2. You’ll seriously consider going to grad school. You’ll call your mom up in a panic one day and explain that you’ve always enjoyed something like psychology and, well, maybe it’s time to start entertaining the idea of, um, being a therapist. Mom? Stop sighing!
3. You will hate your job at some point, even if it’s better than 99% of your other friends’ jobs. You will be overworked and underpaid presumably until you’re 40. Then, you’ll suddenly be overpaid and not do much of anything. Right? That’s how it works?
4. Someone will betray your trust — a friend or a lover — and it will change the way you view people forever.
5. You will do things that hurt you just because you’re not ready to feel good yet.
6. You will sleep with people who you genuinely like, have a great time with, but never want to date. Ever.
7. After learning your age, someone will say to you, “Wow, you’re so young!” and occasionally you’ll believe them.
8. You’ll miss certain days before they even end.
9. You’ll spend an entire day hungover in bed and nothing will make you feel more like a fucking idiot. Not even taxes or putting the fitted sheet on your bed.
10. You’ll read a book that will change your life. People say that all the time, especially your grandma and your mom and your professors in college, and it always made you roll your eyes but now you get it. Life is changed. You are this book’s bitch. You fell in love with it in the same way you fell in love with someone in high school: blindly and all-consuming. I’m talking about the book that became the lens from which you chose to see the world. You were just waiting for something to come along and explain to you how the world works, to make it all easier for you. and it came. You will remember this book more vividly than some of the people you dated for three months in college.
11. You’ll meet people who are vultures, who were literally sent to this world just to annoy you, to work half as hard and somehow become more successful. They’re networking leeches. Don’t take their business card! Save yourself!
12. Some days you will wake up and be astounded by how ugly you are. People are always saying things like, “OMG, I look like shit right now!” but they don’t. You’re the one who looks like shit (truly!) so shut up everyone else!
13. That being said, there’ll be some days when you look in the mirror and think to yourself, “Okay, I’d fuck me.” That’s good. It’s healthy to want to fuck yourself.
14. The Internet will hurt your feelings. You will find out information you wish you never knew and maybe you’ll go so far as to even cry! Imagine that: a machine you spent over a grand on is making you weep. Screw the Internet.
15. You will understand that the biggest battle you fight in your twenties is the one you’re in with yourself. The most important thing you can learn in this decade is how to love yourself. Without that knowledge, your life will always be a little bit terrible. You will always be dating someone who’s a little bit rotten and you’ll always be working a job that sucks. It affects everything so be sure to make yourself a priority. Work on liking yourself before working on getting someone else to like you.