20 things we’d tell our 20-year-old selves
What we’ve learned about life since we turned 30
It’s been 20 years since journalist Mary Schmich, then aged 43, wrote a mock graduation speech for students as a column in the Chicago Tribune, entitled ‘Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young’.
Back before the days of social media, in the internet’s infancy, it was one of the first things to ‘go viral’ (by email) and somehow along the way was misattributed to the American author Kurt Vonnegut.
It caught the attention of Hollywood director Baz Luhrmann, who in 1999 made it into Wear Sunscreen, a spoken-word single over the music of Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good) from his hit film Romeo + Juliet – and the rest is history.
As scores of 20-somethings prepare for a final year of uni or head out into the big wide post-uni world, here’s what we’d like to tell them…
1. Actually do some college work. You’ll never get the leisure to read Baudelaire again.
2. Realise you aren’t defined by your job and you shouldn’t define anyone else by theirs.
3. Spending a year working abroad will be the best and most wonderfully life-changing thing you can do.
4. You will have more fun with £50 now than you will with £5,000 when you are older (which is lucky, because you don’t have that £5,000 now).
5. Relax, you are doing OK. It will all turn out all right eventually.
6. You don’t have to get everything right first time. If you don’t like your chosen career at 21, you don’t have to keep at it. In fact, it’s the perfect time to try everything. Spend your 20s working out what you want in a job, rather than picking something and sticking to it because you’re scared of being poor, unemployed and failing.
7. Don’t worry if things don’t always work out or you fail. If you get fired, miss out on a great opportunity or a relationship ends – it’s not the end of the world and there will be so many more opportunities. You will look back and think, ‘Why did I worry so much about that?’ It really doesn’t matter in the long run.
8. Enjoy life a bit more. Don’t focus so much on finding a job and making money to survive, that you don’t take enough time to enjoy what the world has to offer.
9. Chuck that horrible and unreliable boyfriend immediately. If he’s not making you happy, it’s not because this is a great romance out of some epic novel and everything will end happily. It’s because he’s an idiot. And he will keep proving that to you until you finally see the light, so just get out now.
10. Believe in yourself. So many people give you sensible reasons not to do what you want – but that doesn’t mean what they’re saying is right for your life.
11. Don’t dismiss your achievements so far as being nothing, just because you managed to do them.
12. Get rid of that ‘vintage’ (i.e. old and worn) lime-green jacket you think suits you. It honestly doesn’t (as your friends keep telling you) and you will realise this when you see the photos years later.
13. Don’t tell your friend why her boyfriend is unsuitable. She won’t thank you for it, she’ll just stop being your mate and marry him. Even when he turns out to be a cheat as you predicted and she divorces him, she still won’t be your friend again.
14. Don’t squeeze your beautiful feet into endless ill-fitting high heels. You’ll get bunions as a result and, apart from having a painful operation, will have to wear non-sexy, non high-heeled wide-fitting shoes for the rest of your life.
15. Try not to obsess over your looks. You are more beautiful (and less fat) than you think.
16. Value the friendships you have now and treat those friends well because you’ll need them more than you know in the future.
17. It’s worth putting in a little extra effort to take an opportunity that comes your way, rather than endlessly putting it off and losing it. You never know what direction it might take you in.
18. Don’t be always on the lookout for the next boyfriend or girlfriend. Life isn’t a mission to get married and have kids. Just have fun and relax – the right person will pop into your life when you’re not looking.
19. Binge-drinking might seem like fun, but you’ll regret the hours wasted on hangovers and the damage it inflicts on your skin (and liver).
20. You have a lot more time than you realise, so time to make the wrong decisions and fail multiple times. It’s fine.
The Press Association
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