Were your 20s rough?

[madmax]

Hi everyone.

I was wondering what the board's 20s were like. I graduated high school in the top 10 with a pretty clear path of what I wanted to do and pretty much ended up going the opposite direction due to a lot of reasons (family, health, etc). The college lifestyle did not suit me very well and had far too much time on my hands. I also found that taking classes/not progressing down the path that I had envisioned took a serious amount of effort which could have been used more usefully.

Now I find myself with a nearly-completed B.S. in something I don't really care about and lost a lot of opportunities. Most that I will never get again.

During/after my junior year I basically turned into a loner (which is the polar opposite of me) because I wasn't happy with what I was doing, friends were total **** (who I put WAY too much effort into), broke up with a girl who I really liked, parents nagging the hell out of me, terrible roommates, terrible town, etc. I'd never experienced a shift in my life of that magnitude. Some was all-at-once... some was more insidious.

Basically... instead of making unparalleled growth I regressed. Now, I'm almost a decade behind where I wanted to be and regaining my focus has been challenging. Instead of A-->B-->C, I'm looking at J-->??-->??-->C? Or, D, perhaps?

Anyone have a similar (or not) experience?


Max

[Kenova]

I would have to say that the roughest years for me were my teens, especially as I neared the end of my high school years. During the last year or two of high school I came to the grim realization that post secondary education in the engineering field wasn't going to happen for a number of reasons. That pretty well took the wind out of my sails.
As I entered my 20s I was lucky enough to find a couple of decent paying jobs. This was the early '70s, when you could quit one job at first break and have another by lunch (when stuff was actually made in North America). I was able to meet my modest financial goals, which seemed to make other aspects of life easier and more enjoyable.
Things continued to improve as I married in the mid '80s, raised a family, and secured a financially sound future for my wife and I. Did life progress the way I wanted it to? Hell no!!, but it still turned out allright.
Now that I'm retired, I just have to get off of my butt and do something.

Thanks for your post Max. Now that I've responded, I feel pretty good.

Ken

[justasquid]

I think its just life in general. Most of us have high hopes, only to realize later on that the real world is not what it seems.

the way I look at it is like this. I've missed a lot of opportunities, have quite a few regrets, am not where I thought I would be at this point in my life. However, I am extremely happy, have a wonderful family with a supportive wife and a great son who I would give my life for. I no longer look back and think what could have been, but "what if the things I wanted actually turned out?", I wouldn't be where I am today. The trade offs I made in my past put me where I am now, which I love and wouldn't trade anything for it.

If your at a point in your life that your not happy with, its easy to look back and think that things could have been different. All you can do is be thankful for the things you have, ( a BS degree is nothing to sneeze at), live your life the fullest you can, and just plain stay positive. If there is one thing I've learned, if you become negative, everything in your life follows with negativity.

What hobbies do you have? I know it sounds dumb, but even a small hobby, just something to look forward too can make bad times a little better. I think its time you do something that you've put off and just do it. Whether its a trip, a new toy, or just a hobby that's only for you... Just do it.

And yes, everyone feels lost at some point in there life. Your not alone, it happens to us all.

[go-fish]

I believe you may open up a big can of worms here for two reasons. People love to share their story, especially with those that ask, and just about everyone has been in situations of regret not unlike your own.
I will spare you the details of my own disappointments but know this, I just exited my twenties 3 months ago. I almost wrote "buried my twenties" but I had to change that. They are still alive and while not planned many, most, of those times are not disappointments. My twenties live on through my marriage, my daughter, my never ending 'Cuda build. They are what made me who I am and shaped me rather than me shaping my years into completed plans and goals met.
My advice to you is to never do anything for the money, you will become richer this way. Do not be afraid to move to a new state or even country with very little money, as long as you don't have moral obligations to stay such as a little mouth to feed. Be proactive about getting/staying healthy, it is so hard to turn back the clock in regards to your body so take care of it, it's the only one you have.
Limit your constraints and be a free man, most importantly be free from yourself.

[go-fish]

the way I look at it is like this. I've missed a lot of opportunities, have quite a few regrets, am not where I thought I would be at this point in my life. However, I am extremely happy, have a wonderful family with a supportive wife and a great son who I would give my life for. I no longer look back and think what could have been,.....

Squid, We must have typed at the same time and came up with nearly the same thing. It is so true that we all go through this in some way or another. I think our young friend here will be giving these words to a twenty-something someday

[Pro Stock]

Max, believe it or not you are not "old" yet and that the prime of your life is behind you, there is a lot of good advice in this thread, do the things that you lke to do, you never know where that will take you, I started out with no degree and a decent paying dead end job, I love hot rods and learned how to port heads and moved to Ohio to build Pro Stock engines and eventually owning a two car PS team. All I'm saying is it's not over yet, hell I'm sixty years old and things are still changing for me.

Dale

[Ricoch3T]

Im the same way.... When i started college i wanted to do mech engineering which i found out fast was going to take a ton of effort for me to pick up the math quick enough. Quickly learned it wasn't for me and switched to business which i enjoyed.
Fast forward to today (4 years out of college) i'm still trying to regroup and figure out exactly where i want to go again. The path is not clear but i take things one day at a time and see what opportunities present themselves. I'm working a good job now so I'm pretty happy.

Hi everyone.

I was wondering what the board's 20s were like. I graduated high school in the top 10 with a pretty clear path of what I wanted to do and pretty much ended up going the opposite direction due to a lot of reasons (family, health, etc). The college lifestyle did not suit me very well and had far too much time on my hands. I also found that taking classes/not progressing down the path that I had envisioned took a serious amount of effort which could have been used more usefully.

Now I find myself with a nearly-completed B.S. in something I don't really care about and lost a lot of opportunities. Most that I will never get again.

During/after my junior year I basically turned into a loner (which is the polar opposite of me) because I wasn't happy with what I was doing, friends were total **** (who I put WAY too much effort into), broke up with a girl who I really liked, parents nagging the hell out of me, terrible roommates, terrible town, etc. I'd never experienced a shift in my life of that magnitude. Some was all-at-once... some was more insidious.

Basically... instead of making unparalleled growth I regressed. Now, I'm almost a decade behind where I wanted to be and regaining my focus has been challenging. Instead of A-->B-->C, I'm looking at J-->??-->??-->C? Or, D, perhaps?

Anyone have a similar (or not) experience?


Max

[novaderrik]

that's what the 20's are for- it's when you transition from the "anything is possible if i just want it to happen" optimism of your teenage years to the "well, this isn't what i thought adulthood was supposed to be like" of your 30's.

my 20's were pretty good for me- i had a good job that paid good money, and at 27 i bought a house of my own. life was good, and all i needed was a good woman to start a family with and all that good stuff.
then when i was 30, my job went to hell at the start of the decline in the new housing market, and i lost my house and moved 140 miles away to where i only know a few people and the jobs are fewer and pay less. i'll be 36 in a month and a half, and i'm making less money than i did when i was 19. i never found a good woman, so i'm starting all over by myself, but at least i don't have a family to try to support right now. i've only got a few of the same friends that i had when i was 20, but the ones that are left are the only ones that were ever worth my time, anyways.

from here on out, do what you gotta do to make your life better and don't dwell on how bad it is. life is harsh and doesn't always seem fair, but there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on how crappy your life is compared to what you thought it would be like a decade ago...

[LateNight72]

Well, considering I am only 21, they aren't too bad. But they could be a LOT better. I'll highlight 17yo-present.

Some of you may know about some of this stuff, some may not. This will be long...


In High School I was an all star football player (OT) with several D1A schools chomping at the bit to recruit me. Unfortunately I didn't understand what I needed to do, and had very unsupportive coaches who would rather get their QB recruited to a POS school, then help me get into a Top 10 BCS school. After failing to get into school ANYWHERE for football, even D2/D3 I had a sense of the fk-ups to come.

I ended up going to college in Orlando (UCF), where I majored in Mechanical Engineering. Fortunately I had lots of friends who went to UCF also. Life was good, I had a wonderful girlfriend, I was getting back into shape and even planned to walk on to the football team. Unfortunately my grades started to slip after I got sucked into the partying/laziness freshman cyclone. After just two semesters I lost my scholarships and couldn't afford school, and needed to find a job. I searched high and low and couldn't find any job. Walmart, McDonalds, etc. wouldn't even return my phone calls. I had a foot-in-the-door with a really top notch pro-touring shop in Orlando, but my class schedule, mixed with my inability to act squandered that opportunity. I was out of money, and school. I ended up doing nothing (literally) for about a year, just waking up, trying to find something to eat, and going back to sleep later that night.

Only option was to move back in with my parents who had recently relocated from South Florida, to Alabama. Unfortunately in that process I alienated every friend that I had...

Fast forward to after the move, and I am living with my parents and still can't find a job. This goes on for about a year until my mom pushes me to go back to school. I enroll in a community college and get my grades back up to decent standings, and decide to transfer to my current college, to finish up my BSME.

Which leads me to the present. I am currently attending the University of South Alabama to finish my BSME. I'm beginning to realize that I am probably not cut-out to be an engineer. I can design a great part, that works and lasts better than most engineers, but I simply don't think I have the math smarts to finish all the required math courses. Also, after alienating all my friends after the move to Alabama, I still have no real friends, no girl, and most importantly NO JOB.

On the bright side though, I have been working on bringing my own business to light. I have a bunch of products that are currently under development, many which should be revolutionary to Pro-Touring as well as Motorsports as a whole. Also realizing that Engineering may not work out for me, I've began preparing for a major change to business management with a minor in entrepreneurship, which will obviously help with the first part. But opening a business takes money, lots of it...

[Greg from Aus]

Max, Life is journey, it will go on with or without you, pull up your socks and get ready for the next round. My personal view is that education is a tool, I left school at age 16, with no idea what I wanted to do, I now own 2 business and do OK, I guess what I am trying to say is people can sit around and say O why me or they can make it happen, if you have a heart beat you are the same as everybody else its everybodys choice what they do with it. I believe the only real luck in life is good health and one of my favorite sayings is, THE HARDER I WORK THE LUCKIER I GET.

Greg

[paul67]

If your a bit stuck on the maths befriend some one that's good at it or a study buddy for the course it's like having a private tutor,that's what i did and my grades jumped 2 levels.It might only be for 12months but it could set you up for life with a better job.And 1 thing on maths focus on the formula's to work out the problem as that's the key.

[latamud]

Sorry ahead of time for sounding like a whiny birch. This is the short version.

Out of HS I didn't know what I wanted to do. Lived at home for 2 years. At 20 I found myself working at Wal-Mart for $4.54/HR. This was a tad harsh compared to my 11/HR I was making as a lifeguard in Japan.
I enlisted in the Air Force at 20, separated at 30. My 20's were spent in uniform, I grew up in an Air Force family and that's all I know. I've been out about a year and a half since May 09. I didn't have a hard time finding a job during the economic decline last year. I am not trying to brag just giving my experience. I do not have a bachelors degree, I have taken 3 college courses in my life, I CLEPed my core courses and my Air Force training covered a lot towards an Associates before I got out. A lot of those credits are actually upper division courses occupying elective credits towards the Associates. I need to fill in those elective credits and a few more core courses then I have my Bachelors (27 Credits to be exact). The Air Force offers 100% tuition assistance, which I didn't take advantage of, except for the 1 class before I separated. I have the GI Bill, and 15 years to use it, and if planned out well I can spread it out to 4 years of full time, and get paid to attend. The Air Force sent me to California for 3 years, Hawaii for 3 years and 4 years in Ohio, I can't complain.
At my 6 year point, 26 years old I reenlisted and bought a house. I used my non-taxed housing allowance from the Air Force to pay my mortgage. M reenlistment bonus was $45K, 1/2 up front the other half paid out over the next 3 years. Taxed it was about $30K. I used that 1/2 up front for the down payment on the house. Yet, a VA loan I could have received 100% loan, zero down but I didn't want to mess with PMI.
At my 10 year mark I had the option to reenlist with a $90k bonus, taxed, 1/2 up front and halve dished out over 5 years. I asked to deploy to Iraq again to reenlist in a tax free zone. I was turned away, I walked, among other reasons too but not going to hash them out here.
While in Iraq I was in charge of a handful on contractors, all who did less work and were less qualified than me, but were making over 6 time more.
"Rough" is a relative word. Sure times were rough. Financially, as a lifeguard at 19 I made more that year compared to each of the first 3 years in the Air Force. I scraped the bottom of the barrel many times. I was homeless for a short period (while in the service). I've lived on Top Ramen, cheap canned cat food (it all tastes like liver), peanut butter burritos and all kinds of "whatever I could get my hands on".
I wrecked my first classic car after owning it for about 2 months back in 2000. I think that incident is what made me who I am today. I found a rolling shell and swapped the parts over to it and I still own that car, and then some.
Married at 21, separated at 21, divorced at 22, married at 29.
I suppose if I had to pick a rough patch in my 20's, it would have been my last 3 years of service. The AF wanted me to cross-train into another career field. I declined which made me ineligible for promotion or any other special duty assignments etc. My separation date was supposed to be rolled back to June of 2007 which was 6 month from my declining. I was actually looking forward to it, had a sweet job lined up. Date came and went, my name wasn't on the early seps list. I went into a depression, knowing I'd have to ride out the next 2.5 years at the same rank. I volunteered to go to Iraq to get away from everything. Things didn't get better, actually probably got worse. Fast forward to today, I sleep a couple hours a night. Actually didn't sleep through this one. I will go to work in an hour. I'm sill on edge, I'm paranoid, I don't hang out with my friends, and rarely talk to them either. Never cared to own a gun, now I own 2, I keep them loaded with the safety off (no kids) stashed around the house. I keep blunt objects (including the 1911) near me most of the time I'm working in the garage/driveway. I was diagnosed with severe PTSD recently. I fractured a rib in Iraq which has caused all kinds of physical problems. I'm definitely not the same person I was before Iraq . But heck, I have a great wife who has put up with my rampages, still have all my cars, a roof over my head, and food on the table, and I haven't hurt anyone. It's the cars that keep me sane and out of trouble and off drugs and alcohol.
"Rough", it's relative. I got it easy compared to others. Some didn't come back, I sat on a plane with 12 caskets stacked on a pallet right next to me.
My wife knows a guy who's mother used to come home drunk, line up all the kids and wave a loaded gun at each one.
A friend of mine, his dad used to pull the furniture out of his/sibling's rooms to punish them. Lined them all up and whipped them with the belt together. All three have been in and out of the mental ward at the state hospital, 2 have been in and out of prison.
A friend of mine now works 50 hours a week as a tow truck driver, he's 40 something crawling under cars in the mud and snow supporting 3 kids. He's so busy with work and recovering from work that he doesn't have time to get a better job or better his life. He's declared bankruptcy twice, always behind on bills so he can buy food.

Take the good with the bad, no regrets. We make choices and choices are made for us. What is "Rough" makes us stronger. It makes us who we are.

[Paul_J]

Well you're not alone! I'm now 48 and I still find myself changing careers! There are those folks that at an early age KNOW exactly what they will do the rest of their lives and pursue it. I wasn't one of those. Through my 20's I was wondering all of the place trying to find my "Thing" in life. I will never discount the experience I got during my 20s and 30s as it has become so valuable for me now in my current career. What I do now requires me to have a broad knowledge of a lot of things and it worked out that I picked up most of that knowledge and experience along the way. Things I did not learn in school.

You're young still and have a lot ahead of you. Keep your living expenses down and get rid of any debt and that will give you the freedom to follow your passions where ever they may take you. Working whatever job comes along just so you can pay debt ain't no fun.

[Tony_SS]

Youth is wasted on the young and wealth is wasted on the rich! The great part about growing up is that you can afford to make mistakes, but you must be wise enough to learn from them. If you can do that, every day is a new one, with new opportunities. Live in the present, not the past and forget about your age. The whole purpose of life is plastic. We are here to invent plastic. lol jk. I have found my happiness with my family, learning to be happy by living within my means and doing a job I enjoy. Figure those out and you'll be ok.

[Scott Parkhurst]

What's really messed up about your 20s is that, while they're the most-challenging of times as you plot your future path, they end up being the ones you remember most fondly. Funny how that works.

My 20s were punctuated with periods of feast and famine, several job changes, and hundreds of women.

Guess what I remember most fondly?

[DarkBuddha]

My twenties were a great time generally... spent it learning, expanding my world view, gaining perspective, building friendships, defining my trajectory, etc... and I spent all of it in college studying and exploring lots of different things and getting my Associates and Bachelors degree. The irony for me is that I was a bottom 10 high school student and now I'm getting a doctoral degree. But that, perhaps, is why my 20s were a time of progression and realization for me... no place to go but up.

As for you, IMHO... disillusionment... sounds like what you've run into. The promises (and lies) of youth have succumbed to the realities of the rigor of life and reality. I've seen this when I was teaching at a university, and it seems it is often especially true for those that have been propped up or were unusually successful earlier in life, but then find that the world view and visions for the future they've created (or were manufactured for them) get tested and/or outright fail, and the frustrations of disappointment and disillusionment set in. The exceptional will continue on being exceptional, the mediocre will continue on being mediocre, but those that fall in the inbetweens find themselves searching for unrealized potential or simply giving up. Sadly, but probably appropriately, most give up because they look outside themselves for the cause, as if the world happens to them as opposed to them happening in the world. But alas, none of this is all that insightful, so what can be said?

I offer this: you are who you choose to be and how you live your life. This does not guarantee success or happiness, but does give you the ability to live with integrity and intent... without regard for how the world happens to you. This may seem unreasonable, but look at it this way: "A reasonable man adapts himself to the world around him. An unreasonable man expects to the world to adapt to him. Therefor all progress is made by unreasonable men." (George Bernard Shaw)


Hope this helps... somehow...

[mc84_zz4]

In a short version:
The 20's were hard in the sense that I learned I was on the right path, usually, but disappointed in the time it took before the next 'check' was met on my list of accomplishments/objectives.

Keep that inventory of what you have, what you want to do, and track it every now & then with what else you need to get there.
They say: "Good luck is when preparation and opportunity meet", so take some time into what you do, commit yourself to whatever you are doing and do the best you can at it.

Attract other people with a positive attitude, and you will soon have new friends with similar interest or goals.
Don't drag yourself down by whatever curveballs get tossed at you, and do not compromise your integrity, at any expense.
No regrets, just move forward.

[MrQuick]

The tatered road to my 20's was an intoxicated blurr. picture a 19 year old making 60k a year and had his own house since age 16...party central.

I cleaned up at 21 and been good since then. Luckily I got it out of my system and didn't die.

Enjoy yourself and remember that you have a bunch of years ahead of you to have fun. Work hard while your body can. Your educated, thats a huge plus. You figured out what you don't want to do, another plus. Maybe you need a change of scenery?

Million dolar question is "What do you want to do" ?

Max, Im gonna tell you right out. At your age don't get hung up on women, you'll find the right one and I've seen alot guys make the mistake that they have to have someone now. Miss right now is a dream....make the money and the girls will follow. LOL what was that Scarface saying?

What I am trying to say is Miss right will find you when you least expect it....keep your eyes peeled but don't be desperate. Took me 22 trys to find mine and she was in the background for a long time, all I had to do was turn around. another hint, 30 year olds are easy pickins,usually have things fingures out and they won't mess with you head. You got 15 years to figure it out.

[colt zantop]

wow....Im 28 and feel a lot like you...confused on what I want to do....but I have tons of ideas of what I want to do! LOL...see even explaining it is confusing!

[srt1010]

Max,

I'll can say is do what "you" feel is right, not what you think or feel other people think you should be doing. I started on the college football route, but that was hampered with injuries. Quit that and spent a few years in a factory. Believe me not what I wanted to do, but I can say I did learn a lot. Finally found my calling and have been at it for over 14 years now and I know that in 11 more I can join the ranks of the retired and I'll only be 50. Keep an open mind and be good to yourself and others.