It’s impossible not to be circumstantial about this, but I thought it might make someone laugh.
After the long haul that has been my 20s, I feel like I learnt so much in this final year I was cramming for the exam that is THE REST OF MY LIFE.
So I figured I’d tell you what I learnt. Why not. Tell me what you did. I’m only just getting started.
Do not try to sing Elton John at karaoke. Even if you are doing Elton John to your best mate’s George Michael AND she has singing lessons. This man is the don for a reason.
I can’t impress on this enough and if you have your health you won’t hear it. But try to: Your body is the one thing you really have in life. Treat it with respect. Be proud if you can manage whatever it is that you’d define as an achievement. Especially when it gets you home at 8am after partying. Treat it with the kindness you reserve for a best friend. It won’t be there forever. Try to love every day you have with it.
Practise resting your thoughts on gratitude for as long as you naturally ruminate on negative thoughts. Through neuroplasticity our brains are able to reorganise themselves by forming new neural connections. You can actually change how your brain is wired by doing this.
You don’t have to be friends with your exes. Don’t collect them. If they make it a challenge to be around them, forget them.
No one really expects food at parties but they do want good playlists and ice.
You’ll know you’re doing your early 20s right if It’s A Wonderful Life feels like sentimental waffle.
You’ll know you’re doing your late 20s right if It’s A Wonderful Life suddenly becomes the best film you’ve ever seen and the purest meditation on reality.
Saturn returning might be a load of bollocks but spending your late 20s actively working out what you do and don’t want your 30s to look like can only be a good thing for everyone involved.
But don’t go around telling people they made it through to your ‘fourth series’.
People are greedier when there isn’t enough food. And that’s a kind of lesson in everything.
Travel within your means as often as you can. The years you can do this are shorter than you think. Go on every holiday as if it’s your last.
And on that note. Don’t row in airport lounges. Give it 12 hours and you won’t remember what you were rowing about anyway.
Dirty martinis with three olives are both sexy AF and dangerous AF. Drink that fucker slowly.
Whenever anyone says ‘oh I could tell you a lot of stories from that time’ they generally mean there was a lot of drugs and sex going on. But telling stories is fun.
Unless you’re staying up for a sunrise, almost nothing good happens after 3am. But that’s one you probably need to learn for yourself.
Savings are amazing. They give you the real freedoms. No company’s advertising will ever tell you this.
Sometimes you just don’t earn enough money to save, and that’s okay too.
If you’re aware of being frivolous with money, or simply just not understanding how to be better, get strict with yourself, today. They don’t teach you this in school but credit cards and overdrafts will unravel your life just as quickly as addiction or falling in with the wrong crowd. Employ a financial adviser you trust (an accountant or bookkeeper) for a few one-off hours to tell you everything you need to know.
Lots of your friends will leave. Don’t take it personally - go and find them once a year. Stay with them and their new lives. These times will become the most precious moments of your 20s.
Marginal gains can change your world if you let them. The life you want might always feel like the next pay day, flat or job away. But that doesn’t mean it’s unattainable. Five incremental changes will get you nearer than doing nothing.
As often as you can, go to the outskirts of your comfort zone.
Equally, don’t be a tourist when you get there. Respect that this is other people’s normality. Learn from here.
Best friends and family bring a richness to your life that is impossible to fake. Treat them with respect. Do not take them for granted. Do not let the good ones go. Invest in those relationships in every way you can.
You honestly do not need to get on with everyone.
Manners and being polite matter but the real thing you’ll need to teach yourself this decade is how to stick up for yourself. Fight that corner. No one else will do it better than you.
Go and actively tell everyone in your life that you are very close to how much they mean to you. People are gone too soon. Let them hear it from you while you can tell them.
(Consensually) Hug harder. Honestly.
And - you knew this one was coming: The only way to get away with singing Elton John is to go down with that karaoke ship. Without so much as a wince. Carpe diem.