My 21-Year-Old Self Could’ve Used These Words of Wisdom
4 quotes that'll put everything that's happened to you in perspective
21-year-old me makes present me cringe. Do you relate?
I was stubborn, I didn’t like the person I saw in the mirror, and the future scared me. The difference is that now I look forward to what life has in store.
The person I was back then could’ve used these words of wisdom.
“You’ll never be satisfied, but you want it that way.”
I was talking to someone about marriage.
We’re approaching that age when long-time relationships could become forever ones. It’s scary but exciting.
We talked about how far we’ve both come in the last year. Talking about our accomplishments is a good reminder that even crappy work days are a blip in our lives.
No one wants to be stuck in the 9–5 grind, but it’s better than being jobless, living with your parents, and wondering why you didn’t start looking for jobs when you were a clueless 21-year-old.
You’ll be jobless and unsatisfied. You’ll have a 9–5 with 401(k) and be unsatisfied.
Happiness lies in this truth:
Real freedom is realizing you’ll never be free from work. Accept it, and you’ll learn to love working for yourself.
You’ll start building something because it’s yours, and you’ll never have to worry about retirement because you’ll always be doing something.
An idle mind is a path to restlessness.
“Everything happens for a reason.”
My dream school rejected me.
I was a sophomore at a 4-year university, but I thought I wanted to go elsewhere. I was distraught, thinking I deserved to attend a “better school.”
That rejection was a top five best thing to happen to me. It set the tone for the rest of my collegiate career.
Afterward, I got a campus job, made new friends, and was able to travel and network because of connections with the university that did accept me.
My efforts there set me up for my first job out of college, and then one job led to the next, and now I can afford to live comfortably in my dream city.
The trials of the present are tough to deal with, but with macro-life-lenses, everything truly does happen for a reason.
“Money is a tool to earn back your time”
Let’s say you make $30 an hour.
Every thirty dollars you spend is worth an hour of your time.
If a 20-minute deluxe car wash costs thirty dollars, is it worth paying the money to save an hour of you doing it yourself?
At a certain point, your time becomes worth more than your money. You realize that money isn’t something to covet. It’s not bad to want more money.
Wanting money simply means you want to live financially free.
“Think about the person you were a year ago.”
This is the mantra.
Last year’s version of you was completely different than the present version. You’re constantly updating your “you software.”
In 2021, I caught Covid on my birthday. I also hated my job because it didn’t pay well, and I had to work at a desk outside because we “needed to come to the office.”
I was single, drove a rusty old car, and I lived with my parents. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things, but I’d been on that track for three years prior to the pandemic. I wanted something different.
In 2022, I met a girl, I can comfortably afford a new car, and I live in a big apartment with a massive island in the kitchen.
I can safely say the kitchen is my favorite room in the place.
Some might say, “life comes at you fast.” It’s true. Blink, and you’ll miss all the little things that could bring you joy.
The point is to reflect on how far you’ve come. 21-year-old me was unsatisfied with life, but a year prior, I had even less going for me.
Even today, I get down on myself because I think I need to have a house and all the money I can imagine so I can write articles online for people I’ve never met. But a year ago, I was doing the same thing and had even less reach.
My views weren’t the same, I only had 50 newsletter subscribers, and I was in a teaching job I didn’t like.
Even a dream job is tough sometimes. Some days it’s tough to go to the gym. More often than not, I get out of bed because of the alarm.
The point is…
Growth is exponential when you make a habit of being 1% better than yesterday’s version of yourself.
Watch the effect of compounding change your life.
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