14 Life Lessons that I Learned in My Late Twenties

I personally believe that although we keep learning throughout our lives, yet only after we come across a certain age, say in our teens and early twenties is where the real lessons are experienced. Our life’s experiences are based on our inner world, that is mind. Since everyone acts differently as per their circumstances the upcoming issues would be based on whether they acted well or not. It is totally OK to make wrong decisions or act out impatiently just to be well informed when similar situations arise in the future. If not, the consequences are there! Following are the life lessons that I have learned in my late twenties:

Life lessons that I learned in my late twenties

1. People don’t care – One has to have a few good characteristics so that they find a potential assistant in one another. If that is not there, one would discard another without a second thought. You ought to have something that is beneficial. If you have nothing, you should be at least entertaining. It has nothing to do with the genuineness you may keep because being real does not serve them. Of course literally, everyone is not like that, but the majority is biased!

2. Grudges/Forgiveness – Holding grudges hurts us more than the people involved in our case. Forgiveness liberates our mind, heart, and soul. Sometimes the matters are not that serious, yet we feel offensive. On the contrary, there are individuals who do serious damages in our lives. It takes time to heal and we may never be prepared to forgive. Nevertheless, in order to move on, both the parties need to stop being vindictive. If one party keeps it, let it as we cannot control the way they think. But we, on the other hand, can control how we view them. I learned forgiving people and treat them as if they never existed.

3. Irreconcilable differences – Before we turn 30, there is a high possibility that we meet certain kinds of people with whom differences occur and the gap elevates with time instead of improvising. Most philosophers would blame our egotistical attitudes especially with those with whom we are supposed to be bonding. I don’t entirely agree.

If we are developing friendships or any other kind of relationship with another individual, both parties are supposed to be mature, respectful and wise. People ought to communicate and come to terms with their demands and expectations by speaking directly. One or both of them may not follow this path and they keep on suppressing what they really think. It would obviously explode in different ways which eventually leads to passive-aggressiveness, emotional turmoil, and/or separation. We all are bound to face this. Few people keep on tolerating the ongoing abuses because it seems normal to them with years of mind conditioning; others simply take a little more courage to listen to their “guts” and move on.

4. Apologies – When it comes to judging what is right and wrong I have always been unbiased and would apologize more often than I ought to. I have learned that apologizing is not a sign of weakness, yet we should know when is the right time to do that. A lot of times people would never take blames on themselves even though they are at fault. And therefore, I don’t suggest to bow down just for the sake of that (false) friendship or any other relationship. Think logically and say sorry when it is really needed, else you would be taken for granted.

5. People’s judgments – I used to be very sensitive to what kind of opinion people would hold about me. This had done substantial psychological wreck in my head. This phase was necessary to know my own worth and I am more than thankful to my life’s journey that I successfully conquered it. I keep on repeating this to myself that people’s judgments about us are their own reflection and no where close to who we truly are. It still raises my heartbeats if someone informs me about someone else’s baseless criticisms about myself or somebody dear to me, but it doesn’t last for more than a couple of hours or a day, way more lesser than it used to be for weeks or even months!

6. Acceptance – This is one of the most difficult favor a person could do to himself. I have learned to accept the way I am, accepted the situations that had already happened, recognized that few people will never change and would possibly keep treating their surroundings the way they think they should. Acceptance means that we have come to terms with everything and start taking things in a cooler manner. Do not confuse it with tolerance. They both have different word meanings.

7. Comparisons – Like everyone else, I too had this habit of comparing myself with overachievers. People would say that hard work provides fruitful results. I did a lot of it and didn’t get what I wanted, perhaps because I wasn’t focusing on conquering my weak points but only on what people would think if I remain a failure. It was palpable that I wasn’t getting even close to my objectives.

There are always two ways to escape from this. Either continue doing what have been doing for years and stay where you have always been OR take responsibilities of our decline so that we could work on correcting our past blunders. The success is sure to get, and additionally, your idea of being victorious is definitely going to change. Then the comparisons wouldn’t be made with someone else, but yourself! I kept on unfolding the life’s mysterious ways of doing me favors and that turned out to be remarkable. I viewed it really differently. My self-esteem is no longer a problem. Not everyone else is going to think in this pattern.

8. Compliments – I have learned to compliment people. It makes their day and in turn makes me happy. Most of us miss this even if we see something going well. All of us need to be more open about what we feel. Though we do witness people praising one another quite often, but that is not the real deal. They indulge because they want something in return. For instance, a subordinate is likely flattering his/her boss in order to get appraisals and promotions. This is not I want to imply.

Praising does not necessarily have to have about looks and clothing. We can also applaud them for being active, smart, kind and available, or for being helping hand for us or someone needful. Consider being sincere and people will remember you for that.

9. Health – If we take our health seriously sooner as we can it would be better for our life’s long journey. Our body needs to stay in a good health and wellbeing so as to function properly, not just because we need to stay in shape and impress people but to avoid illnesses that likely encounter if we keep on feeding ourselves junk. I never developed the habit of smoking, drinking, or doing drugs, and you shouldn’t too, but I had a severe sugar addiction and it literally controlled me. Yes, sugar is capable to addict people just as cocaine, amphetamines, and nicotine because of their involvement with dopamine hormones.

Therefore, I exercised and had done countless trials-and-errors in terms of physical workout and food habits so as to come up with a conclusion what might suit me. It made me discover my body a lot better and provided me the way to stay physically and mentally healthy and stress-free. Now is the time when I can practically control the amount of food I should be consuming even if it contains sweet treats. My discovery hasn’t ended yet and I keep on trying new things on myself.

10. Money doesn’t buy happiness – Social media is flooded with people flaunting their money, thereby making us believe that this is all that we need as it can buy anything – a mansion, luxury cars, private jet/yacht – you name it!

I have learned to stop considering others as in higher positions just because they can purchase more stuff than I could ever buy. My perception about “levels” has been changed. And factually speaking, this is how it should be. Nobody is greater than anybody. We make them superior in our own heads. Yes, money will always buy you drinks and allow you to travel the world, but sometimes we give it more value than it deserves instead of treating it as something which keeps our life going.

11. Expectations – We all go through this. Become close friends with a bunch of people or just a few, assist them when they need us, and get nothing in return, instead, more likely mistreatment. In other words, we expect tons of things from our lives and the people involved that surely lead us to disappointments. This is because we made ourselves available without knowing that holding too much was harmful. Catastrophes were sure factors from which even I couldn’t escape. Not expecting more than required was a learned attitude and that was achieved after a considerable amount of disappointments.

I no longer anticipate how people should treat me or what career opportunities I should be getting. I simply learned to do the best as I can, and the rest is eventually falling into place.

12. Having figured it out – When we are younger, say during our teen times or early twenties, we consider people of late twenties and thirties as old who could have possibly figured out what they want to do and how they would be doing. I thought that I would be having a settled career, a higher designation, savings for future, a happy married life, and kids. When I actually reached that age, ruthless reality kicked in.

I didn’t get every damn thing by this age that I imagined. I do earn good but there aren’t any savings yet. I am happily married but no children yet. After realizing this, I accepted that it is OK to stand on that kind of position and go with the waves. The money factor and children would be resolved sooner or later for sure. That’s what I know and only that matters!

13. Compassion and kindness – To be very frank, I had seen the extreme of viciousness. People are just blatantly unfair towards each other. They are impossible and their acts are unlimited. But that should not define who we should become. I have seen a lot of folks who justify why they are the way they are. I do understand their matter, nevertheless never got really convinced that they didn’t have much choice than to become they were not.

If we want to be treated with kindness we should learn acting out in a more positive way. It is possible that we don’t mean to hurt somebody but we have no clue what to say or how to behave in special cases. We all need to practice that as well. The struggle is real in case if you are an introverted or a shy person because these people find hard to express themselves on the exterior and others may misinterpret them. Be compassionate and kind. I don’t mean to say to never fight back in case of injustice, though be patient much as you can, and stay at a distance if required. It is not easy to treat a nasty person with generosity.

14. Self-love and care – Feeling of one’s own worthiness is often misunderstood. Whenever we see somebody who is too self-absorbed, compliments himself/herself more, posts pictures more often, we all label him/her as a self-lover. This is not true in the factual sense. Loving self is being comfortable with who we are. If I upload a photo of myself wearing the best outfit and makeup on with that perfect angle so that I look great is not self-love unless I do not hesitate without these as well. Self-worth implies to feeling comfortable in our own skin and I surely have its share.

It may not be necessary that the teachings I have had could also be learned by someone else of my age. If you look around you will notice a bunch of folks who never realize what might have gone wrong in their situation. The perceptions always differ. There are many who remain angry in their surroundings and keep complaining the whole day. As I said earlier, the consequences are always there whether or not we take responsibility for our own actions.

I possibly could have covered more but nobody reads blogs that far! I hope that helps you to understand what life lessons are important in order to thrive. You are going to first experience them yourself before settling into anything, anyway!