Life Advice
I don’t know how I found this article on Man Repeller, by which I mean that I have zero clue how I found Man Repeller at all. But I did and I read a bunch of women all giving life advice to 28-year-olds.
The problem, of course, is that you’re seeing 28 through the lens of a 32-year-old or a 41-year-old. You live 28 once, but you see that year differently as each age passes, so it’s impossible to give advice to 28-year-olds that won’t be rewritten next year or when I enter another stage of life or believe something new.
It’s also hard to give advice that doesn’t come off as trite: “what an amazing time that was in my life.” What does that even mean? Is there ever a time in life that is not amazing considering that we can see time period through numerous lens? At 28, I was spinning my wheels, doing fertility treatments. At 28, I had a fantastic job teaching middle school. At 28, I was walking around London with my husband. At 28, I was up all night worrying that we’d never be able to afford a house.
I have no advice for 28-year-olds or 32-year-olds or even fellow 43-year-olds. That’s the thing about life: every single experience is unique. No one size fits all.
4 comments
I totally agree. It’s weird to me, but I am somehow the “older” one at work, and the girls I work with are all in their 20’s. I find them asking me lots of life questions, and I always felt kind of dumb that I didn’t have an answer, but what you wrote makes so much sense. Like…my coworker found herself unexpectedly pregnant (but in a very good situation to handle it, and it wasn’t a bad thing) but then she miscarried at 9 weeks and I held her hand, and suddenly the questions became about getting pregnant after and how long it took me and all of that. And it was hard to answer because our situations were very different. Another girl came to me in a sort of crisis at 28, and the best I could do was offer her some perspective, but I didn’t have any real advice.
I mean, at 28 I was married with 3 kids, just starting to have fertility and other health issues, and my dad was very sick with cancer. I had recently lost a job and was working somewhere I hated, just sort of floundering. No one ever has it all together.
I give life advice to people all the time. It includes such gems as “don’t get old.” I think the only thing I would tell younger people is “you’re neither as dumb nor as smart as you think you are.”. Who gives a crap what I was doing when I was 28? It has no bearing on anyone else’s life. My aunt once told me that 28 was her favorite age to be. I didn’t find it particularly spectacular.
I get where the author is coming from with this article. Often the idea of going back and telling my much younger self (especially the one living in the infertility trenches) howbthe future would work out and where I should be focusing my attention is very appealing. But I see your point that 28 viewed through the lenses of a 41 year old is very different from a naive 28. Also, some of the best lessons in life came from the moments so many warn you to avoid. Failure is a great teacher.
This is also a reason I don’t give life advice. Opinions if asked for, okay, but always with the caveat that my life is different from your life and I really don’t want to be responsible for someone missing out on something that was amazing simply because I told them I wouldn’t do it.
All the advice I could give would be prefaced with “this is what I wish I had known at 28.,” Because that’s all I can do. Whether or not I would have been willing to listen to this advice at 28 is another matter! And also, as Cristy said, failure is a great teacher.
Initial thoughts:
Don’t care so much about what other people think.
It is possible to learn not to care so much about what other people think.
Be kind.