The Pressure to Make the Most of Your Twenties

One of the weirdest things about being in your twenties is that everyone just keeps telling you that these are supposed to be the ‘best years of your life’.

The best years. No pressure, right?

I don’t know about you, but every time someone says that, I immediately start questioning what I’m doing. Am I having ‘enough’ fun? Do I get out of the house enough? Am I making enough memories? Am I supposed to be saying yes to everything right now just so I don’t look back one day and regret staying home on a Friday or Saturday night?

Sometimes I spend my entire weekend doing absolutely nothing. I sleep in, I clean my room (or even my whole house when my parents are gone), read a book, or watch a series. I eat some dinner, and suddenly… it’s Sunday evening.

And for some reason, I feel SO behind and sometimes even guilty.

Not because I had a bad weekend, I actually enjoyed it, but because it didn’t look like the version of your twenties everyone keeps telling us about. You know…

City trips every other month, rooftop drinks, festivals, dating stories, group vacations. The last-minute plans, you know?

And the thing is, I GENUINELY like my quiet weekends. I’m an introvert, and I need my time alone, you know? I love reading, doing my skincare, going to the gym alo

ne, just me and my own little bubble.

But somehow, I’ve started treating those things like they’re what I do instead of living, rather than part of living itself.

That’s the part I can’t figure out, I guess.

When did we decide that a meaningful life has to look exciting all the time?

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think I want every weekend to be unforgettable. I think I want a lot of ordinary ones as well. The ones that make me feel safe and comfortable. The kind where I’m not rushing, not comparing, not trying to turn every moment into a memory I can post online.

I wonder if social media has made this feeling worse. No, actually, I don’t wonder. I know. We don’t really see people spending Saturday afternoons doing laundry, grocery shopping, calling their mom, or taking a nap. We see the highlights, birthdays, vacations, and the ‘this was so spontaneous’ moments.

So when we’re sitting at home in sweatpants, eating ramen noodles, it feels like everyone else is living and we’re… waiting. But maybe they’re in sweatpants eating ramen noodles too.

Maybe the pressure isn’t actually coming from ‘being in our twenties’. Maybe it’s coming from the idea that our twenties need to look a certain way. I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out lol. All I know is that I’m tired of feeling guilty for enjoying slow weekends. I’m tired of thinking I’m wasting my twenties because I chose a book over going out or a coffee date over a night out.

Maybe the best years of our lives don’t have to be the loudest ones. Maybe they’re the years where we slowly become people we actually like.

What do you think? Do you ever feel like you’re not doing your twenties ‘right’, or can’t it be just me, right?