The significant changes in people's thinking between early twenties and late twenties

The significant changes in people's thinking between early twenties and late twenties  

The significant changes I've noticed from getting older, from observing myself and others, are as follows:

-Limitations start becoming a thing. Maturity is really about knowing your limitations, and quite frankly, some well-motivated and intelligent people in their early 20's don't have a whole lot of limitations. That doesn't mean they aren't mature, it means they are still growing and haven't slowed down yet. Once you become the person you were growing into, then the limitations set in.

-Finances begin to play a leading role in your life. Early 20's, not as much. Late 20's, very much. Time is money, and there is no free money.

-Your peers are no longer young and ambitious. They are rats in a cage. Peer influence is very significant. All of a sudden you find yourself around middle aged crotches who mask their crotchiness with an adult's posture and confidence as opposed to having friends who have time and interests aside from preservation of their jobs and families.

-Recency bias turns your younger days into increasingly distant memories. First you forget what middle school was like, then high school, then post high school/college, then...wait, is what I'm doing now going to be every day for the rest of my life?? And where are my friends? Right, they moved on to other things, or other states, or other countries. If you aren't careful, in a few years you might ask yourself where the years went.

-You live at work and not at home, or your apartment, or whereever. Your place of residence is now a hotel to eat and sleep in before going back to work. Work is life, work is God, work is the holy dick of livelihood and it often sucks.

-Your worth is solely defined by your labor. There is nothing left to learn, and no time, because time is money. There is no youth, because its gone, and work-related stress often accelerates the aging process. Work is the holy dick of livelihood and it sucks.

-Meeting people is now on a schedule and not spontaneous and natural. In fact, everything is on a schedule, including eating. It's a great way to get fat, especially since metabolism slows down, because life slows down. It's not just due to age, its also from sitting around all day, or otherwise doing the same thing, rigidly, every day. It's why nerds are often fat, because that's how they live: rigid activity and repetitive habits. Nerds often adjust to the so-called "real" world a little too well. It's why they make the big bucks.

-People under 23 or so are now your underlings, socially speaking. Children are not just children anymore, because now you are a Role Model, and you are expected to conduct yourself accordingly for the sake of the children. All your peers are people over the age of 25 and under the age of 100, and that's a massively increased peer group size, as compared to only people between the ages of 18 and 24, and only the places where those people might be found.

-By your mid 20s, your time has run out. Whatever you've become, that's who you are. There are no more second chances, and little room for growth and change. There is little room for idealism, and that can easily morph into cynicism.

-Hard work is no longer just a cliche. People mainly judge you by how much money you have and by what quality of employee they think you are, and by your potential as a spouse, instead of judging you by who you can become. There is little time to worry about things outside of your direct control. This is why social justice for many seems increasingly abstract as the years go by. Lots of people talk as if maturity breeds conservatism, but it actually just makes it clearer what you can and can't influence.

-Most importantly, with a financial and social leg to stand on, people pleasing is no longer necessary. A grown man or woman is unlikely to cater to the approval of any verbal browbeater who isn't a boss or a spouse, and even then, a grown man or woman can quit a job without being seen as a dropout or a failure or a quitter.

-In your early 20s, if you impose limitations upon yourself, it means you aren't living and you need to relax. By your late 20s, if you haven't imposed the proper limitations upon yourself, you need to get a life, or otherwise get with the program.

-You are now respected as an adult, as opposed to not being respected as an adult no matter how smart or mature you were in your early 20s. For all the talk about "if I knew then what I know now" its usually overlooked or unrecognized that maturity is like the speed limit: you can't be too far over or under, or else people look at you weird. Only when your youth runs out are you welcomed into the club.

Compare all this to the early 20's, when there are still so many possibilities of what your life could be. Those possibilities are gone by the late 20s. It's about probability and action then. If in your early 20s you think the world is a bunch of crap, by your late 20s there's no more room for talk. It's put up or shut up. You have to find a way to adjust.

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