On Being Young

Youth is wasted on the young…

I recently came across this phrase in an autobiography I was reading by the journalist Dolly Alderton. Dolly was explaining how she was just about to turn 30 and thus, expectantly, was in the midst of an existential crisis. Throughout all of her teenage years, she had wanted to be a grown-up and now, she was finally facing that reality. She looked back over her life in reflection and pondered the common phrase – how youth is wasted on the young. There she was – a grown-up, with commitments and places to be. How had she gotten there so quickly?

Having just finished up my university studies and turned 21 last year, I’ve been feeling this pressure too, put it simply, grow up. To find a good, solid career, to work a nine to five, and to start saving for a home, for retirement even. I’m not sure where this pressure is coming from, but I definitely feel like I should have it all sorted out.

But alas, I do not.

Or maybe, it’s not an alas….

It’s such a magical time to be in your twenties.

I look around me at all the people I know and have known, and we are all on such different paths. On the one hand there are engagements, weddings, babies, building homes and working full-time dream jobs, settling and committing. 

On the other hand, people are still studying, traveling, working here and there, breaking up, growing alone, dreaming of unexplored places and then planning how to get there.  

It’s all quite inspiring and exciting to see where people are ending up.

But seeing everyone on these different paths can also make it so easy to compare. You see someone on a certain path and ponder why you are not there too. Someone’s strutting down a brightly-lit city street in polished heels, wearing a neat suit, holding a brown leather satchel, and then you’ve just tripped up and rolled down a grassy hill to find yourself muddy and lost, with leaves in your hair and no shoes, wandering directionless through a flower-filled field. 

If you’re in the latter category, lost in a field, without attachments, a bit like a dandelion seed blowing in the wind, no route planned, it can be exceptionally easy to feel bad for not being where the others are. 

Our society defines success by how much you’ve accomplished in the day, by how much money you are making, by the full-time job you have, by the things you own. 

And if you’re lacking in that security, unsure of what you want, and are instead going with life’s flow, only wanting to go everywhere and try everything, it can be hard to measure up to what society expects of us. You just feel more lost, without a purpose. You worry about what decision to make on the next move you’re going to take – is it right, is it wrong, what happens if it’s the wrong choice?

To those of you out there without a solid plan or place to be, I say, hey – baby you are free, and your purpose is to truly live! Let’s not waste our youth.

Without solid ties, attachments, or commitments, your twenties can present themselves as the perfect blank canvas. Everyone’s dreams are different, and everyone’s dreams are just as important. But I do feel like we who are a little lost are perhaps the lucky ones.

Because although you may feel lost, without a set path, take a look again at the map in your hands – you can pick any path you want. You can roam down one, into a forest of pine trees wearing little hats of snow, then double-back and set off down another path which is soft and sandy and leads you to the beach. You create your own path. 

Youth is wasted on the young they say because we are trying too quickly to grow up and to find that security of what society defines as success, procrastinating our dreams because we feel like we have so much time – not realising just how lucky we have it…

We have boundless energy, endless opportunities, general good health, and vitality. We can stay out dancing and laughing and falling in love until 3:00 AM, knowing that in four hours we must get up to go to work or to study. We believe in the power of light to overcome darkness, we are less jaded, we have huge exponential dreams. 

We should not take this for granted. 

Because one day we are going to be old.

The years are still passing, the seasons continue to change, and as we grow older, they seem to do so more rapidly. 

One day we will have children to look after, a job to arrive at each day, the same home to come back too, mortgages to pay. 

We will need eight hours of sleep. 

One day it will be harder to get out of bed.

Day by day our friends and families will pass away.

All we will have are the memories and stories of the life we have lived. 

So do you really want to look back and see that you only did the bare minimum? Do you want to look back at all the things you did not do?

We owe ourselves more than that.

Life is short and precious.

Let your heart roam. It will always come home to where it is meant to be.

You’ll always be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the things you did.

Your twenties are the perfect time to try and do everything your heart desires - build strong foundations for a happy life, full of joy. 

Here’s something you can do right now:

- Imagine yourself; lovely and old, your face patterned with years and years of laughter, your hair a silver-grey. Imagine yourself, looking back over your life. Write down all the memories you want to be thinking of, all the things you want to have done….

Now, figure out – are you doing these things? How are you going too?

If I could provide any thoughts to those of us in our twenties who are choosing to roam and wonder and wander, creating a home within ourselves, rather than setting up a solid base of a physical home or home in another…I’d say:

Let us not waste our freedom. It’s easy to settle down and to let the years roll by. Go set sail.

And let’s never do anything by halves…

Because you cannot half-accept, half-love, or half-live. 

In all you do, give absolutely everything you have. 

Yes, sometimes you’ll fail, sometimes things won’t work out and sometimes you’ll look a fool.

But if you never try, you’ll never know. 

And at the end of the day, at the end of your life, you’ll at least be able to say “wholy moly, did I live!”