20 is the new 30
At the age of 20, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and cofounded Microsoft. Sir Isaac Newton began developing a new branch of mathematics at the same age.
When they were 21, Thomas Edison created his first invention, an electric vote recorder and Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Inc.
At the age of 22, Samuel Colt patented the Colt six-shooter revolver. At age 23, T. S. Eliot wrote “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.
Johannes Kepler defended the Copernican theory and described the structure of the solar systemat the age of 24.
Orson Welles conscripted, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane. Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly alone across the Atlantic. Alexander the Great became the King of Persia. They have all achieved that at the age of 25.
At age 26, Albert Einstein published five major research papers in a German physics journal, fundamentally changing man’s view of the universe and leading to such inventions as television and the atomic bomb. And, oh yeah, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Italy.
It is an impressive list of accomplishments. And despite how many might interpret this kind of precociousness, – unusually advanced or mature in development, especially mental development – I would argue that these men accomplished what they did because of their age.
There is a meme I saw that made me laugh at first, got my mind thinking and overanalyzing, sad, and eventually inspired to write this.
Einstein: genius mind. Newton: extraordinary mind. Bill Gates: brilliant mind. Me: never mind.
Maybe you've heard this saying before: “Thirty is the new twenty.” Or maybe you've said that to yourself. I believed that my twenties was a time where I could explore and fail. I believed that between the ages of twenty and thirty, I can cut myself some slack and not push myself towards success. I believed I had a lot of time to correct my course of action and get myself focused and on track in life. With that thought in mind, I excused my bad decisions and allowed myself to drift and let the twenty year-old me to enjoy his time of freedom and let the thirty year-old me deal with it when the time came.
I do believe that a person should explore, try and fail in life. That is the only way someone would grow. If they do nothing, see nothing, experience nothing, learn nothing, that person will never grow. The same goes for experiencing and failing in life but brushing it off and saying to oneself: “I shouldn’t worry, because I’m young and I can always accomplish it later.” So, the twenty year-old me parties while the lost and confused thirty year-old me stresses about the road ahead.
But the logic of “thirty is the new twenty” does not make sense. Well, at least not to me. If thirty is the new twenty, that would mean I jumped in a time machine and went back in time to correct all the mistakes I have done; made those mistakes differently; or avoided those situations in the first place. If “thirty is the new twenty”, that would mean I got my youth back, my brain power back, my ambition, my motivation, my hunger for achievement and success, my young body, my sex drive, my patience, my TIME... “Thirty is the new twenty" would mean I got it all of it back. But once you have went through life, once you've experienced certain situations, you can't pretend like they never happened. And if you can, well, you will be lying to yourself.
Both of my parents, who I admire so much, got two university degrees. They both landed “real” jobs – my mother worked for the federal government as a financial analyst and my father worked as a mining engineer. They bought a nice house in the city and they even had a small cottage outside of the city (my guess it was to escape the concrete jungle). They had a child (me). They have done all that before they reached the age of thirty. And then, there is me, reaching that oh-so-dreadful age mark – thirty years old.
This scary number, thirty, the big three-0, the “you’re an adult now, start acting like one” number, is something I feel we use to see how far we have grown in life. CS Lewis said: “30 was so strange for me. I really had to come to terms with the fact that I’m now a walking, talking adult.” By the age of thirty, I had a vision of myself having a career that I love, a family that is happy to spend time with me, a house that I am proud to own. Instead, closing in on the thirty-years-old mark, I found myself working in a job I don’t like, no children yet, and finally moving out of my parents place into a basement apartment. I still feel like I’ve accomplished things in my life, but I do not feel I am nearly where I wanted to be at this stage of life. The 30 year milestone is important because it triggers self-reflection.
Things that were once markers of maturity in the past – finishing school, landing your first “real” job, getting hitched, having kids, buying a house – are getting pushed back later in life. Instead of hitting these milestones in one’s early or mid-twenties, as our parents and grandparents did, economic, sociological, and cultural factors have postponed these steps for many until the latter part of the decade, and into one’s thirties.
This has opened up an unprecedented period of time and development for young adults. The twenties have been relabeled “emerging adulthood” or “extended adolescence,” and because of its nascent nature, there aren’t a lot of guideposts on how a man should spend this new stage of life.
In the absence of such guidance, the twenties have come to be seen as a time to dabble, drift, and adventure, with the idea that you can get serious about stuff later — once you hit thirty. Thus, the twenties have been branded as disposable — an inconsequential holding period between two decades of schooling and becoming a “real” adult.
Dr Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist based in Charlottesville, Virginia, has disputed the notion that thirty is the new twenty, asserting that this idea causes twenty-somethings to become passive, since they believe they have plenty of time to build their careers and find love later in life. I have to strongly agree with that as it has been true for the most of my twenties. Dr Jay said that our culture is to blame for the way a person's twenties is now perceived as 'developmental downtime'. Dr Meg Jay has written a book, titled The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now.
The idea that one’s twenties are unimportant couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, “thirty is the new twenty” is one of the biggest lies of our age.
It has been one of the biggest lies I was telling myself. We ought to be careful with our twenties and our time in general, as there is no way we will be able to buy more time ( or we can keep lying to ourselves).
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