Why your twenties are the most important years of your life

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How our thirties will be the new twenties

By: Ana Mamula, Contributor

I remember being a kid and daydreaming of what it would be like being able to drive, have my own place, have kids and attend university. From such a young age, I was envious of those older women who seemed so much more independent than I was. 

I remember saying to myself, “In my early twenties, I will definitely be married and by my mid-twenties, I’ll definitely have kids. Three exactly.” 

Looking back, I laugh to myself. I’m currently a twenty-year old full-time university student and I am no way in hell getting married or having kids soon. Life moved so much faster than I expected, leaving me envious of that little girl who had no troubles in the world. While she longed for her twenties, she never had to deal with the stress of work, school, relationships, paying taxes and so much more. It’s as if we progressed from being driven to school in the backseat of our parents’ cars to driving our own in the blink of an eye. 

Despite life moving so fast, leaving us with less than seconds to breathe, it carries many substantial events that form who we are. However, I believe one decade in particular holds the most importance for us. Our twenties.

Our twenties truly capture everything about who we are and who we are going to be. It is during our twenties that the most life-changing events in our lives occur. The start of this decade is a transformational moment, what with coming out of one’s teen years in the beginning and ending as a fully grown adult. Our twenties are when we make those friends we carry with us for the rest of our lives. They’re when we could meet our significant other, when we could receive that job we have always wanted and when we buy our first home.

Due to all of these life-changing events that society tells us we have to go through in our twenties, the pressure is beyond difficult to carry. Individuals often consider graduating from university and achieving financial stability as adult life’s most important milestones, according to a report from The Atlantic. Carrying the weight of both these monumental events only furthers the narrative of what everyone should be accomplishing in their twenties.   

So how do you get through your twenties? How can you be successful at getting through these important years?

As cheesy as it is, my advice is to stop trying to meet society's deadlines of where you should be and how you should act in your twenties. Our twenties are the years we look back on as we age to realize how much we grow in life. And you do not have to get married or have kids to do that.

In fact, an article by The New York Times makes the comparison that your twenties are similar to stem cells, with a million possibilities and outcomes of what your life could be. 

We are capable of doing whatever we please. As long as the path we are choosing to take is the one we want to take, not the one our parents or friends want us to take, not the one society wants us to take; that is when we are truly successful.