Welcome to Lessons Learned In My Mid-Twenties

One of my friends was kind enough to remind me that both of us are now in our mid-twenties. Well, we've been there for a little while already. I just had never really thought that that much time had passed. I mean I still get carded when I go out with a group of friends.

Anyway, my friend got me thinking about everything that has happened so far in my life. I haven't done a lot of things, but I've still managed to do a lot. I've had my ups and I've had my downs. I've also had to do a lot of reevaluations of what I want out of life.

Some of my hardest lessons have come with tears and hurt feelings. Other experiences are so amazing, I sometimes have a hard time reminding myself that they actually happened. Life isn't easy, nor is it a straight path. There's rarely a time when my long term  plans haven't been drastically disrupted by something I didn't account for.

Throughout all of this, there is one thing I know for sure about myself and that's that I am a life long learner. I want to learn new things. I want to understand how things work. I'm also notorious for learning things by putting my head through a brick wall (metaphorically of course).

I've done a lot of learning since graduating and moving out. Most of it good, some of it not so good, and then there's the occasional so terrible I don't want to leave my bed ever again bad life lessons. The only thing they all had in common was that they were lessons I needed to learn, for better or worse.

One of the best lessons I've learned in my mid-twenties is that change is going to happen, whether I want it to or not. I've moved four times in the last 5 years. No I don't recommend doing that and one was very unexpected. However, I was able to discover that I can handle these types of changes a lot better than I originally thought I would.

Another lesson I am happy to have learned is that it's okay to not have a significant other. There seems to still be a lot of pressure in our society to pair up. I am perfectly happy single and  when/if I do find a significant other, I hope I'm happy in that relationship too. Otherwise it's not worth getting into.

I've learned that pride and arrogance are not only dangerous, they can also be destructive. I don't really want to get into this one too much (especially with the current state of affairs around the world politically). I'm also not talking about the kind of pride that drives me to work hard. I'm talking about the kind of pride that leads to arguments and lost friendships.

Learning that you can't be friends with everyone was a tough lesson. I don't think I'm alone when I say it's nice to be liked and to like other people. That doesn't mean that I can get along with everyone else and hey, maybe there's something (or a lot of things) that I do that really annoy other people. Some people find it charming and others discover they want nothing to do with me. Trying to not pursue a friendship when it's a lost cause was tough.

Probably the most important lesson I've had to learn is that no one is prefect and that's okay. This is similar to learning that it's okay to fail, but different I feel it's different enough to be it's own lesson. Failure implies that I made a mistake and can correct it later to achieve success and by extension perfection. Maybe it's a silly association, but I really struggled trying to separate the two. I understand now that I'll never be "prefect".

Huh, I got really personal with this post. Maybe I should have learned some of these things a lot sooner than I have. I don't know if anyone else has had to learn these lessons. What I do know is, is that I still have a lot of learning to do. Figures crossed, nothing too dramatic happens.

Oh, who am I kidding, I never learn anything without putting my head through a brick wall first (again metaphorically).

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Until next week.