10 Life Lessons I Learned from Surviving My 20s

Mark Manson, about to turn 30, looks back at an aimless, arrogant start to his twenties and the lessons that took him to a career as a writer. Change happens slowly, like sand moved by the tide, and you only see it looking back.

The ten lessons

Fail early and often. Time is your best asset. In your twenties you have the least to lose: no mortgage, no kids. Take the long-shot risks: travel, start the odd business, move cities. The failures of these years set up later success.
You can't force friendships. Some friends feel the same after years apart; others drift. You rarely know in advance which will last, and it's nobody's fault.
You're not supposed to hit every goal. Of the goals he set at 24, he hit about a third, made progress on a third, and dropped a third, and he's happy with that. Goals are mostly there to get you moving; the value comes from the process, and some goals teach you what you don't want.
Nobody really knows what they're doing. Almost everyone changes jobs, careers or direction in their twenties. People are working off their best guess. His own career came from noticing opportunities and acting, and most of them failed.
People everywhere want the same things. After 50+ countries: everyone worries about food, money, work and family; everyone wants to feel important; everyone has insecurities. Judge people by what they do, not where they're from.
The world doesn't care about you, and that's freeing. Paraphrasing David Foster Wallace: you stop worrying what people think once you realise how rarely they think about you. So you might as well be who you want to be.
The internet is extremes; life is moderate. Online, everything looks like a crisis or a conspiracy, but 90% of life happens in the quiet middle, where people are mostly good.
Small things add up more than big things. A Facebook co-founder described its "overnight success" as six years of coding all night. Big achievements are thousands of small, unglamorous daily actions.
The world isn't out to get you. Most people, even in rough places, are kind when given the chance. Travel, and talk to people.
Your parents are people too. Part of real adulthood is seeing your parents as flawed people doing their best, and accepting, maybe forgiving, their mistakes.

The ten lessons

See also