Just wait for your 20s. They will be the best years of your life. Really mom? Cause right now all I feel is a whole lotta stress and confusion. Your 20s are often painted as the best years of your life—full of freedom, self-discovery, and endless possibilities. But the reality? It’s often a confusing, chaotic, and overwhelming decade where you’re expected to be living your best life, but also having it all together. It’s like you’re being told to have all this fun but at the same time you feel so guilty for it? I don’t know about you but so far, my 20s have been … rough. One minute, you’re excited about your future, and the next, you’re drowning in student debt, questioning your career path, and wondering if you should just pack a bag and move to Bali. If you’re feeling lost, you’re not alone. Today alone I’ve complicated moving 5 times, quitting my job, and had a meltdown over what to make for dinner. Rough. 

For most in their early 20s you’re probably attending college, university, or trade school, there’s a constant pressure to figure out your career path and make the right decisions. But what happens when you’re halfway through your degree and realize you don’t even like your major? Yup. This happened to me. Rough. I mean I wasn’t halfway through but I was really getting close to it and then I dropped out. Just dropped everything, packed my bags, moved home, said bye bye to my psychology degree and started from scratch? Do I regret this? From time to time, I mean love what I do now but to put it all in perspective that’s a lot of time and money just wasted but hey your 20s are all about those drastic changes right?

Then the time will come (soon for me) where you’re just kicked out into the real world. Scary. After graduation, you’re thrown into the deep end of the workforce, and suddenly, the real world isn’t as glamorous as it seemed. Finding a job that aligns with your degree (and actually pays well) is harder than expected, and many end up in entry-level positions that barely cover rent. And every single job out there you need to have experience. Well how can you get experience if you can’t land a job. It’s a vicious cycle. The reality is, most people don’t land their dream job right away. Instead, they take whatever job they can to pay the bills. The service industry, retail, and freelancing become survival jobs while trying to build experience in a chosen field. The phrase “entry-level job with 3-5 years of experience required” starts to feel like a cruel joke. 

It’s a funny age right now. I’m 21 and I know people who are travelling Australia and Europe with nothing planned past this week, and some friends who are settled down and married with kids. It’s exhausting keeping up, it all feels so weird. I hate growing up. There’s nothing more appealing than the idea of escaping reality and traveling the world in your 20s. Like spending your day at the beach. Sign me up. But then that guilt comes in. Am I doing life wrong? Should I be saving my money? Should I be in school to get a job? It just feels like you can never be right in your 20s no matter what. Seeing others travel the world can make you feel like you’re wasting your youth stuck in a 9-to-5 job. The idea of quitting everything and traveling full-time is tempting, but it’s not always the right thing to do, you don’t want to break the bank. Some make it work by teaching English abroad, working remote jobs, or picking up gigs along the way, while others wait until they land a “big job” and have more financial freedom. But how do you know what you’re doing is right? Are you making the right decision? Who knows! I mean the one nice thing about life right now is I’m seeing a lot more work from home jobs popping up on my Linkedin feed. That gives me a bit of relief. Could it be possible to have the best of both worlds? 

Your 20s are a rollercoaster when it comes to relationships. Friendships shift, people move away, and romantic relationships become more complex. It’s a time of this so-called “self-discovery”, and as you grow, so do your relationships. It’s hard those people you thought were going to be your friends for life might have moved off to college and forgot about you or mauve that person who you thought was going to be your high school sweetheart moved across the world. Rough. Gone are the days when friendships were built solely on proximity. After college, people move for jobs, relationships, or just a fresh start, making it harder to maintain close friendships. Suddenly, you find yourself scheduling FaceTime calls instead of spontaneous hangouts. Making new friends in your 20s is hard. I feel like half the people just are content being just mutuals while the other half already has a group that’s super cliquey. 

Don’t even get me started with the dating scene of your 20s.  Some people find “the one” early, while others spend years navigating the wild world of dating apps, situationships, and long-distance relationships. The pressure to settle down can be intense, but the reality is that everyone moves at their own pace. It’s okay to take time to figure out what you want in a partner and to make mistakes along the way. But it can be super hard when it feels like the clock is ticking, everyone has someone, and you’re still spending your Friday nights at your parents house. These are just such messy years where anything goes yet at the same time you feel like you have to mould in with what everyone else is doing. 

One of the biggest struggles of your 20s is the constant comparison game. Social media makes it seem like everyone else is thriving—getting promotions, traveling, getting engaged—while you’re just trying to remember to pay your internet bill on time. The truth? Most people are just as lost as you, they’re just better at hiding it. This makes me feel better. I mean social media is always fabricated and it’s hard to decipher what and what not to believe but at the end of the day everyone has their own struggles going on and are just trying to figure it out just like you. 

Don’t beat yourself up too hard about life in your 20s. It’s just rough. Everyone has their own path and at the end of the day it;s not like those movies or shows we grew up watching as kids, times have changed and that’s okay. So if you’re like me, and feel as if your 20s that are supposed to be “the greatest time of your life” are turning out just rough and messy, it will get better and at least you aren’t peaking now – that just means the best times of your life are still to come.