Things Nobody Warns You About Growing Up

There is a version of your 20s that looks really good on Instagram. And then there is the actual version.

I am in my mid-twenties now, somewhere between knowing everything and realizing I know very little, and honestly? It is one of the most disorienting places to be. You have enough experience to feel confident, and just enough life behind you to understand that confidence does not always mean you are right.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Between coding late into the night, hopping between cities, and trying to figure out what I actually want from this life, I have collected a few truths that nobody really warns you about. Not in a dark way. More in a "wish someone had told me sooner" kind of way.

. . .

You do not have to have a plan. You just have to keep moving.

I spent so much of my early 20s trying to have the perfect five-year plan. Career milestones, life goals, the whole thing mapped out neatly. And then life did what life always does, which is absolutely none of what I planned.

What I learned is that having direction is different from having a rigid plan. Direction says: I want to build things, I want to see the world, I want to feel alive. A rigid plan says: by 25 you must have this specific job and this specific apartment and this specific life.

Direction is flexible. Plans break.

Keep the direction. Let the plan breathe.

. . .

Saying no is not a personality flaw.

This one took me embarrassingly long to figure out. I used to say yes to everything because I was afraid of missing out, afraid of being seen as difficult, afraid of not seeming like a team player.

But here is what nobody tells you: saying yes to everything is actually a way of saying no to yourself. Every time you agree to something that does not align with what you need, you are quietly pulling energy away from the things that actually matter to you.

Learning to say no, and to say it without a ten paragraph explanation, is one of the most liberating things I have done for myself. It felt uncomfortable at first. Now it feels like self-respect.

. . .

Comparison is a thief and also a liar.

Social media makes this one harder than it has ever been. You see someone from your batch who just got a dream job offer. You see someone your age who already owns an apartment. You see someone who seems to have cracked the code on work-life balance and also has great skin.

And then you look at your own life, mid-process, mid-mess, mid-figuring-it-out, and you wonder if you are somehow behind.

You are not behind. You are just in the middle of your own story, which looks nothing like someone else's highlight reel.

That person you are comparing yourself to? They are probably comparing themselves to someone else.

. . .

The discomfort is the growth.

I know this sounds like a motivational poster. Stay with me.

Every time I have pushed myself into something uncomfortable, whether it was moving to a new city, pitching an idea I was not sure about, or just asking for something I needed, the discomfort was always the doorway.

Not everything on the other side of discomfort is amazing. Sometimes you just walk through the door and find a slightly different version of the same room. But you walked through. And that changes something in you quietly.

Your 20s are full of doors that feel scary. Walk through them anyway.

. . .

You are allowed to change your mind.

About your career. About a relationship. About who you are or what you want. About the version of yourself you thought you were building.

We treat changing our minds like it is weakness or inconsistency. But changing your mind means you have been paying attention. It means you have grown past a previous version of yourself. It means you are taking in new information and actually doing something with it.

That is not weakness. That is exactly what you are supposed to be doing.

. . .

I do not have all of it figured out, not even close. But I think that is actually the point. The 20s are not meant to be solved. They are meant to be lived, questioned, messed up, and slowly understood.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, you start to figure out who you actually are.

Which is, honestly, the whole adventure.