32 Years Old - I Wasted My 20s

As someone who's now 32 and going to be 33

in a few months' time, I look back at my

20s and I kind of realize how I completely

wasted them. I thought I'd just make a

quick video talking about why I wasted my

20s, what was going through my mind back

then, and how I'm also probably going to

waste my 30s as well.

When I say that I wasted it, what I mean

is I didn't really do anything during my

20s. That benefits me now in my 30s. I

didn't put any effort or time into trying

to learn skills or gaining meaningful

experience in some kind of career or a

trade that I could be benefiting from now

financially. Whilst everyone else was

studying hard for university and other

things and trying to get work experience

in meaningful jobs and trades, I was

wasting my time playing video games and

chasing girls and going from meaningless

relationship to meaningless relationship.

Yeah, I have lots of great memories and

experiences and stories that I've

collected during my 20s that I think back

to when I'm lying in bed at night, but

those are just stories and memories and

they don't really pay the bills. If only

there was some way that you could monetize

stories and memories. And when I was in my

20s, I never really imagined myself not

being in my 20s anymore. I could never

really think of myself as a 30-year-old in

the same way when I was a kid, I could

never imagine myself not being a kid and

then eventually becoming an adult. The

idea of getting older and older is scary

and very hard to imagine, even though it's

pretty obvious it's gonna happen. And when

I was in my 20s, I never really worried

about things like, what are people going

to think of me when I'm in my 30s and I've

got nothing to show for it apart from

memories of just chasing girls and playing

video games. That's not very impressive.

And when you meet someone and they ask you

stuff like, so what have you been doing in

Japan? What have you been doing in the

last few years? And you don't really have

anything impressive to tell them apart

from, oh, I got 6,000 playtime hours on

Rainbow Six and I got 5 girlfriends in

Japan. No one is impressed by that and

they think you're a loser if you say that.

I always find it really awkward when

people ask me, so what were you doing in

Japan? Because I like telling people that

I was in Japan, I was living in Japan for

a few years, and obviously they're going

to want to know what you've been doing.

And I think usually most normal people

would be able to say stuff like, oh, I was

studying, I was going to university, I was

teaching English, I was working for a

software company or doing translating or

something related to tourism, something

that sounds cool and impressive. I don't

know what to say because honestly I didn't

do any of those things. I went on Tinder

and then I went on dates and then I got

married and well, you know the rest. What

I usually say is I just traveled the

country and I met people and I experienced

the culture. It wasn't always like this.

In my early 20s, I was completely

different. I was actually quite driven and

motivated to study hard at Japanese and

Korean, try and find a way to get work in

Japan and get a working visa. I even

considered the idea of going to university

and trying to get a degree so I, so I

could get a proper visa in Japan and be

able to live there long-term. Somewhere

along the line, probably in my early 20s,

nearing my mid-20s, I kind of gave up on

all ideas of working towards something. I

just kind of failed at everything. I

failed at becoming fluent at Japanese or

Korean. I failed at trying to get

into university. I failed at trying to

work a normal job. And after failing

everything, it just kind of made me not

want to try anymore. Because if you try

and then you fail, then you feel bad. So

my solution was, well, if I just don't try

anything, then I won't be able to fail. I

think I was around 24 when my way of

thinking completely shifted from, I want

to try really hard to become good at these

things, to, I can't be bothered to do

anything because I suck at everything and

not trying is a lot easier. I'm just going

to play video games and go on Tinder. And

meet girls and have fun whilst I'm young.

Well, those days are over because I'm not

that young anymore, and, um,

starting to get a little bit worried about

things like I don't have any real

experience or skills that could be useful

in society where I could make money from,

and my looks are gonna fade soon and I'm

not gonna look young anymore, which was

probably the only reason why I was able to

get girls in the first place because Let's

face it, it's not like girls like me for

my amazing personality or my huge amounts

of money. And I know it's not too late to

change things around because you get

people going to university and studying

courses and doing online courses and stuff

like that, even when they're 40 or 50 or

60. Like they say, life is a never-ending

journey of learning. But the problem is

I've been living this way for such a long

time, 10 years plus now. That the idea of

doing anything challenging or difficult or

even thinking about learning something

new, it's just so alien to me.

And you know there's that famous Chinese

saying, the grasshopper lies around eating

grass all day whilst the ant works very

hard for his nest. Well, my dad was an

ant. I witnessed how hard he worked, how

stressed out he was every day. He would

wake up early in the morning in the

freezing cold when it was raining to start

up his car, and then his car would have

problems. Sometimes it'd break down, he'd

have to fix it. And witnessing that,

I kept thinking to myself, I really don't

want to live like that, because it doesn't

look fun. It looks like a lot of hard

work, and it looks like it kind of sucks

from an outside perspective looking at my

dad. I didn't realize that even though it

looks like hard and doesn't look like fun,

from my dad's perspective, from his

inside, it was probably very fulfilling

and rewarding and made him happy to,

to be living life like that. And then on

the flip side, if you look at my life from

an outside perspective, people might

think, wow, Daniel's life looks so

amazing, he just plays video games all day

and doesn't have to work. But then from my

inside perspective, I feel empty and

hollow Like my life is meaningless and I

feel very unfulfilled in life in general.

When I was in my 20s, I was having a great

time and maybe if I could go back in time,

I might just do the same thing again.

Usually in life, you're supposed to put in

the hard work first and then you enjoy,

but I want to enjoy first and then never

put in the hard work. Unfortunately, life

just doesn't really work like that in most

cases unless you're very fortunate and you

inherit a large amount of money or you win

the lottery. So what changes am I going to

make now that I realize I wasted my 20s?

How am I going to stop myself from wasting

my 30s and then not complain about

how I wasted my 30s when I'm in my 40s?

Well, that is a great question. I don't

know what I'm gonna do. Probably nothing.

I think there's a very high probability

that after I finish making this video,

I'm going to play some of the brand new

Battlefield 2042 42 because that's pretty

fun, unlike studying.