On Being 20

Warning!

This will be lengthy, but worth it.

Overview

At 20, there are two fundamental things you are trying to critically balance; the short-term and the long-term. The decisions you make at this stage have the ability to impact the rest of your life. Do not underestimate the necessity of careful consideration involving paramount decisions. However, you are young and being in your twenties is a transitory experience – it will not last. As such, youth affords unique opportunities and freedoms that will decrease with age, so utilize this chance to begin building your life.

Where do you start? University. While a traditional college education is not a prerequisite for success in contemporary times, it definitely (has the ability to) hasten the developmental process. Life has a learning curve, and the acclimation process is different for everyone, but typically, the first taste of real, adult life is experienced while in University.

Granted, it is a fraction of real life, but it is the first time you have actual responsibilities, a schedule, unbound freedom, and control over every facet of your life. University is the last line of defense versus the real world, and offers brief glimpses into the reality of debt management, personal finance, and cleanliness(cleaning is important!). These glimpses are necessary for preparatory purposes, but you also leave University accomplished; hopefully with a degree in a field that is expected to have positive trajectory and barriers to entry.

Cultivation of the Mind

If you cannot explain it to a six year old, you do not understand it yourself

University is a nice segue into the cultivation of your mind. What? You thought you actually explored the depths of subjects in college? You barely scratched the surface.

Maximizing your mind while simultaneously expanding your mental skill set can be achieved through one activity – reading. Read anything and everything you can find, even if it is not in your interest; read it then critically deconstruct it. The deconstruction of text will allow you to extract the concept on a granular level to which you can then disseminate to others in a more approachable manner. One of my favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein (a famous INTP, by the way) who stated “If you cannot explain it to a six year old, you do not understand it yourself”.

Reading enables your mind to use mental models outside of your comfort zone; an excellent way to approach problems is to use the physics model. Physics, without going into detail, offers an excellent mental framework for problem solving by reasoning from first principles rather than by analogy. Essentially, you take a problem, reduce it to it’s most fundamental truths, then reason up.

Reasoning by close analogy, or cross-referencing past experience and knowledge to solve future problems, is incremental thinking. It’s clunky, and limited by conventional wisdom. Instead, try doing so by first principles, so that by reasoning up from ground zero you can systematically dispel notions that are not congruent with contemporary and future markets/problems. Reading offers this realm of possibility – if you’re not actively studying physics that is.

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<Obvious>Reading is not the sole approach to broaden your mind.</obvious> There are many options, but none are as economical (unless you purchase books like me…) nor are as efficient in the promulgation of information or as transportable!

P.S. Writing is an excellent way to organize your thoughts and a helpful aid in making you a better communicator… On paper. Take a public speaking class too, for the hell of it.

Personal Finance

This section will be brief, as it is important, and I will be dedicating a separate, more elaborate post in the coming weeks.

Let’s just break it down:

• Minimize debt by actively tracking your money; get text notifications of transactions.
• Start saving now! Youth is on your side, so open a high-yield savings account and put as much in it as you can.
• Make your money work for you which means investing, but for right now, set up automatic transfers to your high-yield savings account.
• Beyond minimizing debt, understanding where your money is going will help you to cut costs. Be smart and haggle.
• Personal finance is important; learn the basics.
• Live within your means.
• Money is not the goal of life, but it offers security, which enables you to have choices – choose wisely.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial guru nor do I pretend to be, my advice offered above is what helped me to advance my life, and it may work for you too. Before utilizing this advice, speak to a financial adviser.

What are your goals?

Setting goals is the battle of optimism versus realism as well as knowing your capacity for risk-taking. It is simple: do not live in others’ dogma and set realistic short, medium, and long range goals that you actively work towards every single day. Ideally, each milestone you reach is the part of a greater whole; construct your short and medium goals as bridges to your ultimate goal.

Don’t have a goal? You will in time. Patience in finding, setting, and achieving goals is of utmost importance. Failure is not due to a lack of talent, but a lack of perseverance and will-power.

Enough of that. Let’s continue, we’re almost there.

Habits

Eradicating bad habits and building positive habits early are easier to maintain, so keep that in mind throughout your twenties. Cleanliness is important, so clean up after yourself and keep a neat space. It creates a conducive environment for productivity… And keeps my OCD in check.

Other than that:

• Introduce exercise and nutrition on a weekly basis for the former and daily for the latter.
• Manage sun exposure, some is necessary for happiness – it’s an evolutionary thing – too much is carcinogenic.
• Finish what you start.
• Learn to cook! It’s instrumental to survival and it is a great way to impress your girlfriend.

Drinking is acceptable in moderation.

Smoking

All that other stuff….

Socialization

I know, I know. I’m just as misanthropic as the next guy, but we’re at the end, so hear me out. I’ve commented briefly on the misunderstanding and consequent propagation of being an introvert and social ineptitude, I’ll elaborate here.

Introversion is not defined by social anxiety, but it is the characteristic in which introverts re-gain energy by being alone. That is it – nothing more, nothing less. So in the end, introverts have the capacity to be the center of attention, for a short time. How? Survival of the fittest dictates that the most adaptable person wins and considering introverts tend to observe before acting can successfully emulate socially acceptable behavior!

Is your mind blown yet?

In essence, you can boil social dynamics down to a simple, linear progression model with specific check points along the way. Unlike games though you cannot restart from that check point if you fail. This is not a ground-breaking idea, and can easily be achieved through the first principles model, but the beauty is not in the complexity of the theory, but in the simplicity of it’s execution. Either way, do not be afraid to try *gasp* new things.

Get into a long-term relationship.

Edit your friends; seek out useful, active, interesting people and facilitate those relationships.

Surround yourself with older, vastly more intelligent individuals to learn from.

I understand. INTJs and INTPs and anyone introverted is ‘stuck’, but you are not. Evolution is the key, and we must all evolve if we are going to survive. Just use your window of amiability effectively. Then retreat when the full moon reveals itself – it always works 😉

Postlude

As your responsibilities to external factors increase it will simultaneously decrease your ability to be spontaneous, and take calculated risks.

Few commitments equals a higher risk capacity which leads to life experience, so I would implore you to travel as it will lend a new perspective. Start a business, begin to invest, and build passive income streams so money can work for you, and you can afford to expand your boundaries. Get outside your comfort zone. As INTJs, we are virtually designed to plan to the nth degree, so that can leave us wanting, and our ability to simply experience the world, absent. 

The above goes double for INTPs who are predominately inside their heads.

Allot time to explore the world, yourself, and your place within it. This is a difficult task, for us to live in the moment, but it is possible. Ironically enough, through all of this, it is of paramount importance to have a overarching plan where this is a critical step to achieving a predefined goal – preferably a life one.