Ten Things I Learnt In My Twenties

The woes of being in your twenties - Only some can empathize.

 Sigh.  People ask themselves different questions: When will all this end? How could they do this? How will I pull off this exam? Do my eyes look smaller today? Is he cuter than I am? Shouldn’t I have a job by now? Was I really thinner last year? Where did my favourite sweatshirt go? Is chilli sauce really better than normal low-grade tomato ketchup? Will someone notice if I steal the last French fry off the plate?

If you are a fresh, but-poor lazy architecture graduate, with a weakness for French fries and sauce, you find yourself asking all of them.  Twenty-something’s all over the world have unexplainable questions with equally unexplainable answers. But difficult question and answers aside, the twenties offers you a brilliant insight into the world, which has nothing to do with the cost of the Ralph Lauren cologne that you have been saving up for months. They are hormone-pumped, youth filled and guilt laden, yet you love every moment of them. It is the first time in your life where people actually have experiences to learn from. And they actually get to see what life is really about –

1.       Money is life, and love. And also liquid.

 Just as you get your first job, you realise the single most important thing in life. Money is god; and easily gone. You realise it when you’ve hit your favourite bar four nights in a row, or when you go credit card splurging at the nearest high-end mall. You realise it as you order that expensive bottle at wine while dining with friends. And you realise it most when you are buying a list of things online that you will never use, a little past 3 am. Money, like the next fresh faced Bollywood startlet, has a limited lifespan.

2.       The Simple life is not only a Paris Hilton show, it’s also the way to be.

At the same time, you’ll also understand the value of money. You’ll know how to survive a   week on 200 rupees. You’ll cook instant noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You’ll walk home from work. You’ll use free coupons and hunt at discount clearance sales. You’ll freeload of richer friends and giggle at them shamelessly. You’ll wear your underwear in and out. You’ll learn that a jar of Nutella can go a long way. You’ll do everything you can do to keep that last rupee in your pocket for as long as you can.

3.       You will get your heart broken, a minimum of at least seventeen times.

     Face it. The sun rises. The sun sets. People come and people go. By the twenties, every person becomes a real life version of the Heartbreak Kid (without looking like the lead of the romcom, Ben Stiller, though). If you decide to mope around in your pyjamas eating tubs of Belgian chocolate ice-cream, or cry around in the showers clutching at your knees every time someone toys with your heart, there’s a high chance you’ll turn into a soggy, overweight body pillow. By the time you hit your mid-twenties, you’ve gone through it enough number of times to write your movie, or at least a book without sequel rights. Listening to Adele’s Someone Like You doesn’t help too, because what you really need is someone who likes you. Pick up those million pieces of your heart, glue them together and walk away. Then repeat. You’re going to give your heart to a few people who don’t deserve it. Then, one day you’ll come to your senses and ask them to give it back.

4.       You will hate your job more than America hates Kim Kardashian.

                Do you know how the grass is greener on the other side and life is but a bed of roses? No? Exactly. You will at least do one job where you clock in at ten am and then spend the next nine hours, staring at the clock waiting for the minute hand to strike seven- The job with the boss from ‘Devil Wears Prada’, and the workload from ‘Hercules’. Relax. It happens to the best of us. You will get through this, like all of life’s others trivial problems.

5.       At some point, Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen will be your anthem, and then you’ll hate it.

 Move over Bryan Adams and Cindy Lauper, we don’t want a summer of 69, and girls certainly don’t just wanna have fun. It’s Luhrmann we love, and his prophetic words. You will scream out the lyrics at a drunken party, or broodily word them out at an inspirational talk. Can I copyright those lyrics, please? Then you will soon reach a point where you will have loved it so much, you will despise it with every bone in your body.

6.       You will have dream jobs by the dozen.

You will wake up one Monday morning, and realise you always wanted to be a concert pianist. Or a painter. A jazz player. A social activist. A socialite. A baker. A butcher. A candlestick-maker. ( the last three, you will realise were also a part of a nursery rhyme.) You will search on Google for all of thirty minutes, and make a few frantic calls to close friends telling them you’ve found your true passion. Then you will get back to doing whatever you were doing before.

7.       You will suddenly feel responsible. Only feel, not be.

Wow. To pay your own bills and do your own accounts; to buy your own clothes and drive your own car and to still live with your parents. Sigh. Rent’s a big pain the ass. Wait, why don’t I go ask mum what’s for dinner?

8.       You will join the gym. All for one week.

The twenties ask for a personal renaissance. You need to be thinner, fitter, and happier. You’ll draft out diet plans and exercise routines to get six-pack abs. If that dim-witted model neighbour of yours can do it, why can’t you? An hour’s worth of exercise five times a week shouldn’t be difficult. A ten thousand rupees deposit, and two sessions with a personal trainer later, you will realise you were wrong. You will hastily insert an appropriate excuse, and then stop going to the gym. You’ll be okay with the single love handle and avoid staring at yourself in the mirror while you change.

9.        You will find the love of your life, and then some.

As discussed in point three, your twenties would be an epic whirlwind of romances, and you would identify with Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother. The next person you will meet might end up being your soul mate, or the one after that, or after that. The list is endless, just like the population of our country. Remember how you’ll have your heart broken at least seventeen times? There’s good news. You’ll break an equal number of hearts too.

10.   You will have bucket loads of epiphanies and make a cartload of mistakes.

Every day would give you a new life lesson; you’d wake up with sudden realisations and make life-altering decisions. Maybe one of them would be a mistake; maybe all of them would be mistakes. But I’ll let you in on a secret?

That would be the fun part. Like they say, you’ve not lived life till you’ve learnt from all the wrong things you’ve done. Fine, I said it. The twenties are a rollercoaster of experiences, and then you reach your thirties. That is a whole new decade, and calls for a whole new blog.

Now I must go, and do pretentious things that other twenty something’s do. Like watch a play, and eat crepes. Until then, See you soon.