\n

Philippians 4: 6-7<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/em>Do not be anxious about anything,\u00a0but in every situation, by prayer and petition, \u00a0with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.\u00a07\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And the peace of God,\u00a0which transcends all understanding,\u00a0will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…Basically stress is bad for your health, darlings!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Confessions of a twenty-something year old: Things I’m doing to make my life a whole lot better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,4,102],"tags":[815,813,712,812,814,759],"class_list":["post-8052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","category-inspiration","category-love-armenyl","tag-advice","tag-aging","tag-beauty","tag-growing-up","tag-life","tag-life-lessons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8052"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8068,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8052\/revisions\/8068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}