Today I’m happy to welcome Angela from Setting My Intention to share an important post about life in our twenties! Angela has been an inspiration to me, so I’m so excited to share her post with you!
I love the enthusiasm and values driven choices that people like Daisy and her peers are living by. It has been twenty years since I graduated college and I’ve found myself reflecting on choices and advice that I would have appreciated receiving as a young graduate.
Back to the Future
If I could go back in time and give my 23 year old self advice, here is what I would tell her:
1. Don’t live by society’s expectations. Figure out what is important to you, and as you do, live by those pillars.
You will never have as much freedom and opportunity as you do right when you graduate college. The pull is to make sensible choices and get a job – to be practical versus pursuing passions or inklings of passions. However, there will be no better time to volunteer or intern for next to nothing pay than right after high school or college.
I became a Christian in college and my hero was Mother Teresa. I had thoughts of going to India and serving with Missionaries of Charity, but I took a more practical route. I chose to volunteer at an inner city school in Philadelphia (more on that here), which was a wonderful life informing decision. It was the more practical choice, however, because it helped me discern a career path versus pursuing something based on curiosity.
The pressure to get a job right after college is great, especially if you have student loan debt. However, I want to encourage you to take a year or longer and try something based on curiosity and not practicality. There will be many decades of practicality, but never this much unencumbered possibility.
[Tweet “There will be many decades of practicality, but never this much unencumbered possibility.”]
2.Maintain the passion along with the practical. Keep an outward focus.
As you grow older, the pressure to make practical self serving decisions will increase, especially if you start a family.
After I finished my years of service at the inner city school, the realities of where I would live, how would I pay the rent/school loans/ food, etc became my focus. That is natural and a part of life. However, it became my central focus and I completely put aside the pillars of justice, relationship, and community in my pursuit of stability. My actions became much more self serving and less outward focused.
Daisy recently said in this blog post, “We are creatures of habit, you and I, and if we deliberately make choices that push us in a certain direction, we begin to become those choices.”
Make the choice of being outward focused and generous with your time and money now so that it becomes a lifetime habit, a pillar.
3. Invest in experiences, not things.
My family is moving more and more in this direction. My husband and I do not give each other gifts on many occasions. This started out as a practical thing when we were financially strapped, but we have continued it because neither of us has a “love language” of receiving gifts. We choose to plan trips or experiences together instead.
We’re trying to do this more with our children too, slowly getting them to think of celebrations as a time to be together and honoring each other instead of connecting birthdays and holidays to times of receiving gifts.
If you’re planning a family – think through how you want to celebrate holidays and birthdays ahead of time. The societal norm will be to have a long wish list, big birthday parties, and gifts. Is that in line with your family values? What are the intentional choices you will make to counter the pull of marketing?
4. Be thoughtful consumers
When we were getting married, I naturally assumed we should have a wedding registry. We got many practical items like sheets, towels, and plates that we still use today. That was a blessing to us as we started our married life together.
However, we were pretty clueless as to what we would actually use and need. We registered for many items that “we might be able to use” because we had that nifty handheld scanner that automatically added things onto our registry. The concept of a clutter free weddings was never presented to us.
The same thing happened to us when we were having our first baby. We registered for the things listed in the baby books that told us what we ABSOLUTELY must have. Can I just give you a heads up – you will NOT need a diaper genie. Wrapping them up tight, or plastic bags work just fine.
Wait to purchase things until you know what you need. It will save you the time later when you end up donating or consigning the pieces! Another tip: kids consignment sales have great, barely used items for a fraction of the price.
5. When your priorities or life circumstances change, de-own the things that are no longer relevant or important to you.
If you follow points 1-4, you probably won’t be overwhelmed by clutter. However, everyone has stuff. Clutter accumulates over time. I am at a place where I am decluttering with intention – determined to only keep what we use and love as a family. It can be overwhelming because I haven’t been divesting our home of things on a regular basis.
- If your closet is bulging with clothes that you no longer wear (or have never worn) – donate them to your local thrift store. You can use the KonMari Method to figure out what to keep.
- If your children have outgrown a stage of clothes or toys, donate them to a friend or your local thrift store. Don’t hold onto them “just in case”. Someone else could use those clothes instead of them being in storage.
- If you were once a scrapbooker or hoping to be, but no longer scrapbook – let go of your materials. You can insert any craft in the previous sentence. Donate it to a hospital or community agency that will be able to use it.
These are a few suggestions that will hopefully nudge you to consider whether there are things in your apartment or home that could be de-owned. The things that need to be let go of will be different for everyone. The memories have been made, most mementos can be let go of.
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If you are in your twenties, what advice have you found most helpful? If you’re older, like me, what advice would you give your 20-something-aged self? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Meet Angela!
Angela blogs at Setting My Intention. She is a wife and mom to three boys. She works part time outside the home, and full time inside the home. She loves to spend time outside with her family, read, write, and most recently, run. She writes about her family’s steps to simplify life and her journey in developing healthy habits. Please drop by to say hello! You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest
So wise! I am 26 and just now learning these lessons. The first one especially resonates with me as I am pursuing my dream even though it doesn’t make sense to some outsiders.
Your welcome Charlotte! Thanks for reading!
Love this, experiences not things, and thoughtful consumerism are both things I totally agree with, thanks for sharing!
Thanks Mayara! Love your energy and initiative to make changes. Thank you for commenting!
I loved reading this! As someone who is in her twenties right now I can totally relate to some but was definitely awakened by some of her points! There will certainly be some changes soon! Great post!
Thanks Abby!
Great advice, Angela! Technically I’ve still got a little over a year left in my 20s, but I’d love to share these things with my younger self, especially #1.
Your welcome Tianna! I’m so glad something resonated with you.
That is wonderful Crystal!
I love these tips, especially the first! One thing that I’m grateful for is that I lived my life making decisions that were best for me, without letting society/the random people in my life tell me what I “should” do. I’m thankful that I didn’t let the disapproval of others stop me from doing what I knew was best for me, otherwise I would have missed out on a lot of wonderful experiences.
thanks for these! I’m in my 20’s so this inspires/helps me out a lot 🙂
I’m still in process with clearing the clutter – but definitely love the feeling of open space when “stuff” is cleared out.
Thank you! It sounds like you have already thought about your pillars which is great!
Thank you Alice! I’m glad it has you thinking!
This is such a lovely post, and as someone in her early twenties, it’s definitely a great list of thought provoking ideas. I’m also someone who values experiences and travel over gifts so that’s important to me too! Alice xxx
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I loved those tips and I think they can be really helpful (I am in my twenties ;)). To me the most important is #1, I think it is essentially important to start leaving behind society’s opinion about YOUR life and start figuring out what exactly it is that only you wants to do with it. I guess it can be super hard but everybody should try. Thanks for this great post Angela!
You hit the nail in the head with this post! I especially agree with no 5. Life is so much better and happier when you clean the clutter out – especially people 🙂
Great advice Linda! I love walking to work and taking the stairs to get my steps in.
My advice would be to keep moving. As students most of us walked many miles per day. Keep doing that even if you have to invent destinations. Do you really need to drive that half mile to the drug store? Bring a shopping bag (or backpack) with you and head on out. Think of the shopping bag as a hand weight you carry on the return trip changing hands from time to time to strengthen muscles in both arms. Pay attention to your posture as you walk. Functional workouts are the best!
Daisy has such great content here. I know you’ll love it.
Hi Anna, congratulations on your upcoming marriage! We definitely don’t have the budget for expensive trips, but we do do experiences. Trips to museums or local attractions that we have been meaning to go to, memberships to museums, restaurants, active experiences (rock climbing, hiking, etc), or overnight stays at B&Bs within driving distance. Those are some ideas to get you started! My hubby and I have very different interests so it’s a double gift to have him join in on things that I enjoy but he normally wouldn’t participate in. I know he feels the same.
Daisy, thanks for having Angela. She’s fabulous! Now she’s introduced me to you. So nice to meet you! I’ve been decluttering, at first I didn’t even know I was being drawn to minimalism!
Now I love my life.
Melinda
I enjoyed reading this so much and can’t wait to check out Angela’s blog! I really like the point about giving experiences instead of gifts — I’m going to talk to my fiance about that for when we are married and start our family. I guess when I think of experiences, I think of expensive trips to interesting places — which definitely wouldn’t be practical! What would be some experiences you could “give” for under $100 ??