Do you feel like you’ve been wasting your life? You should be working towards your passions, on top of your shit hitting huge milestones, yet all you feel is being stuck and behind everyone else. Even when you're working hard. One habit that we’ve taken makes us blind to all the progress we’ve made. What is it? And how can we spend our 20’s (or 30’s) the right way?
The bigger fish!
Let’s go back to the 80’s. Mifrah is going fishing every week as usual. He brings in just about enough fish for his wife and 2 kids. His family is always happy to see him come home after working so hard. And he’s just as happy to see them and bring food to the table.
Routinely, he goes to the mosque to pray, and sees his friend Ali bring in a huge Yellow fin after his fishing trip. Surprised, he goes on to ask where he went to catch such a big Yellow Fin. Ali mentioned to head a bit more north to their usual spot and he’d catch the same. And was excited to mention how happy he was to skip fishing next week to spend more time with his family due to the catch.
Thrilled by the idea of a big catch & an extra week off, Mifrah went the next week to the spot Ali recommended. He waited and waited, but alas did he catch a big Fin. To make it worse, he couldn't catch a single fish. For the first time ever in ages, he had to come back home empty handed.
He felt extreme guilt for not being able to bring food to the table. But also started filling up envy towards Ali. Numerous negative thoughts fill his head. Is Ali a more skilled fisherman than I am? Am I so unlucky? It's not fair that he gets to have longer quality time with his family than I do.
For thinking his friend Ali screwed him up with the location, Mifrah avoids him. And only continues to go on to the same location he always went. Could it actually be that Ali lied? Was Mifrah actually not skilled enough to catch a big fish?
You probably think he got unlucky right?
Fast forward to the 20’s
February 5, 2015. “Who is this guy with a lamborghini?” starts getting viral on Reddit. Tai Lopez published an ad that showed his dramatic change in lifestyle from being broke 2 years ago to having a lamborghini in his garage. Millions of people started buying his course, hoping to live a glimpse of the fancy lifestyle he portrayed.
But, they buy the course and then don't seem to see a Lamborghini in their garage the next day, or the next week, or next month.
Did they get unlucky again like Mifrah did with his thrill to catch a Yellow Fin?
“The big Yellow Fin” & the “Lamborghini” should spark a little bubble
That we humans desire things outside ourselves. We want more, we want better. But by virtue of this we are prone to comparing our lives to other people. This makes our 20’s difficult, because social media is constantly throwing success in our faces. It's difficult not to feel behind.
Comparison is the thief of joy
There are a lot of triggers that set us to compare ourselves, seeing the nice holidays your friends or mutuals are enjoying, the constant negative news shared through publications, the great achievements done by the “0000000.0001%” that’s telling you that you can do the exact same, is the reason why you feel so pressured to achieve and do so much so young, and feel you’re so behind for not meeting these results.
It’s never always about social media too.
Our family members, our relatives, they all play a huge role in this too.
But the struggles you face, the environment you’re set out to survive in, is completely unique to you.
However, just like Mifrah & Tai Lopez glazers (god bless them!), you still end up feeling behind when you see your past classmates buying their own things, some getting married, having children, buying cars and building houses.
How can you stop feeling behind? How can you live your own life and enjoy your struggles without having to feel worse off seeing others?
Replace the comparison
Instead of comparing yourself to other people, compare yourself 1 year ago.
If you’re working and earning money today, think of how your life was like last year? Were you even working? Were you studying? Were you dependent on your parents' money?
This helps you to reflect on the progress that you’ve made in your own battle and struggles, and gives you the time to find gratitude to be thankful for your position today.
Are you willing to make the trade?
Would you actually trade your lives with the person you’re comparing yourself to? Trading comes fully, with the good bits (that you’re seeing) and the bad bits (that you’re not seeing).
If you swap your lives with Cristiano Ronaldo, sure you’d be the best player in the world but you cannot go to the grocery shop on a random Tuesday anymore, you need to handle millions of criticism everyday and have the pressure on your shoulders of performing well in each game.
But Cristiano is an athlete, my friend who’s traveling all over the world is not.
You can also become a traveler like them if you wish, but do you really want to spend a lot of time planning the logistics, constantly checking the flight routes to get the best and cheaper option, are you willing to live lean and frugal so you can save enough to travel so much, because ahem.. It’s not free?
Are you willing to live the actual lives of the friends that are traveling and showing the nice views?
Asking this makes you realize that the answer is probably no. You start to have pride for staying authentic and overcoming so many of your own obstacles.
Work on what you can control
You have no power over what others are doing. You only have the steering wheel of your own life. That is your greatest power and leverage. Additionally, we are biased to assuming things that probably aren’t true. We don’t know for sure if the person you’re comparing yourself with really earned what they have or had it handed to them.
But Mr. Beast became successful at 22 years old?
Greatness comes through extreme repetition, failure and constant learning. Remember that you’re only seeing the highlight of someone else’s life while living through your own bloopers. It’s easy to miss out on those bloopers of extreme hard work and failure they endured because that's the boring pits everyone likes to ignore.
Focus on your progress, small wins are still wins. And they’re yours.
So back to the original question.
How should you live your 20’s?
Your 20’s, 30’s or even 40’s are filled with insurmountable obstacles that are unique to you. The advice on how you should live your life is actually the worst advice. When we stop comparing ourselves to this unrealistic expectation set by social media, we realize now we have room to fail and figure out what we actually want. Your goal is to figure that out, and once you do, you’ll find the most meaning out of life.
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