Things My Twenties Taught Me

Introduction

Your twenties are… strange.

Everyone tells you they’re going to be the best years of your life, but very few tell you they’ll probably also be the most confusing.

They’re a decade of firsts and lasts. Of becoming and unbecoming. Of thinking you’ve finally figured life out, only to discover that life still has a few more lessons waiting around the corner.

Recently, I came across a spoken-word piece that posed a simple question:

“What advice would you give to somebody just entering their twenties?”

The first thing I realised is that I’m now old enough to answer that question.

Some of its lines stayed with me for days because they articulated things I had felt but never quite knew how to put into words. Others made me pause and reflect on experiences that, in hindsight, shaped far more of who I am than I realised at the time.

These aren’t entirely my lessons, but they have become my reflections.

1. Be Prepared to Find Out Rock Bottom Has a Basement

This world is going to test every ounce of good that resides within you.

People love to say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but in reality, what doesn’t kill you will try again.

So show it why it didn’t work the first time, too.

When we’re younger, we tend to believe that hardship is a chapter. That once we’ve survived one difficult season, life somehow owes us a period of peace. But life doesn’t negotiate like that. It keeps moving, and so must we.

Strength isn’t the absence of pain. It’s discovering that you’re capable of carrying more than you ever thought possible without letting that pain define who you become.

2. Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late

The worst place to get to know somebody is a funeral. You’ll never have a more one-sided conversation.

Life is as fragile as teardrops are shallow.

That person you keep fighting with. That parent you won’t forgive.

You think that beef is worth the distance until you find out the furthest you can be is actually six feet deep.

Perspective has a cruel way of arriving after the moment has already passed.

I’ve come to realise that very few arguments survive the weight of mortality. Most of the things we hold onto eventually become smaller than the people we risk losing because of them.

So, love people while they’re still around to hear it.

3. You’re Not Healing. You’re Just Busy.

You cannot outwork your depression. There’s no pill going to outpace your sadness.

Two jobs.
Three hobbies.
Band-Aids that fail to heal the layers of yourself that should be peeled.

A lot of people think they’re better. But the reality is that they’re just distracted.

The question isn’t how busy you’ve become.
The question is: when everything finally goes quiet, what catches up to you?

Healing asks us to sit with parts of ourselves we’ve spent years trying to outrun. That’s uncomfortable. Sometimes terrifying. But distraction has an expiry date. Eventually, silence collects what busyness postpones.

4. Never Let Somebody Show You Who They Are Twice

Believe them the first time.

The late, great DMX once said that you should actually trust everybody. Just trust that you can see them well.

Trust a boxer to brawl.
Trust a snake to crawl.
Trust the venomous bite to end your life.

I think growing older is slowly accepting that love doesn’t require us to ignore patterns. Compassion doesn’t mean abandoning discernment.

Potential is a beautiful thing, but reality deserves more attention. Too often we fall in love with the person we hope someone will become instead of accepting the person standing in front of us.

Some people aren’t mysteries waiting to be solved. They’re simply introductions waiting to be believed.

5. Life Moves in Cycles

There’s an odd way that situations stay the same even if the faces change.

You can’t escape a repetitive cycle that you’re too afraid to acknowledge.

Chances are the pain just gets rearranged. You can rearrange the frame, but the pain stays the same.

Break the pattern, or the pattern breaks you.

I used to think changing environments would automatically change my life.

A different city.
A different workplace.
Different people.
Different routines.

But sometimes the only thing that changes is the scenery.

Until we’re honest about the patterns we keep repeating, life has an uncanny way of introducing us to the same lesson through different people.

Sometimes changing your surroundings isn’t enough. Sometimes the thing that needs changing is the version of yourself that keeps choosing familiarity over healing.

6. Your Inconsistency Is a Billion-Dollar Industry

You need to be so dead serious on formulating a strong identity because there are entities banking on your misery.

Why are people so alone and struggling mentally?
Why are people so sick and unhealthy?

Because it’s profitable.

People are popping more pills than poems because it’s profitable.

Capitalism is the doctor and the disease. The burglar and the locksmith.

Your sense of self has a data plan. Your self-love got stolen and then resold as a subscription.

A lack of self is a recurring expense, and you can’t go no contact on that contract.

Everywhere you look, someone is trying to convince you that you’re incomplete—and conveniently selling the missing piece. That makes knowing yourself less of a luxury and more of a necessity.

The stronger your identity becomes, the harder it is for the world to rent space inside your head.

Whether you agree with every word or not, the underlying point is difficult to ignore. Every day, someone is trying to convince you that you’re lacking something.

Not successful enough. Not attractive enough. Not productive enough. Not enough.

And conveniently, there’s always something being sold as the solution.

The stronger your sense of self becomes, the harder it is for the world to convince you that you’re incomplete.

7. You’re Not Searching for Yourself

“I’m soul searching.”
“I need to find myself.”

If you need to find yourself, then who’s the one searching?

You only search for things that are lost.

You’re not searching for who you are.

You’re becoming who you are, and shedding who you ain’t.

I’ve always loved this idea because it reframes the entire journey.

Maybe we’re not wandering around hoping to stumble upon the person we’re meant to be. Maybe we’re simply removing everything we’ve mistaken ourselves for.

The expectations we inherited.
The fears we mistook for personality.
The versions of ourselves we created just to be accepted.

Growing up isn’t discovering a hidden version of yourself. It’s becoming increasingly honest about the person who’s been there all along.

8. If You Have a Good Heart, You’re Going to Have a Hard Time

“This world will make a museum of you. The best parts of you will be placed on display, and people will enter and exit as they may. Sometimes forgiveness feels like an autopsy.”

Evil will proceed and succeed far more often than we comfortably acknowledge.

This world will make a museum of you. The best parts of you will be placed on display, and people will enter and exit as they may.

Sometimes forgiveness feels like an autopsy.
Sometimes a hurt person was a good person who became a victim of their own compassion.

Having a soft heart is beautiful, but it also comes with a cost.

The goal isn’t to stop being kind because the world has been cruel. It’s learning that kindness without boundaries eventually becomes self-abandonment.

Kindness is beautiful, but kindness without boundaries can become self-abandonment.

The goal isn’t to become colder because the world has hurt you. It’s to remain soft without becoming fragile.

To continue believing in people without forgetting to believe yourself when something doesn’t feel right.

9. Don’t Mistake Eye Candy for Soul Food

Don’t mistake eye candy for soul food and end up trying to convert a stomach ache into a soulmate.

Learn to look for things that are deeper than what you can see. Choosing the wrong person can derail your entire life.

Finding romance is one of the most primitive and powerful programs installed in the base model of human existence.

So install firewalls. Because some people are malware.

Some are spyware. And some hearts open up like a double-click.

As funny as those metaphors are, there’s undeniabel truth hiding inside them.

Love influences where we live, who we become, the dreams we chase, the ones we abandon, and sometimes whether we recognise ourselves a few years later.

The people we choose don’t just share our lives. In many ways, they shape them.

10. Make Sure You Love This Life

Hug people like you’re holding on for dear life.

Because isn’t everybody dear life?

Some days you’re going to grieve like a sun-bleached scripture. Other days you’ll feel like a thousand smoking Christians couldn’t give you higher praise.

There are people whose love will undo bondage and hold you more like a person and less like a hostage.

You’re going to make a lot of mistakes. But don’t let that stop you from trying to do the right thing—even if the high road is under construction.

This is your life. You have every right to lose yourself.

Just come home when you’re ready.

Conclusion

If there’s one lesson I’d want to carry with me beyond my twenties, it’s this:

Life isn’t asking you to be perfect.

It isn’t asking you to have everything figured out. It’s simply asking you to keep showing up.

To love deeply, even after disappointment.
To remain curious, even after failure.
To keep believing that another good chapter is possible, even when the current one feels impossibly heavy.

You’ll lose people. You’ll lose opportunities. You’ll even lose versions of yourself that you once thought would last forever. You’ll make decisions you wish you could take back and others you’ll thank yourself for years later.

But somewhere along the way, if you’re lucky, you’ll also find people who remind you that home isn’t always a place.

Sometimes it’s a person. Sometimes it’s a memory. And sometimes, after years of running from yourself, it’s simply the quiet realisation that you’ve finally made peace with who you’ve become.

Maybe that’s what your twenties are really for. Not to have life figured out. But to be introduced to yourself, over and over again, until one day you recognise the person staring back at you.

And when that day comes, I hope you remember one final line:

“You have every right to lose yourself. Just come home when you’re ready.”