Let's put it this way: if you don't understand the game, you can't play it.
Meaning — even if you've stepped onto the field of reality and rented your first apartment, if you haven't internalized the rules the world actually runs on, at some point you'll bang your head against the wall and order yourself heaps of unnecessary suffering.
Young people in your twenties — I'm talking to you.
You may read this as a condescending post, and you're half right. But the question I always recommend asking in any interaction with a human being is not "is he annoying?" — it's "is he right?"
Does the following list have something to offer you? Let's skip the false modesty: obviously yes. Just remember I'm speaking statistically — certainly not about you.
(Parents — you may want to find a way to direct your offspring's attention to this one.)
Ten things the young generation doesn't understand about life:
1. It won't work the first time. Sometimes it won't work the tenth time.
Nobody guarantees results for your efforts. That's how it works. On the other hand, if you don't make the effort — I can guarantee the failure.
2. You suffer because you take certain things for granted. (They are not.)
Bills don't pay themselves. Apart from your parents, humanity at large is indifferent to you, and you will have to tell the world actively what you want. It will not figure it out on its own.
3. Workplaces were not designed to help you fulfill yourself.
You come, you do tasks, at the end of the month they pay you — that's most of the story. The employer watches his own interest. If along the way you gained skills and grew, wonderful. But you are inside that job to serve someone else's interest. Adjust expectations accordingly.
4. You're smoking too much weed.
Enjoy, float, flow — all fine. But whoever crossed the line between an occasional good time and a way of life usually pays a terrible price. Even in the literal sense: it drinks a fortune you don't have.
5. A relationship is sometimes boring. Look for butterflies in nature.
If you've established a good routine of mutual intimacy with someone, you won the lottery. If you want to break it because the thrill wore off — you're probably a fool.
6. First solve the money question. Then move on to the next questions.
Meaning and personal growth are lovely, but as long as you haven't settled what's happening with money and where it comes from, you can't move forward. This doesn't sentence you to a life behind a counter — it requires you to be somewhat calculated.
7. You don't have a soulmate. Stop searching for one.
Love is not found. Love is built. How many times must I repeat this?
8. At some point you'll probably want children, and it will change the whole story.
Even if it sounds imaginary right now, it's a station most of you are walking toward. No — nobody is forcing you, and you may decide to live without. But decide; don't drift.
9. There are billions of people in the world. Maybe three or four care how you feel. All the rest care how you behave.
Unlike your childhood years, the world will always judge you by your actions. And by the way — if the world has stopped judging you, don't celebrate. It means it has given up on you.
10. "What matters to me?" is a poor question. "What matters to me MORE?" is a superb one.
Priorities. That's the whole story.
That's it. Go play the game properly.