Everything I Know About Life at Twenty Two

Today is my twenty second birthday. For most of my life, twenty two has felt incredibly far away. I spent years dreaming of the days I would be in college, living in my own house, reinventing myself and the life around me, and hopefully, above all, happy. I think in this moment, it’s safe to say I’ve never loved life more.

I recently finished the incredible memoir “everything i know about love” by Dolly Alderton. The memoir prompted me to reflect on my own idea of everything I know, and I wanted to share that with you all, so here goes:

Nothing in life is as scary and terrible as you think it will be. Though life is imperfect, the bad feelings that you harbor will eventually lighten over time. There will be a day you look back at that terrible relationship or that one night in high school or that “failure” and realize that life did not end there. In fact, life will always continue to go on and you will learn to pick up the pieces as you go.
People are good and you are good and it is incredibly important for you to seek out that good everyday. Life is so much better when you are surrounding yourself with people that are kind and warm and welcoming. You don’t need to stay in bad friendships or situations that make you feel bad. Life is meant to be good.
Some lessons just don’t click until they do. I remember hundreds of times hearing advice from my parents and completely rejecting the possibility that they could be right, that they could understand how it feels to be seventeen. My favorite of these lessons was the “in four years these people and this place won’t matter” in regards to my crippling fear of people not liking me and not being able to please everyone around me. Long story short, they were right.
The people that are meant to be in your life will love all of the “bad” things about you. It will be their favorite thing actually. I remember for years beating myself up for talking too much and saying silly things. Then one day, one of my dearest friends told me it was his favorite thing about me, that he never knew what words would come out of my mouth next. I’ll remember that forever.
Love comes in many forms and it will find you, even when it feels like it’s not out there. Spending the time waiting for love being miserable won’t make it go any faster, either. Just enjoy the in-betweens.
Success comes in many forms and it will find you, even when it feels like it’s not out there. I wish I could’ve told my fifteen year old self this while I was crying over my sophomore year pre-calculus class and feeling like I would never succeed. News flash, you’ve got your dream job now and they didn’t care that you didn’t have the perfect junior year internship or a 4.0 gpa.
Nobody cares about you as much as you think they do, and that’s not a bad thing. No one is zooming in on your instagram pictures the way you do and analyzing every inch of your body. No one will remember that embarrassing thing that happened to you, and even if they do, it doesn’t mean your life is over.
Give people chances. Just because that person isn’t your best friend or you haven’t had a single interaction yet, doesn’t mean you could never be friends. Say hello to people. Greet friends with a hug. Smile at strangers. The world isn’t as cruel and judgmental as you feel sometimes.
Don’t spend all of your time chasing after or talking about men. At the end of the day, most of them really aren’t all that exciting. Find satisfaction and validation in the women in your life and allow that to be enough, you have the rest of your life to think about a man.
You can only have a bad day if you let it be one. The same goes for life. I remember the day my childhood dog died while I was away at school. I found out at 8am on a Monday, what a way to start the week. I let myself sob alone for an hour. Then I let myself sob with friends. They helped me laugh and smile and sob some more, and it somehow turned a bad day into a good one, one that reminded me of all the love in my life and that grief is just a reflection of love.
You're allowed to change your mind and make mistakes and grow as a person. You aren’t destined to a certain fate because of one choice you made, you are actively living life each day and you can alter it if it’s not fulfilling you. Don’t get comfortable and stop demanding more for yourself.
So many experiences are more universal than you think. Out of everyone to ever exist in the entire span of mankind, you will find similarities everywhere you go: people that think the same as you or went through similar experiences. Life isn’t as lonely as you fear sometimes.
Social media doesn’t need to be a bad thing. There will come a time that you don’t allow the number of likes on your post to affect your mood or make you consider taking it down after two hours. One day, it will just be a scrapbook for your memories. You’ll enjoy that.
The best day to start is today. If you’re unsatisfied with a certain aspect of your life, or having been putting off starting a new hobby, do it today. If not today, tomorrow. Make a plan and stick to it. Take control of the power over your life.
It's okay to like things that are popular or cringey or basic. You don’t have to feel this need to prove yourself as the most interesting, most complex person to ever grace the earth. It’s okay to enjoy normal things and simple pleasures. That’s why they’re normal, people enjoy them.
You will grow apart from people that you’ve loved and you will be okay still. The one constant in life is yourself and it won’t make your life better to hold guilt over lost friendships or relationships. Wish them well from a distance and carry on.
You can tell people how much you appreciate them randomly and it won’t be weird. Some of the best conversations I’ve had in life were because I allowed myself to remove my ego from the situation and take the risk of telling people how I truly felt. You deserve to hear those words in return.
It's easy to become numb to the things in your life and fail to appreciate them. I think about this a lot when it comes to clothes. Some of my most complimented outfits were basic pieces I had grown bored of but decided to wear anyway. You just think it’s boring because they’re yours.
Resentment is a scary feeling and it will only negatively impact you. Even when others do you wrong, give yourself the freedom of forgiveness and continue to move forward. It’s not worth stewing over a situation and leaving your own life behind.
It is perfectly normal and human to be wrong and to fail at times. Striving for an unrealistic measure of perfection will only leave you unsatisfied. Appreciate doing something 99% well, 50% well, or for trying at all.
Your life does not end at twenty one. Even though this chapter of life is coming to a close, even though your hangovers will only get worse from here, even though life will present challenges, there is so much joy to be found after twenty one.
One day you’ll look back at the things you thought at twenty two and think “she has no idea", but you have as much of an idea as you can right now and that’s what important. Just because you will change your views as you experience different parts of life, that doesn’t invalidate what you think or feel or know at twenty two.

I know I still have a lot to learn and experience—that’s probably the most exciting part. I look forward to seeing the lessons that the rest of life has in store for me. I hope you can feel that way too.

Love always,

Morgan

Everything I Know About Life at Twenty Two

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