How to Best Use Your Twenties | By Pam Stewart

Photo by Vanny von Baron

Initially, we are the byproducts of factors beyond our controls. Childhood does that to us and it is beautiful and tragic and whatever, and our job is to keep our heads down and survive. A sad fact of life is that because flawed human beings (and not robots) have babies, flawed human beings are the ones who raise babies. Those flaws take their toll on all of us in different ways, but we all come out a little ‘affected’ (sometimes downright harmed). Our issues can reveal themselves in a plethora of ways: eating disorders, daddy issues, commitment phobias; and if we choose to, we can dive head first into them and cling to them for a lifetime.

But.

And here is the exciting thing: we don’t have to.

Once we have ‘survived’ childhood, once we have broken free, we can rebel and respond however we need to. We can take advantage of a small window in time where we can blame our shitty circumstances on the things we couldn’t control as kids -- absent dads, drunk moms, sexually inappropriate guidance counsellors. This moment can be very useful to take advantage of. There is a healthy and powerful righteousness that boils up in us when we recognize our own innocence: “I am the way I am (fucked up) because YOU (whoever the offending party is) fucked up.” Engaging in this anger can allow us to see ourselves as separate from our issues and what happened to us, “Sweet, I don’t date assholes because I’m pathetic and without value, I date assholes because of a problematic relationship with an important male figure in my early life.”

Use your early twenties to get angry if you have to, and to blame if it helps. But I caution: Do not stay in this phase for too long. This phase is helpful because it is a phase, and it is a useful space to take reprieve in FOR A TIME, but is cowardly and self-defeating to stay here for too long. 

If blame and anger are as far as you develop, if now is the time you really decide to commit to that shopping or drinking addiction, you can stay in this stage indefinitely. And it is good for no one, but least of all you. You will never be whole and who you are meant to be if you don’t move through this anger. Anger is a beautiful tool when it motivates you to do something positive. But anger without movement (and anger that is reactive and without reflection) is ugly and wasteful. Some build their entire identities around their anger over what happened to them.

Allow your anger to free you from negative patterns and to motivate you to cut negative ties. Victim-hood is real. We are all little and without responsibility for who raises us and what systems are enacted upon us (toxic masculinity, ignorant school teachers, etc.) at some point in our lives, but to set up shop here permanently is to never own your life as you are meant to. So instead, you develop the woe is me, ‘my life sucks because my parents sucked’ mentality, and you use this as your justification for all kinds of shitty behaviour (promiscuity, excess debt, violence). Instead, let the anger over your circumstances be your fuel to becoming and doing better than was done to and for you. 

Eventually (as long as you haven’t hit the bottle too hard) the initial burst of anger will fade and you’ll be able to view your life from the more objective perspective of ‘cause and effect.’ Now you will be ready to stop writing your ‘Damn the Man’ poetry (but do not misunderstand, early on in life I am allllll for writing “damn the man poetry” because Damn. The. Man.). But now that you are able to see yourself and the person you’ve become as a response to the pressures that were applied to you, you can begin to see what is your authentic self and what is the you that is merely acting out in response to pressures you internalized as a kid. Until we are able to really grasp the ownership we have over our own lives, most of our behaviours will continue to be us reacting to our own projections and insecurities. Having compassion with ourselves for what determined our self-preservation mechanisms allows us to grasp our potential for true independence and the pursuit of our desired directions consciously.

Once we have unpacked our baggage, gotten over our anger, and accepted our histories, it is now time to rebuild. It’s time to (slowly) move the furniture back in, but only that which we love. (Maybe not everyone read Marie Kondo and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up the way I did, so maybe this metaphor will be lost). But what I’m saying is, you don’t have a choice in your beginning, but you do have a choice now. 

By your late twenties, once you have stripped back the layers and surveyed the damage, you will find yourself sitting in the emptiness of yourself that you’ve caused by all of the undoing. At thirty, you’ll be ready (hopefully) to become your own own parent and culture, and impress upon yourself the direction you need to go and grow and live in order to continue becoming everything you’re meant to be. At this point in time you’ll be ready and able to accept complete responsibility for where you are standing -- that where you are right now is 100% due to your own (good or bad) decision making. The people you surround yourself with is up to you; the way you spend your time and your money and your energy is on you.

The time for blaming others (parents, siblings, teachers, society) is passed. It was necessary and real, and now this life and its results are yours. It's a necessary and generous grace period --the twenties-- for coming face to face with what’s hurt you. And now you can be ready to take responsibility for how you use your resources moving forward: now you are ready for the weight of responsibility that comes with being whole.