5 Reasons You Don't Miss Your 20s When They're Over
#2. You'll be Balancing the Heaviest Workload of Your Life -- Or At Least it Feels Like It
So you've been out of high school for two years. You're now in college, halfway to your bachelor's degree in male pole dancing. You spend the day attending class and your nights working a local taco joint because you realized one month into your first semester that you couldn't survive on student loans and financial aid alone.
You have four major tests and three research papers due at the end of the week, and you haven't done a single second's worth of studying because you planned to do that on downtime at work -- and it turns out that drunk people love tacos at 2:30 a.m. after the bars close.
Getty
And they are a fucking pleasure to be around.
Meanwhile, your mom has been nagging you to come home for a visit next weekend, and you can't really get out of it because the last time you were home was during summer break. But you still haven't taken your girlfriend out, and she's getting restless around five thousand other college males with working genitalia and an infinite supply of box wine.
You manage to pull off two of your research papers on four hours of sleep, but the other one just plain isn't going to get finished in time. So you beg your professor for an extension, which he denies because he couldn't give less of a shit about your problems. His is the only class that exists in the entire school as far as he's concerned, and you should have spent more time writing and less time taco-ing. He wants it in his hands by tomorrow morning. So you resign yourself to another four hours of sleep and bust out a half-assed paper that will pull a C at best. But since the paper accounts for a quarter of your total grade, it'll have to do because the F from not turning it in would wreck your GPA.
Meanwhile, your boss at work catches you nodding off during your shift and tells you that your school schedule isn't his concern. He hired you to make tacos, and if you can't do that he'll find someone who can. He has a business to run.
Getty
"Now, you get in there and stir 6,000 gallons of meat chunks!"
Now, a lot of the older readers are thinking, "Ha! I run my own roofing business and on top of working 80-hour weeks, I have seven kids, and four of them are in wheelchairs! Try living my life, college kid!" but you worked your way up to that. You got acclimated to going without sleep and having no down time.
When you're 20 or 21, the sudden change in life's difficulty curve is an absolute shock. The amount of free time in your life is slashed down to nothing, all at once, and the number of responsibilities suddenly explode. Your body needs sleep more than any time of your life other than infancy, and you're not allowed to get it.
There is probably at least one war veteran out there eager to point out that at 20 they were in Iraq trying to defuse homemade bombs, but the military is actually a good example -- the entire process of basic training is built to shock the recruit into understanding how radically the world's expectations have changed. Maybe that's what we all need, some guy to yell it into our face on the first day. Instead, nobody tells you, and all of these new, conflicting expectations just start slowly pulling your limbs off.
Getty
"Man, I really need to have my own kids to take this out on."
#1. You're Uncertain About Your Adult Status
Twenty is the age where you most likely have a couple of straggler friends who are still in high school. Like say in high school you were a senior and they were a sophomore, but now you're out. When you were both teenagers, there was nothing strange about it -- teenagers hang out together. But when you're 20 or 21 and you stop by to pick up your friend for lunch, you're now the weird old guy from Dazed and Confused who refuses to let his high school years die. And you figure, yeah, but even at 18 Steve is cool and mature. But now Steve has a sophomore friend, Matt, who's only 16. And he's brought his 14-year-old girlfriend along. And all at once, you realize that some of the people in this car live on a different planet than you.
Getty
"So ... uh ... menstruating yet?"
But even with the Steves of the world, you have these little reminders -- they still can't legally buy alcohol or be caught with it, they're legally bound to local curfew ordinances, they can't go into the clubs that you can. And all of that teenager stuff you used to get away with -- sneaking beers behind the backs of your parents, etc. -- the kind of stuff that would get you grounded back then? If you get caught doing that shit now, your ass goes straight to jail for corruption of a minor. In a hundred different ways the world is telling you, "Move on, dude, this is getting creepy."
But there's another side to that coin. When you get into conversations with people just a few years older than you, they're still fucking treating you like a teenager.
You're not taken seriously on any adult subject because you have virtually no life experience yet. Your political opinions? "Yeah, that's what I'd expect from someone your age. You'll think differently when you're older." Opinions on raising children? "Yeah, you'll laugh at what you just said when you're 30 and have kids of your own. Hell, you're still a kid yourself." And don't think you can just earn your way out of it -- if you are successful in your career right out of school, that just makes people resent you more. They'll look at you and your advanced work position and say, "I wonder who he's related to?"
If you want a vivid example of what I mean, try walking onto a car dealership at 20. The salesman won't come out and try to talk you into a car. He'll look at you like you're about to vandalize something. In that setting, you might as well be 13. At a party with teenagers, you might as well be 30.
Getty
"I totally fit in here!"
So all the movies that make those years of your life look like a romantic, vibrant sex-o-coaster? Fuck 'em. I know better.
For more Cheese, check out 5 Reasons Life Actually Does Get Better and 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor.
I'm at university now and feel I could really use that guy screaming in my face.
ReplyI also agree with digapygmy - articles like this one and the 'reasons why life will get better' suggest hope. Keep them coming, please.
*sigh* I miss the skin I had in my 20's. That's about it.
ReplyIn a way, it actually makes sense that Hollywood would portray college life (which is pretty much what this article covers) as this carefree time of binge drinking, drug use, and sex: It USED TO BE the time when kids typically moved away from their parents. And, particularly given that many Hollywood writers are/were baby boomers (which is when teenage rebellion and parent-frustration were at their cultural peek), it's easy to see why they'd portray college life in a "now that the cat's away, the mice will play" manner.
ReplyPlus, in reality, college is actually a pretty dull place to accurately portray in movies: You're one of at least 5,000 incredibly diverse students on a single campus (that lack of closeness is one of the many reasons why "coolness/hipness" immediately goes out the window once you start college). Most of your nights are spent studying, doing major-specific activities and pondering what the economy will be like when you've graduated, fraternity/dorm pranks generally just draw the ire of your rapidly maturing peers (let alone college security), etc. So, of course, Hollywood will heavily exaggerate college life for the sake of making a college-themed movie interesting.
Not criticizing the article, of course, as it's totally spot on. Just saying that there's an admittedly sensible reason why Hollywood portrays late-teens/early-20's in such a silly manner.
Well, all of this is pretty true, but it's very early-20s focussed. The late 20s seem to suck for a whole different set of reasons that make the early 20s look fantastic.
ReplyHello "First World" problems!
ReplyThere's always one...
well this is a relief... i genuinely thought i was a s**t kind of adult
ReplyJohn Cheese, you always make me feel better. I'm 22, graduating from college next month, desperately trying to find work, trying to get over my crippling loneliness and realizing that I don't define myself by music/movies/TV/books/whathaveyou anymore but wondering what the hell defines me now. It really just seems like this dark tunnel with no end in sight, but this article and many of your articles give me hope. You know, five years down the line, I'll be saying, I'm happy with my life. At least that's what I'm praying for. I hope you always continue to write articles (or books!) like this.
ReplyThat's right. f**k them. I wouldn't go back either!
ReplyTimes of your life my ass.
It's good to know I have 9 more years of this before I can be considered truly human.
ReplyWe can all see how mature you are....yeah.
Totally agree. I don't go back to my twenties in my memories with a 'rose colored' lens. I totally recall how hard it was, and certainly most of my suicidal thoughts were around that time. Passed the 27 - 28 it's not that you come to terms with all the s**t that life brings you, but in some way you learned to survive, and you think it would be simply stupid to end the game by your own means... You are in. And that's it. You better enjoy it, because it's getting any better than this. Excellent article.
ReplyI'm 27 years old. Definitely feeling/experiencing all of these in some form or another.
ReplyThe music thing-I came to terms with the fact that I was never cool years ago, but it shocks me when I hear some top 40 song on the radio and want to start being all, "This music sucks!" I REALLY don't want to turn into that person, but it seems inevitable, and that saddens me.
Excellent article. Sad to read, but spot on.
I've been that person since I was 13. Hahaha
My parents bought my current truck at 19 (my shoulders grew out all the way, and my legs grew even more, so I didn't fit in my old one). I showed up at the dealership before them b/c I was coming from somewhere else, and the salesman started showing me around.
ReplyI also had a coworker think I was working minimum wage food service at 27, so I guess that says something, hopefully only about how mature I look.
I don't think any salesperson is going to look down on someone who's gigantic enough that they can't fit in a normal truck.
This will definitely be the last Cheese article I ever read. I am tired of his whiney, crying, broad generalizations. Not everyone experienced life as a poor, underemployed, barely educated, self conscious little s**t with no friends, trying desperately to fit in and be accepted. Cheese is as far away from being an alpha male as is humanely possible. c**t
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesSo if you already know what hes going to write about why do you bother reading it? And while some people did not, many others did. So how about you give your life sob story, and we get somebody who will degrade it down to you being a worthless piece of shit? And if you don't have one and your life has been perfect without any of the issues your so self righteously damning as whiny then, 1: your lying because EVERYBODY deals with these issues in their twenty's or otherwise. And 2: your an insensitive prick. Like i said if you don't like john cheese's previous articles what made you think you'd like this one? Go read about privaleged, rich, overeducated dickheads who lord their perfect live over others. Seems more to your taste.
...........Just........so many f*****g questions.......he dident even mention being poor in this article, and NOT EVERYONE CAN BE A MOTHER f*****g ALPHA MALE........cunt
qazjin, you sir, are a penis.
There's really nothing else to be said on the matter.
Plenty of truth here... but why is it titled "...Your 20s" when it only talks about the first couple of years of your 20s? At 27, pretty much everything in here is a distant memory...
ReplyJust my 2 cents, but high school was the shittiest age by far. The late teens/early 20s years were liberating; with no parents on your dick 24/7 and you can manage your own time and life, it made things much more enjoyable. I never appreciated authority, but probably because my parents were the SS to my lowly jew equivalent self. I left motivated and driven...
Replyyea, I spent those years traveling the globe, and generally enjoying life. Yes, I was broke at times, and in bad situations (uprisings, bombings, wars, 9.0 earthquakes and tsunamis with nuclear meltdowns). But overall its been pretty kickass. I am now 24. After working overseas for awhile I am in grad school studying in a field that will get me where I want to be in life. Sooo things aren't bad at all. The things this guy listed are nothing, not even real problems. 20 yr olds are self-absorbed, but makes sense they're still developing/finding a place in society. Anyway it varies. I had a lot of life experience by the time I was 18. A lot have. Unless you grew up in the burbs.
So here I am, almost done with my teenage years (which sucked way more than they were built up to be), hoping that instead my twenties could be the "best years of my life". Now, by about age 16, most hope of this prospect was gone, but this article was the nail in the coffin.
ReplyWhat's the message here? That there are no golden years? No high point in life and then a slow decline with blips of happiness along the way? Instead, it's just a downward spiral? Maybe I missed it, and maybe I'm just another dumb teenager out of the thousands, but this article is depressing as hell.
It's not a downward spiral at all. It's about the fact that @20, suddenly there are no rules, but people are still trying to sell you on the fact that there are. So it takes about 10 years getting used to, when they could have just told you in the first place.
The message here is that it's a difficult path for many people because of the sudden changes thrown at you all at once.... And it's not easy in this shit-ass era we're living in now. You have all of the responsibilities of being an adult, but nobody treating you as one. Also, you're trying to figure out who you want to be and what you want to do while struggling to get your "adult life" started. As I said in other posts, the most important thing is being constantly aware of what's going on with you and around you, so you can learn and grow from the s**t thrown at you. It's not ALL horrible, it's just a very demanding transition period in life. The best thing to do is pay attention to your gut instincts, as that is often the best guide post to finding happiness. Work toward finding a good balance between work, home and social life, and you'll be heading in the right direction. Oh, and don't forget... Keep in mind that this IS a comedy site! Re-read the article with the mind-set that you're seeing a comedian performing a live show... Then maybe you'll better understand the message.
My husband got me hooked on this site, and I'm glad he did if for no other reason than being able to enjoy these wonderful gems that John Cheese provides for us!
ReplyFor those of you that haven't experienced what he's writing about, stop bitchinmoaning about the article! Instead, please go obtain a goat or other sacrificial animal, take it to an altar (build one if you have to), and provide it as a gift to any and all deities within your belief system as thanks for not having to endure the aforementioned clusterfuck that the vast majority of us have lived through on at least some level. Count yourself as blessed, and move along.... Nothing to see here....
That's a really sweet story. :D
Except the Goat part. I used to love my naiighbor's pet Goat :'(
To be fair, if I were 20 and my 18-year old friend would start bringing 14-year-olds, I would not continue to see this person. I'd sit in a coffee shop on my own. With a book. Unless it's my little brother, in which case: to the tree house! It's not so hard, really.
ReplyAwesome. =:D
To a person in the deepest swathes of 24, thanks. You've definitely given me plenty to wake up to tomorrow. I guess I'll just drop out of university, break up with my boyfriend and keep working in my dumb ass hotel bar/waiter/cleaner/whipping boy job til my music taste catches up with my diminishing fashion sensibility.
ReplyYou're missing the point of the aricle.... You can't learn from life unless you live it. I'm much more content in life now at 31 than I have been since being a little kid without a care in the world. It's simply because I lived through the s**t life threw at me, learned about how the world around me works, figured out the best ways for me to navigate it through mostly trial-and-error (lots of error....), and in so doing I carved out my niche that I am quite happy and content with. Yeah, the process sucked, and I'm glad my 20's are over.... But I also appreciate the fact that if I didn't survive through life's decade-long mind-fuck (which, by the way, won't even give you the courtesy of using KY) I would still be floundering around, trying to learn the secrets of happiness from articles on the Internet.
I don't know about saladbap but my first years were shit! Being 21 hasn't let up and I've been through stuff people in their 80s haven't even heard of. I like the music I like and don't care about who likes it, I don't let people treat me like a child unless I want to (I have a high IQ and will make someone feel like fools), I never looked for the bottle of happiness like other people my age and I've been working since I was ten. I'm not saying I was happy or never made mistakes but not every teen or 20 year old is wandering around clueless. Life deals you crap and you either deal with it or you fold under pressure but the point is, being in your 20s does kinda suck... I really wanna be 30.
I knew this article spoke the truth before even beginning to read it. As soon as I turned 30 I let go a big 'thank you'. What a piece of s**t decade.
ReplyThe only thing I didn't relate to was music. When I was in my teenage/20s I always thought the music people my age listened to was very shitty. Strangely, now I love the same Dance music I used to hate, and I know no other 33 year old like me who does.