<story><title>Why you should take your 20&apos;s seriously</title><url>http://jasonevanish.com/2012/11/01/why-you-should-take-your-20s-seriously/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>crazygringo</author><text>I &quot;agree&quot;, but draw the exact opposite conclusions.&lt;p&gt;You should take your 20&apos;s seriously... because it&apos;s the only time in your life that you &lt;i&gt;aren&apos;t&lt;/i&gt; encumbered by building a career, having kids, etc.&lt;p&gt;So you should take your 20&apos;s to do the things that you won&apos;t be able to do later. Work as a bartender, play in a band, travel the world on the cheap, teach English abroad, date the kind of people you wouldn&apos;t marry. You don&apos;t have serious responsibilities, so take advantage of that while you can.&lt;p&gt;Don&apos;t waste your 20&apos;s &quot;building a career&quot;. You&apos;ve got your 30&apos;s and 40&apos;s and 50&apos;s to do that. Don&apos;t be in a rush to have kids too soon.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, don&apos;t throw your 20&apos;s away. But spend them doing life-experience-focused things, not career- or family-focused.&lt;p&gt;And this gets at the author&apos;s third point: &quot;Your brain finishes forming in your 20′s&quot;. If that&apos;s even true (although I doubt it), then you&apos;d better get in all those varied life experiences sooner rather than later. Learn a second language, learn to cook, learn to play music.&lt;p&gt;Don&apos;t waste your 20&apos;s on grinding away at traditionally career-oriented stuff. That part of your brain is probably already fine. Your 20&apos;s is the time to look for diversity in your life, not to focus narrowly on any particular part. You&apos;ve got all the decades afterward to work on narrow refinement and career progression...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>flyosity</author><text>I&apos;m a 29-year old male who spent his 20s building a career I love and now has a 6-month old daughter, so this quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; Don&apos;t waste your 20&apos;s &quot;building a career&quot;. You&apos;ve got your 30&apos;s and 40&apos;s and 50&apos;s to do that. Don&apos;t be in a rush to have kids too soon.&lt;p&gt;Doesn&apos;t really make sense to me. If you don&apos;t build a career and finances in your 20s, you either can&apos;t afford to have a kid in your early 30s or you have one and can&apos;t provide the life and opportunities they should have. And it seems you skipped over the part about women having extreme difficulties having children later than their mid-30s, or the children they have are at a higher risk of birth defects and miscarriages. Typically, a guy by himself cannot create a child without a woman, so if you&apos;re going to party in your 20s and not think about finances and a career until your 30s, and kids later than that, you should know going in that your partner will be need to be much younger than you to accomplish this.&lt;p&gt;I don&apos;t mean to ask personal questions here, but it seems apropos considering your guidance: how old are you? do you have a spouse? a son or daughter? Does your guidance match up with how you&apos;ve lived your life, and are you now successfully balancing a budding career and family in your older years after living your 20s in various countries like China, France, Brazil and others?</text></comment>
<story><title>Why you should take your 20&apos;s seriously</title><url>http://jasonevanish.com/2012/11/01/why-you-should-take-your-20s-seriously/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>crazygringo</author><text>I &quot;agree&quot;, but draw the exact opposite conclusions.&lt;p&gt;You should take your 20&apos;s seriously... because it&apos;s the only time in your life that you &lt;i&gt;aren&apos;t&lt;/i&gt; encumbered by building a career, having kids, etc.&lt;p&gt;So you should take your 20&apos;s to do the things that you won&apos;t be able to do later. Work as a bartender, play in a band, travel the world on the cheap, teach English abroad, date the kind of people you wouldn&apos;t marry. You don&apos;t have serious responsibilities, so take advantage of that while you can.&lt;p&gt;Don&apos;t waste your 20&apos;s &quot;building a career&quot;. You&apos;ve got your 30&apos;s and 40&apos;s and 50&apos;s to do that. Don&apos;t be in a rush to have kids too soon.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, don&apos;t throw your 20&apos;s away. But spend them doing life-experience-focused things, not career- or family-focused.&lt;p&gt;And this gets at the author&apos;s third point: &quot;Your brain finishes forming in your 20′s&quot;. If that&apos;s even true (although I doubt it), then you&apos;d better get in all those varied life experiences sooner rather than later. Learn a second language, learn to cook, learn to play music.&lt;p&gt;Don&apos;t waste your 20&apos;s on grinding away at traditionally career-oriented stuff. That part of your brain is probably already fine. Your 20&apos;s is the time to look for diversity in your life, not to focus narrowly on any particular part. You&apos;ve got all the decades afterward to work on narrow refinement and career progression...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>engtech</author><text>&quot;Don&apos;t waste your 20&apos;s &quot;building a career&quot;. You&apos;ve got your 30&apos;s and 40&apos;s and 50&apos;s to do that.&quot;&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s hard to try to pivot in your 30s if you don&apos;t have a resume with at least some points to match your future career.&lt;p&gt;If you haven&apos;t used anything from your post-secondary degree 8 years after getting it... employers are going to notice that and assume that your degree is worthless.&lt;p&gt;I say this having seen far too many friends get stuck in the waitress/bartending life only to find out that you plateau in your 30s unless you go into the high end fine dining, sommelier, running your own place, etc.&lt;p&gt;Same thing has happened to friends in retail after they reached manager or assistant manager at a store that was supposed to be their part time job.</text></comment>