words of advice for someone whose turning 22?
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1. Love yourself. If you don’t love and appreciate yourself, no one else will.
2. You cannot fix people, no matter what you do, how hard you work, you cannot fix/change people.
3. Don’t settle for something that makes you miserable whether it is a job or a relationship.
4. Don’t live up to other peoples expectations, surpass your own.
5. Enjoy your life, you only get one.
This is your chance to have fun–date around, travel, do things out of your comfort zone, take the awesome job that doesn’t pay a lot, hang out with friends, oh, and don’t get married or have a kid!
Like BGM, I was so by the book as a young person, and at age 35, I honestly regret it. I’m on the cusp of getting married for the second time, I have a 10 year old, and it makes me a little sad that I don’t have “wild and crazy” days to look back on with fondness. Sure be safe and take good care of yourself, but now is basically the chance to take risks-personally, professionally, etc. It’s harder to do when you have a kid and partner depending on you. I got married at 23 and had my daughter at 24, was divorced at age 32, and never found time to do fun things just for ME.
Lots of good advice, but I think the best ones are:
1. Don’t be a prude, have as much sex as you want with as many people as you want, but yes double up on that birth control!!
2. Sunscreen.
3. NO DEBT. Do not purchase anything on a credit card unless you have a plan in place where you are buying things on a credit card and IMMEDIATELY paying them off because you are trying to build good credit. If you don’t have the cash on hand to immediately pay off the thing you want to put on a credit card, DO NOT BUY THE THING.
4. Start saving NOW for retirement. If your work has a retirement plan, contribute the maximum. If you don’t have retirement through work, open a Roth IRA and contribute. Do not wait to do this.
5. Don’t be afraid, be yourself, take (calculated) risks, don’t put up with BS. Life’s too short.
I’d tell my 22 year old self that life isn’t about getting the ‘gold star’. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, and transitioning from school to the real world was hard. I made mistakes, and it wasn’t the end of the world. (Neither is getting fired for that matter!)
I’d definitely agree with _s_’ 3 and 4 – get your finances in place as much as you can. Avoid debt if at all possible, save for retirement, and have an emergency fund. The emergency fund is especially helpful (especially if you are unexpectedly fired…)
Oh, and one of my good friends ran a trail race in Moab this weekend. I loved checking out her pictures from the race.
Good one Othy. At 22, start with $1000 as your emergency fund goal. Only to be used in actual emergency (i.e. flat tire or something), and if you have to dip into it refill it ASAP. Eventual goal is 6 months worth of your living expenses, whatever that number may be.
I would add, don’t feel bad if your job doesn’t allow you to save enough money for an emergency fund. Be smart with money, but if your job doesn’t pay well, there is only so much you can do. At 30, I still can’t save enough for a true emergency fund. There are ways I could’ve saved more money in the past, like living with multiple roommates, but I didn’t do that. I had a roommate for awhile and then her boyfriend moved in and I moved out. I lived alone and really liked it, so I never went back to having roommates. I probably should have because it would’ve saved me more money in the long run. And I agree about not overusing your credit card. I have credit card debt because of that, but I’m steadily working towards paying it off and I haven’t used my credit card at all in over a year, so I’ve been living within my means (which I should’ve done sooner).
Thanks for the support, DW clan. She was a really beautiful person, inside and out. She had beat cancer at age 11. It came back with a vengeance about 10 months ago. A month ago, they gave her 8 months to live. It’s really terrible. Her parents took her off of life support last night and she passed this morning.
@Othy, we went during the week and drove out of Moab on Saturday morning. It was crazy how much traffic was going into town. We were both like, yeah… Never coming here on the weekend! We had the trails to ourselves all week.@K next time you are around these parts we should have a southwest DW meet up! I’ve been to Moab in Febuary twice and in October, luckily no 90+ days. The heat here kills me. It was 90 in May last year. (I’m from NE and lived in the PNW)
If I could tell my younger self at 22 some of the things I know now (almost 30 years later):
Stay in school.
Cultivate a lot of friends.
Don’t be so catty and judgmental of others.
Stash away 10% of any money you receive (not just paychecks).
Start a retirement fund very young.
Invest in good heels (preferably stacked heels–those don’t get marred/torn as easily as others); same with a good suit and/or separates.
Call your parents often.
Call your siblings (if applicable) often–even if it’s just for a few minutes.
Date a lot of people and don’t put so much emphasis on just one person.
Don’t get married before 27.
Don’t have babies after 38.
Exercise regularly.
Don’t get blackout drunk, but do have a good buzz going on from time to time.
Attend and host get-togethers often.
Donate to charities (money and/or time).
Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize and DO NOT bake in the sun, especially without sunscreen.
Accept that others will make mistakes, just as you do.1) Beauty is lovely and all, but its fleeting and doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things – so love you for all of you, don’t let 20 extra pounds, or odd shaped knees, or whatever you’d love to change about your body mean more than it warrants. It took me til 33 to realize I will never be beautiful, and that’s okay because I’m an awesome person in other regards, and only overvaluing physical beauty makes that a sad statement.
2) Drink now because your body will never bounce back the same as it does now. Have “when I was 22, I could do that” memories to look back on when you over drink in your 30s.
3)Every dollar you save for retirement now is worth $5-$10 saved after 30. So throw some cash aside now.
4) Don’t sell yourself cheaply – meaning don’t have sex to be liked or because you think you ‘should’ since you’re young and should have sex. You are entirely in control of who warrants access to you in that way – its cool to decide casual sex isn’t for you. (Not suggesting casual sex is selling yourself cheaply, just that having sex for reasons other than its what you want, is no bueno – sex to be liked is no bueno)
5) Take your make up off every night – your 32 year old self will be so happy with you.
6) Let others keep their drama, don’t let yourself get pulled into the bad decisions of others. Its stressful and unnecessary.
7) Ask advice of people, but realize that their advice doesn’t mean you must take it. Make up your own mind about things.
8) Don’t take naked pictures that show the goods and your face in the same pic – just don’t.
