just turned twenty and i'm pretty freakin scared about it, got any tips for the big double digits
Getting older is always a good thing. Every time.
I had my own answers to this, but I actually consulted a lot of people I know and asked them what they thought. Everybody takes something different away from life. They actually said the best advice, I think. Via @jimhensonreject and @anakindidsomethingswrong (27 and 31yo):
If you have deadlines, try to do them as soon as possible so you have time to find out what's gonna inevitably go wrong. Ask as many questions as possible. You need a little bit of everything, and everything has its time and place. you can't always look to one solution for everything. You will never be happy changing yourself to make friends or find a partner. It will never work. You gotta be nice to people, but outside that, you gotta accept that youre not for everyone and thats ok. If you're cringe, be cringe and free. Eat regularly, eat vegetables, and sleep for 6+ hours a day. Doing things slowly sometimes is really good for you. Walk somewhere instead of driving, let yourself read slowly instead of rushing to finish a book, let yourself go on weird side quests when doing errands.
Extremely valuable, very succinct advice from two other friends: you can do whatever you want forever.
Honestly, on my every boring end, you need to be thinking about your career and you need to start building it. We feel so doomer about the job market, but it means you have to work harder to get a shot. If you know your interest but don't know what job to take in that field, find somebody who works in the field and ask them what it looks like and what an entry level job would be. I had informational interviews with people whose jobs I wanted, where they told me what I had to do to get that job. Get as much job experience right now in college while you can - it doesn't have to be exactly applicable to what you do in the future, but showing that you have any kind of skillset is important. If you have no fucking clue, then do career counseling with your university. Do SOMETHING. There is never nothing you can do. This doesn't apply as well as if you aren't/don't wanna be in college, but it does still apply.
If you feel like a mess who can't do what they need to do, then be a mess AND do what you need to do. Medication, if it works, is the single most helpful thing you can have, and sometimes you have to try it several times to work and it is very unpleasant but it will help like nothing else can help. If you can't put yourself aside and power through it, it's alright to step back and take a year before going back in. If you want to have a good and steady twenties, you have to start building it, or at the very least planning it, right now.
You can do whatever you want forever. There is ALWAYS something you can do, no matter what. If you don't like the situation, you can leave it. If you don't like where you live, you can move. If you don't like that friend, you can stop talking to them. You can hang out with only the people you want to hang out with. If somebody upsets you more than they make you happy - life is hard enough already. Having somebody who makes it much harder can make your life impossible to live, much less live happily. Always make the decisions that makes you happy and that will give you a better future - you are always capable of it, and there is always a path closest to happiness. Your life 5 and 10 years from now are 100% guaranteed to be NOTHING like what you imagined. They'll only ever look the same if you stand still. You will only feel this way forever, be in this situation forever, be doing this forever, if you stand still.
You can't always do what you want. Sometimes the really shitty situation can't actually be changed. Sometimes things will be really bad, and they will be bad no matter what. But there is always something you can do to make it just a little less bad. That is movement. Keep moving, and you'll be fine.
Thanks for the ask! Don't sweat it, for real. Just focus on your career. You can't do whatever you want forever if you don't have money.
