10 Things I Learnt In My Twenties

Memories by A Curious Mind 🙋🏻‍♀️

I am a 90’s kid, by that you would have guessed that I am on the verge of saying bye bye to my twenties. January 2021 I will turn thirty, for which I am super excited.

2020 was suppose to be the last year to enjoy my twenties and finally enter the brand new 30s! However, Corona decided to cancel 2020, which I am sure no one would have ever imagined.

Yesterday, I was sitting and reflecting back on past 9 years, thinking how exciting and adventurous my twenties were. It was full of ups and downs, heartbreaks and love, extremely dumb moments to wise moments.

I thought why not share few things with all of you. So here are 10 things I learnt in my twenties.

Living alone

I know it might not be a big deal for a lot of people, but for me it was. After finishing my college I started living alone, all by myself and it gave me the opportunity to understand and appreciate a lot of things that probably I did not before.

I feel when you live alone, you understand each and every aspect of living and maintaining life. From doing all house hold work to discovering yourself, it teaches you a lot. It makes you self dependent.

Small things like rationing or cooking or travelling, teaches you decision making being responsible. I really loved having my own space where I could be myself, where I could decorate it the way I wanted.

Financial Independence

This is one of the most important things that I learnt, the joy of being financially independent. At the age of 21 I got my first job and started managing my finances.

That proud moment when I had to no longer call my dad to ask money was just so surreal. I still remember from my first salary I gifted my parents and they were just so proud. They couldn’t believe that I could now do that!

Small things like paying my own bills, paying my house rent etc made me so happy and gave me so much confidence.

Importance of relationships outside your family

The people we choose to surround ourselves with is very critical. Why? Because somewhere somehow it affects the way we think and react. Personally for me, I become my circle. I get influenced very easily, so for me it was very important to have friends who would uplift me rather than pulling me down.

Unfortunately I didn’t have that for longest time and I did not realize the impact of it until I started my professional career. but once I did, I made sure that I have zero negativity in my life, even if it meant facing some hard realities and biding goodbye to someone extremely close.

Also, one thing which is very important to know is, people who really care for you or who matter will always be there no matter what, people who left, were never yours!

Cooking

I know! But trust me I did not know anything about cooking until third year of my engineering. I didn’t even know how to cut vegetables – I mean the shape and size. The only thing I knew was tea!

But I am so glad that I started living on my own, which sort of forced me to learn cooking. Thanks to my friends in college, they literally taught me everything, from cutting vegetables to preparing them.

You might think it isn’t really important to learn how to cook, but trust me it is. Specially when you are living alone. You should at least know how to cook the basic survival food, so that if need be, you won’t struggle.

Although cooking is not something I enjoy doing, but yes, if needed I can cook anything.

Love is not unconditional

I know a lot of you might not like this point, but I have my own take on it based on the experiences I have had in past.

The typical idea of love that media portrays in front of us, or what we have heard since our childhood is that love should be unconditional. However, that isn’t true always!!

Every love has conditions attached to it. when you love someone you always consciously or sub consciously expect something in return. If we do not get it, our love starts to fade.

The only love that is unconditional is mother’s towards her child. Other than this, I don’t think any love is unconditional. What we are looking for is companionship, so searching for unconditional love isn’t fair.

Discovered my style

Throughout my teenage I really struggled with my style, because I was not confident enough. I was always trying to fit in. I had a lot of issues presenting myself. However, this somewhat changed toward my mid twenties.

I started to explore more to find my style, my calling. I wanted to understand how I can express myself through clothes or the way I look, how can I feel more confident.

As you might already know from my sketches that I upload every Saturday, I love colors and same reflects in my personal style. Blues, pinks, pastels, these are colors that you will find in my wardrobe. Also, I love wearing blazers, for some reason it gives me a sense of authority and confidence.

Life is unpredictable

This is one of the lessons that I would probably never forget. We as humans always try to plan stuff because we are optimistic. But it is so naive of us to think that life is going to turn out just the way we want it to.

Unfortunately life is not all roses and sweet and cherries, there are bitter moments as well. Moments that can turn your world upside down and destroy your entire “plan” .

Life does not always goes the way you plan it. This does not mean that we have to stop planning, but this definitely taught me to always have a plan B,C and D.

To have an opinion of my own

Although it may sound very obvious, but fort me it wasn’t. I was such a push over, I had opinions but never the courage to put it forward. Well, because you know, woman with opinion are not the greatest thing that people admired. It would rather be considered rude or an attitude.

Thank god to my mom, who always had an opinion, even my sisters , no matter what people thought about them. I learnt it a lot later, when I really felt the need to be heard.

I think it’s very important to know and understand that having an opinion is not a bad thing, it gives people your perspective in life. And it is totally okay to have an opinion and not worrying about people judging you. Also not everyone would agree with you all the time and that is ok too.

Working from home is not great

Haha this is funny but true. Have you heard the phrase “grass is always greener on the other side”, it’s very true! I always loved the idea of working from home. I thought it would be so cool to just not worry about getting ready everyday, catching the cab and struggling in traffic.

I think life decided to show me the grass on other side and I got an opportunity to wfh permanently. The only catch was it was in a new city. I took the opportunity in a heart beat and landed up in a new city with zero friends and zero social contact. Trust me I was loosing my mind.

I started working for 12 hours a day, I had no routine, no one to hang out with and then COVID hit our country which made matters even worse.

I swear I am going back to office the first chance I get. I realised that I need socialising, I need people to talk to, or else my mental sanity would be lost.

Self love is important

Being a chubby kid is not always great, specially when you are moving cities every now and then with no permanent friends. I have struggled a lot with body image issues in my teenage. It would probably become an entire blog if I start writing about it.

So cutting it short, self love was not something I was born with. I had to struggle and learn why it is important to love yourself the way you are. Not taking unnecessary criticism to heart and feeling confident in my own skin is certainly something that I learnt eventually in my late twenties.

Hope you enjoyed reading it. Do let me know if there was anything that you could relate to?

Have a great day! Take care!

43 Comments

  1. Vincent Ehindero
    Reply

    I’m so happy for you Curious.

    You have lived your twenties very well and you will begin a new chapter and decade of your life next year.

    You have learnt a lot and I’m glad you thought best to share them with us.

    From love to cooking to socializing to friends, etc

    I’m so happy to learn a lot about your experiences in your twenties.

    Living alone is something that I would also love to explore.

    And I relate to your point of discovering yourself when living alone. Sometimes, we just need that personal space to set ourselves on the right track. But then, marriage comes and we readjust.

    I guess before I marry, I will effectively use the period of “living alone” to have deep reflections on my life. That’s before I have kids 😅

    And also financial independence.

    There’s no better feeling than giving back to your parents. When you give money or gifts to parents, there’s a kind of feeling of awesomeness that we get.

    And paying our own bills and buying our own gadgets and stuffs, it’s such a wonderful feeling and it’s best experienced in our twenties.

    _____________________

    I’m not as old as you 😅but I’m really happy to learn from you.

    You are going to be 30 next year. I’m going to be 20 next year.

    So you have given me an insight of what to expect.

    So next year, we are both celebrating a whole new decade of our lives. 🤗🤗

    Cheers to your new age of 30 🥂
    Cheers to my new age of 20 🥂

    ❤️❤️❤️

    Liked by 6 people

    1. A Curious Mind 🙋🏻‍♀️
      Reply

      Awwww Thankyou for such a lovely comment Vincent 😍 just reading it made my day 🤗🤗 Didn’t realise you are so young l, because you are so wise!!! Omg when I was 19 all I did was was study eat sleep, nothing more. It’s amazing to see that you are so wise at such an young age!

      And yes, living alone does teaches you a lot, try doing that when you feel like it 🙂🙂

      Liked by 3 people

  4. Untold Stories
    Reply

    It was such an exciting read. I liked the one which said love is not unconditionally. I can imagine someone experienced speaking to me via this blog. I definitely needed to hear this.

    I am glad I found your blog.
    Looking forward to read you more.

    Liked by 3 people

  6. rishabh kumar
    Reply

    truly miss curious, to have friends who would uplift us rather than pulling down, not easy to find but glad you got it…. life really teaches who is fake and real in long term.

    for cooking, my mom doesn’t let me cook anything, but I figured out somethings with very few gather ups i joined Lately, that definitely proved helping…
    companionship is a good advice to every teenage indeed, we get attached to things that turn out different at that age.
    Self love is really hard to get I guess, cause there are many thoughts embedded into us where we forget about this, we adjust, get sad… I can say this cause I’m facing it these days, I hope you’re good and enjoying time well with your close ones.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. A Curious Mind 🙋🏻‍♀️
      Reply

      Hey Rishabh!! I am so glad to see your comment after so long😍 How have you been?

      I know my friend self love is probably not something that we learn at young age…but we should! Trust me, try it consciously, stop criticising yourself,start loving the way you are and this will only happen if you don’t see yourself from other’s lenses.

      Even today I sometimes have to consciously ignore few comments passed on to me so casually… because that really doesn’t matter. What matters is what you think of yourself.

      You deserve your love as much as somebody else or even more. Don’t stop loving yourself!!!!

      Take care man! 🤗🤗

      Liked by 1 person

      1. rishabh kumar

        Well I would just say not so bad, not so bad… my father got ill. we are like limiting our expectations, I’m in search of new ways, life… ups and downs.. really self love is necessary and comparison makes me deep, I’m almost empty, just passing time, searching new reason, trying to stay focused. Yes, we definately deserve love. take care you too.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. justcalmwildness
    Reply

    Posts like these are always refreshing and always make me want to analyze my life. I think I am also on the way of learning the same lessons you did through experience rather than from hearing.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Anisha
      Reply

      Hey, I’m seeing you around on many different blogs, but can’t find your URL. Are you running a blog too, or do you just have a WordPress account? I’d like to check if you own a blog.

      Liked by 2 people

  8. Anisha
    Reply

    Twenties is indeed a struggle for self-establishment. I could relate the most with having an opinion and working from home on a permanent basis.

    Wonderful lessons from 20s! I wish you peaceful 30s. ❤

    Liked by 1 person

  9. boundlessblessingsblog
    Reply

    Wonderful story of your beautiful life so far, Curious and be the way you are always. You are a great person and I loved your take on your life. We all have got different lifestyles though but we have to learn every step of our ways with help from family and friends.👌👌👌👌👌👌

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Anushk@
    Reply

    This is something out of the box. I am in my twenties…and this post of yours…have helped me to realise few things..that I’m not doing and some gave me a sense of satisfaction that yess.. I’m doing right.

    And the best things…that life is unpredictable.!
    Self love is important.
    Love is not unconditional..!!

    This is amazing Curious✨😍

    Liked by 1 person

  12. The Conductor
    Reply

    I positively agree with you with these points! In particular, the “love is not unconditional” one. I don’t want kids, and I’m not planning on getting married at all. I want my companion to be like a good friend and we’re not really intimate, really just cuddles. They should want to be my partner, and the same for me. I wouldn’t want these government papers binding us by law, which I think may strain what me and her had between us. And, when our lives take separate paths, no need to go to court and stain everyone involved, we could just mutually agree that we wouldn’t be able to see each other, besides keeping in contact and still being great friends.

    Sorry if I ranted 😅 I’m glad you found your true self and learned to admire the body God blessed you with. Stay safe out there. (Also, thanks for liking my on comment on Cristian’s post)

    Liked by 1 person

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