What I Wish Someone Told Me About Adulting in My 20s

It’s hard to believe my 20’s are nearly gone. In less than a year I’ll be 30. I know it’s kind of cliche to say, but the years really do go by in a flash.

I remember thinking about the future in high school and it felt like 30 was really far away. I couldn’t even imagine what life would be like at that point, what I’d be doing, or what I cared about. My brain just couldn’t think that far ahead.

In some ways, it still feels surreal to be an adult. My friends and I joke sometimes about how we feel like kids just pretending to be grown ups. I mean, we each have kids and own homes and work jobs— responsibilities that really matter.

I know everyone says that adulting is hard. That’s like its reputation. But I really haven’t found it to be all that difficult. Not ideal, but not crazy hard either. (If you want to know what’s hard, it’s having young kids and being constantly tired!)

What strikes me most about becoming an adult isn’t how hard it is, but how many choices you have to make constantly. And how there aren’t clear answers about any of them.

When you’re a kid the path is mostly laid out for you. You do your school work, you play on sports teams, you have friends, you try to get good grades. And for the most part, you’re told what to do and when to do it.

But as an adult, you have to decide what you value and how to spend your time. The world is full of opportunities and distractions and it’s up to you to figure out the tradeoffs you’re willing to make.

If I had to summarize what I wish I knew about adulting before I got here, it comes down to what I know now about making all of those decisions.

What follows are the lessons I learned through trial and error. I’m grateful that I was able to figure them out in my 20’s, but maybe you’ll benefit from knowing them even sooner.

What I Wish I Knew about Adulting

Too much of a good thing isn’t good

The most obvious way to think about tradeoffs is in terms of opposites: work vs play, saving vs spending, or responsibility vs fun. You only have so much time in a day or money in your wallet, so you have to figure out what matters to you and make tradeoffs.

But there’s another kind of tradeoff I think people take longer to figure out: the kind where one good thing can crowd out another. Let me give you an example from my own life. A few years ago I got really into personal finance. I just loved reading about investing, thinking about ways to optimize my financial plan, and dreaming about my future. It was harmless and fun.

But soon I found myself thinking about that stuff all the time. I couldn’t have a conversation with my wife or friends that didn’t soon turn to something finance related. I like to call this “one-dimensional thinking”— it’s a state where your brain gets locked into one dominant way of seeing the world. I’m glad I eventually woke up to my obsession, because when I look back on those months, it’s like I wasn’t really living. There was a whole world of ideas and perspectives out there and I was choosing not to see it.

The hardest part of being an adult is knowing when to stop

For a brief period in my life, I actually had a boss at work. I was fresh out of college and still trying to figure out what working full time looked like. In hindsight, having a boss made life more stressful, but also a whole lot easier. I didn’t have to wonder if I was doing the right thing at any point, I’d either be told or I could just ask.

The hardest thing about adulting is figuring out when you’re doing enough. I’m mostly thinking about my time at work, but it applies in other areas as well. I could always do more. There is always another project to take on or email to respond to. But without someone telling me, I had to decide for myself.

When you miss out on something there’s always another chance

Back when I used to be into personal finance, there was a stock I was considering buying. I had done the research and made up my mind that it was a good investment. But before I actually put any money in, I got distracted by other pursuits.

Sure enough, about a year later I saw that the stock had more than doubled. I remember having this distinct feeling of missing out on an opportunity. And if I’m being honest, it doesn’t feel good.

Looking back, I wish I could tell my younger self that there are always going to be more opportunities. This mindset is true for investing, but also in life in general. What I missed was an opportunity for a quick gain. But long-term investing in broad index funds is eventually a much safer and surer bet.

But more importantly, who cares what the stock market does. I have the opportunity to make the most of every single day I’m alive— and if that’s true, then I’m already rich beyond measure.

Consistency over intensity most of the time

I may not know you personally, but I have a pretty good idea of how you approach the boring or mundane work in your life.

No matter how young I feel or how energetic I think I am, I’m wired in the same way. And the truth is that most of us semi-ambitious people get bored easily and hate to be bored. We’d rather tackle a project in one big effort and get it over with, rather than chip away at it a bit at a time.

Too much of life is wasted trying to impress people we don’t know

I’ve decided that one of the most important things in life is knowing who you’re trying to impress. When I was in high school, like most teenagers I guess, I cared a lot about what my friends thought of me. I had a reputation among them for certain things and I enjoyed the status this gave me. Nobody had to tell me to care about those things, it just kind of happened as I spent time with them.

As an adult, the people you spend the most time with are often the ones you work with. I’m fortunate to have enjoyed all of my coworkers (I run a small business with my dad) but they don’t always share all the same values as me. I have to be on guard that I don’t simply absorb the priorities and goals of those I’m closest with. And most of all, I need to remember that my wife is the most important human relationship I have— and her opinion is the one that matters most to me.

It’s very easy to drift your way into a completely different life than you planned

Have you ever had the desire to run a marathon or climb a mountain? Both are on my list of future goals and I know at least with the marathon, that means doing a lot of running to prepare. Preparing for a marathon is going to take some tradeoffs— you have to really think about it, plan for it, and go after it intentionally.

It’s a bit of a contrast to the way you might go about planning a vacation. I’ve found that planning trips is a fairly low effort endeavor. No one has to sit me up in the morning to think about it or force me to make sacrifices. I just figure it out and it gets done.

My point here is that certain goals in life require you to be hyper focused and very intentional. If you want to be physically fit or well-read, you can’t just drift in that direction. But other goals like maintaining a few solid relationships and avoiding bad habits in life are really like planning a vacation. They aren’t easy, but they’re the kind of goals you naturally find yourself doing. Know the difference and prioritize accordingly.

Life’s grand purpose is pretty boring when you think about it

If you think about the highest ideals that philosophers talk about, they include things like beauty, truth, justice, and goodness. Those are pretty abstract words, that don’t mean a whole lot to the average person, but they’re good things.

In some ways, you can say that life’s grand purpose is about pursuing these unique and beautiful things. When you’re a kid, your mind is filled with stories of heroes and people who have done extraordinarily hard and good things. One of my favorite books growing up was “Ranger’s Apprentice” about a young man who was training to become part of a special force that defended the kingdom and lived by his own code of justice.

One of the sad realities of getting older is realizing that there isn’t a huge demand for heroes in this world. The vast majority of us will spend our adult lives working regular jobs, helping our families, and doing the mundane tasks that keep our society moving. This transition can be a hard one for some people. It’s not always easy to see the intrinsic value in those regular tasks we’re called to do. But I do believe that each of us has a grand purpose in life, and it’s to be faithful in the work we’ve been given. The longer I think about it, the more I’ll think it’s a beautiful way to live.

Boredom is inevitable, but avoiding it has its own costs

One of my favorite books as a young person was “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” I remember thinking that Tom’s life was filled with extraordinary adventures and that my life was exceedingly dull. And so naturally I began comparing the two standards of living and I felt jealous of Tom.

The truth is that most of us aren’t going to be like Tom Sawyer. We have daily responsibilities to take care of and work to do. But it’s important to remember that we’re still living like a great adventure. Each of us is experiencing our own lifetime of ups and downs, and the memories that we’re forming now will be what we look back on when we’re older.

I don’t want to sound like a motivational speaker, but don’t waste your life thinking that there is something better out there. In fact, I think that our lives have far fewer rules than anyone gives us credit for. And so if you want something more exciting, you can go out and make it happen.

You really are the average of your five closest friends

When I was a kid, my parents always told me that my friends are important. They wanted me to have good friends that would bring out the best in me, and they wanted me to be that kind of friend to others. When you’re a kid, your world is pretty small, so naturally your friends have a big influence on you. In fact, I learned about a lot of stuff from my friends as a teenager that I never heard about from my parents.

For example, it was my friends that introduced me to some of the books and movies that I still enjoy today. My parents didn’t object to this, but it’s just a natural part of growing up and learning from the other people you’re around. Nowadays, the people I spend the most time with are my wife and kids and my friends at work, and I find that their interests are now shaping my world. The reason I enjoy running and investing is because I’ve had friends surrounded me who enjoy those activities. The older you get, the more you realize that it’s less important for you yourself to be interesting and more important for you to surround yourself with interesting people. And that’s why I still think the most important advice you can give a kid is to choose your friends wisely, because they’ll determine the direction of your life.