If you could be 20 again, how would you live your life?

[the-dream]

I'm going to be 20 in 3 months time and haven't achieved/experienced a whole lot in my life yet.

I was just wondering how you guys would live and what you'd want to do if you could go back to being 20, both things you wish you'd started earlier and things you're glad that you did at a young age?

What have you found to be important in life and beneficial to do whilst you're still young?

I'm planning on working full time until I turn 20 and should have about $12k saved by then. After that, in the least cliche way, I want to live life to the fullest. Any advice?

 

[lovejoy]

I would have used high end escorts and get Oneitis and women being special snowflakes out of my system.... would have saved me a world crap in my 20's.

 

[jamaicabound]

Looking back my number one thing i wish was that i woulda had the confidence back then i had now. I think alot of that comes with age and experience but basically my best advice would be do you. Dont follow the crowd. Dont so things bc others think they are cool. The coolest people do their thing regardless of what others are doing. Do u and b u.

I would also say start stashing money. Even if you just work pt or whatever put away a little something and start building a bankroll so when an investment opportunity or something comes along your ready.

Id recommend buying a house at an early age and rent rooms to your friends. Youll be a value guy, will be making money and building equity at a young age and also probably living rent free.

 

[RexImperator]

I don't think Starting Strength was around back then but if I knew then what I know now I would have just gotten huge, instead of struggling with weight gain (the wrong kind). Especially with all that free food on the college meal plan...

The sad thing is that I actually took weightlifting as a PE class in college, and they didn't teach us shit. It was just "dick around in the weight room" time. I recall that it was "taught" by a lesbian.

 

[seawolf007]

The most important thing at 20 in my humble opinion....


1. Find mentors, pick their brain and build the ralationship so you have men go to for answers. Pick an ex-military / hunter/ hands on guy. Find a wealthy "rich dad" for financial advice, learn to network.

2. You are who your friends are. Only associate with winners...period.

3. Learn sales technique , it doesnt matter what you end up doing for a living this will help you. Life is sales. Game is sales. CEO's are saleseople, you want to be a Entrepreneour not an employee and the foundation of your succsess will be your experience negotiating and cutting deals

4. Read the following books.....
a) Think and Grow Rich, Napolean Hill
b)The Rational Male
c)The 48 laws of power
d)Atlas Shrugged (this one is a commitment)

5. Train like a spartan warrior. Work out with weights, study jiu jitsu/krav maga , find a passion that brings out the animal in you....for me it is bowhunting/ spearfishing/ motorcycles/ sailing/ guns but for you it may be different...develop your killer instinct.

A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.
- Vince Lombardi

Kick some ass and take some names, brother!

-Seawolf007

 

[The Reactionary Tree]

Wish I learned game before going to college. Probably would have had even more fun.

Wish I would have stuck with my high school weightlifting regimen. I'd be light years ahead in terms of fitness.

Wish I would not have taken out soo many student loans to earn my doctorate.

Basically I wish I found the manosphere before I went to college and not afterwards.

 

[Pacific]

I wish I had started on a good weightlifting program when I was 20, instead of starting in my 30's.

 

[NFallin]

This question comes along all the time.

Most influential posts for me have been these:

Reminder for the Baby Faced

The only four things that matter

How to become an international playboy

Work hard, make money, build your body, hit on women, travel, and live like you are the hero of your own movie.

 

[Gorgiass]

I would've banged more 18yos when it was still easy... You're learning game so you're on the right track!

 

[birdie num num]

There are some good answers above. I'd add taking a Toastmasters public speaking course. I took one in my 40s and wish that I had done it when I was 20. If you can learn to face the fear of speaking before a group then you will be way ahead of your peers. The confidence you gain will carry over to many aspects of life, including game.

It's a worn out cliché, but try to live in and enjoy the moment. When I was younger I was always looking forward to the next big life episode without appreciating my surroundings. High school>the Army>college>travel>a good job. Each horizon looked brighter and more promising until I arrived there and realized that it didn't make me any happier. Sure, have plans and goals but enjoy the process of attaining those goals.

Here's an animation narrated by Alan Watts that does a great job describing what I mean -

 

[velkrum]

gotten my doctorate...sooner
become muscular...sooner
traveled...more

Things i got right.
Developed exceptional social skills
Had a lot of sex

 

[bacon]

I would have banked my sperm and got a vasectomy.

 

[Yeti]

If you are at university, study abroad and bang a lot of foreign girls (or at least one really good one repeatedly).

Talk to the weird and the unusual, the ones who march to the rhythm of their own beat, and find out why they are so weird. Life's bullshit bothers you less if you develop your humanity and appreciation for the underside of society - try to have sympathy for everyone, no matter how weird at first you think that they operate. There's usually a good reason.

As Robert Greene says, you choose to allow things to upset you. So don't take anything too seriously, and suffer fools gladly. Don't allow the bullshit of modern Western life to bother you much.

Never get fat. Even for guys, life is just so much easier when you are fit and healthy, as people allow you to get away with things more. Game is easier and so is persuading people to see things your way. Stay fit.

 

[2014]

this is it. Enjoy

 

[heavy]

Wish I'd have become a born-again recovering Christian sooner...not that I don't believe in Christianity, I'm just laid back about it all now

 

[Valentine]

I would have been consistent with working on my internet business. At 20 I knew it was possible and made a bit of money from adsense but I never put in time to take it to the Fuck You Money levels, only just catching up now.

 

[Feisbook Control]

Aside from the many other great suggestions above, I wish I had really been financially literate then. I wish I had really understood the magic power of compounding.

If you stash cash and invest it, and do that just for the next decade, these next ten years could really set you up for life, particularly if you ever plan to live abroad. Ten years is one or two doubling periods.

Another aspect of treating your body well would be to really be careful with injuries. When I was younger, I trained/competed with injuries, or before they'd fully recovered. At that age, you feel indestructible, and you can punish your body like that. You can push through it. You can keep going. Ten or fifteen years later and you start to limp around. I'm not even forty yet. It's going to be a bit grim later.

 

[scorpion]

Some things not mentioned yet:

1) Focus on developing some kind of professional skill that you can always earn money with. Whether it's a skilled trade, sales ability, programming, whatever. Make yourself sufficiently skilled in some area so that you know you could find work enough to support yourself if you were suddenly unemployed.

2) Establish a solid group of friends, and stay in touch with them. Find guys your age and slightly older who are going places in their lives, not just getting drunk every night. Don't let them drift away as the years go by. It's impossible to make any new old friends. Make them while you're still young.

3) Start living with purpose. Don't just sort of drift through the days and weeks, because they turn into years. Sit down and think about how you want the next ten years of your life to go, then start writing out a plan for how you can get there. This sounds kind of silly, and you're probably thinking, "Ok well yeah that's kind of a good idea." But then you might not actually take the time to do it. But you need to do it. Sit there, think deeply, and fucking write out how you can accomplish what you want. It makes a big difference transferring vague ideas in your brain to organized plans on paper.

4) Remember that you are a man now. 20 is viewed as very young in our culture, but historically you are well into manhood. Act like it. Be better than your peers. Respect yourself and others. Carry yourself like you're worth something. Don't act like a punk kid.

5) Do not live beyond your means. Don't buy a new car. Don't live in the fanciest place you can afford. Don't spend hundreds of dollars a month at the bar. Save as much as you can afford to start building a financial safety cushion and an investment fund. The difference between starting to invest at 25 and 35 comes out to be huge on the back end.

 

[Vitriol]

I've been listening to Tom Leykis for a few years, but I had never heard that broadcast before. It's probably one of the best things he's ever done.

You can listen to the first 30 minutes or so and get the idea without hearing the callers, but the bottom line is most people only know what is in their immediate bubble and spend most of their lives seeking comfort and safety. The way you make your own life interesting and stand out is by having a willingness to go out and explore and overcome obstacles that most people never even try to face. You will see plenty of people starting in your late teens to early twenties just living with their parents, getting a part time job, and fucking around with the same few community college courses that they never seem to complete after five years. The best thing you can do is to be willing to go balls to the wall applying yourself to whatever you decide is most important. While you're young you have more energy and you can generally make some mistakes along the way without them having any grave consequences. As Tom says in the show quoted above, don't be afraid to be better than your peers. Most of them aren't going to do much with their lives.

 

[CrackerDaddy]

Lot of great insights already given here......one I would add to them is to live your life like it is the only one you're going to have because......it IS the only one you're going to have this go around (until you come back again in another life....but that's ANOTHER life).

You don't get to do this one over. So, just live it to its fullest potential. Doesn't mean you have to be perfect or not screw things up.....we all do that.

Just live your life like this is your only shot at living it.