Last Tuesday, I hit the quarter-century milestone: the big two-five. If I take the time to celebrate the fact that I can now rent a car, then I can dub this as one of my last truly celebrated birthdays that isn’t going to end in zero.
And yet I haven’t begun a descent into madness thinking about how a good chunk of my life is behind me. Instead, I’ve been reflecting on the life lessons I’ve learned, usually the hard way, in this first portion of my life, because 25 isn’t like I’d imagined it.
I’m just about to graduate, broke and currently jobless, but hey, I’m not really far from the norm. Many of my friends had to move back home after school, are looking for jobs or found one completely outside of the field they just spent $90,000 to master.
We’re all losing our minds a little, but we’re surviving. So here are some life lessons to help everyone make it to and get through 25:
Laugh at yourself
Pretty self-explanatory, but I have to say that this little piece of advice has probably saved me from ending up sitting in the corner of a padded room in a straitjacket mumbling about pancakes for the next 25 years of my life. A day in my life usually includes losing a vital piece of my existence (ID, keys, etc.), tripping and falling onto my face at least once and multiple episodes of my incurable foot-in-mouth disease. I’m inevitably going to embarrass myself, and the best thing I ever did was learn how to laugh at myself. It’s helped me love myself more and accept the fact that I’m never going to be perfect.
You don’t have to be a perfectionist
OK, this sounds similar to rule No. 1, but it’s less of “It’s OK if you f— up” and more of “Don’t overly try not to f— up.” Like I said before, no one is perfect. I remember when I was younger, I’d go through 30 pages of my wide-ruled notebook trying to write my name perfectly in cursive before beginning my essay on To Kill A Mockingbird or whatever. Maybe that was a little obsessive-compulsive, but basically what I’m saying is, don’t waste your time trying to be absolutely perfect. Whether it’s school, work or how you look, it’s not gonna happen. No one’s perfect, and perfect is boring anyway. Do your best, but accept your flaws.
Don’t live in the future
This is an ongoing lesson for me. I catch myself thinking, ”Well, when I graduate, I’ll do this,” or “After this weekend, I’ll do that.” Don’t do that. Live right now. Don’t wait for the next chapter of your life to actually start living your life. We act as though we’re going to live forever, but hey, we’re not. Life is happening right now, even if that means your life is in a shitty dorm room or in the back of McKeldin Library. If you want to do something, don’t put it off, do it now.
Don’t live in the past
Another hard lesson for me, but it’s important to learn to let things go. This can be anything from a favorite bar to old friends. As we grow up, we outgrow things, and that’s OK. The places we used to hang out start filling up with people with fake IDs without bags under their eyes because life hasn’t kicked their asses yet. We start to drift apart from old friends we used to be inseparable from. It’s important to let the old things go and make room for the new stuff.
Make the effort for people
Relationships take effort. Romances, friendships, family. What’s that corny analogy? “Relationships are like plants — you have to water them or they’ll die”? Awful as that saying is, it’s totally true. When we get older, this gets harder. This is the time in our lives when a lot of our old relationships with people die off. In our 20s, we go in and out of schools, jobs and leases. People we used to see every day move away or get new jobs. If a relationship is worth keeping, you have to learn to adjust and make sacrifices to keep it alive. Drive the hour to go visit or pick up the phone and make a call, because good friends who’ve been there for you in the past are worth taking into the future.
Embrace the madness
My father told me something a couple years ago that’s always stuck with me. A group of friends and I were sitting around my kitchen island bitching about being single and broke, and he started laughing. He said, “You are all going to look back one day and miss this time of your life.” That’s always going to stick with me because he’s right. This is the time we get to go on bad Tinder dates and work fun part-time jobs to afford to go to sleazy bars. It’s stressful, it’s terrifying, but it’s exciting. Hopefully someday we’ll all have job security and peaceful routines, but for now, embrace the crazy.
Learn to enjoy being alone
I’ve heard this preached a lot. “You can’t be happy with someone else unless you’re happy with yourself,” or “Make sure you make some ‘me time.’” But hey, I actually think it’s true. I think it’s important to not always be plugged into the Internet or constantly need to communicate with someone. Just like going to the gym to relieve stress and work on our physical health, I think it’s important to unplug our minds from everything but our thoughts and work on our mental health. It’s important to find time to figure out who we are outside the context of everyone else. This also goes for relationships. As we get older, they get more serious. I think it’s important not to be with someone just because we don’t want to be alone. Don’t settle. Love yourself first.
Ignore judgment
Some people aren’t going to like me. So what? Honestly, the fact that people aren’t going to like me is one of the best realizations I’ve ever had. It’s freeing to know that no matter what I do, I’m not going to please everyone. So why not just be myself? Yeah, so maybe if I break it down Kevin James-style in the middle of the dance floor, some people are going to think I’m weird and embarrassing, but my real friends will still love me and I’m going to have more fun. Stop caring so much about what other people think about you. It’s not important, and you’ll be happier if you focus on what you think about you instead.
Find a passion/hobby
I never thought I was going to be a women’s studies major. In fact, the only reason I took the class was that it was the only diversity credit that would transfer from the community college I went to. Well, I fell in love. I found out what field I wanted to work in for the rest of my life, and it was amazing! Although, yeah, it kind of just fell into my lap, I think it’s worth hunting for. Maybe you have a degree with which you know you’re going to be able to get a job right out of college, and that’s great, but never stop searching for your passion, something that gives you ambition and fulfillment. This might just be a hobby. Learn the guitar or go to Comic-Con every year. But have something you can throw yourself into and that can be yours.
Bring a wallet or purse
When I woke up the morning after celebrating my 25th birthday and realized I’d Ubered myself from Washington to College Park at 4:30 a.m., didn’t have my shoes and the only thing in my pocket was a business card from the DJ, I decided I probably should have brought my purse with me. Because replacing my car keys for $340 and going through the process of getting a new credit card the next day was almost worth the night out, but not quite.