6 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me in My 20s

When I was in my early twenties, I would mentally fast forward my life to my forties and see myself as a woman who had it all figured out, a high flyer with a ridiculously good figure, the perfect husband, and the perfect home- the kind we see in glossy magazines, with floor-to-ceiling windows, sleek furniture and a living room straight out of Architectural Digest.

That was my most delicious dream and something I would conjure up in my mind from time to time. Especially when I felt stuck, confused and unmoored, which was often. After an arranged marriage at 19 and a divorce at 21, I was shaken up and disillusioned. I had realized early in life that I didn’t have the predictability and security in life that most of my classmates did. I could be uprooted any minute and thrust into a situation I hadn’t anticipated.

And so I was in a tearing hurry to earn my degrees and start making my own money. That did happen eventually, but only after my second marriage at 24. 

So my twenties can be divided into two parts- the one where I was a student with the usual teenage dilemmas and angst and the 2nd part as a wife and mother, having given birth at 25. So my experiences and lessons learnt from these two periods of my life are wildly different.

But based on the general feeling I have from those years, I’ve been thinking a while and have come up with a bunch of stuff I wish I’d known in my twenties, truths that would have both given me relief from my overthinking and helped me brace myself for the future. Because my thirties and forties have turned out to be less of the glossy-magazine dream and more of a plot twist I definitely didn’t see coming. 

Your Parents Aren’t Always Right. Sorry.

We grow up thinking our parents know best. And most of the time, they’re genuinely trying to protect us. But good intentions don’t automatically make good decisions. Parents can sometimes have some seriously warped ideas about what’s best for you. 

And when you’re young, the steering wheel of your life is unfortunately in their hands. In my case, the red flags were always there. Getting  your teenage daughter married off on a whim ain’t smart, right? But it did happen and I paid the price.

But even when things were finally in my control as an earning woman in my twenties living in Mumbai, I still let them make life-altering decisions for me. Me and my husband in fact! The result being that again and again, we went down the rabbit hole. We surfaced again, but with the next wrong advice, down we plunged again. 

As a forty-year old, I would have loved to warn my younger self to stay the hell away from them , especially when they were in the mood to give gyaan and outlandish advice. Our lives would have been completely different today, had we not let our respect for elders overtake our common sense.

If They’re Leaving You Out, Let Them

My childhood weekends were mostly spent with the kids of my parents’ friends. Every Friday, without fail, we’d pile into three cars, have dinner at someone’s house, head to She-e-Punjab dhaba or catch a late-night movie. And somehow, these evenings always ended with us getting home in the wee hours of the morning. 

For my parents, this was a welcome break from a hectic week, but for me it was a struggle to get through the hours without being picked on or bullied. 

One particular kid made it a point to leave me out when hanging out in a group. He would play cruel pranks on me like deliberately leaving me in a pitch dark room during hide-n-seek. Sometimes it was the whole group against one. Other kids were occasionally ganged up on too but when the tables turned, they gleefully participated in making me miserable.

The strange thing was, I still wanted to be included. I didn’t want to spend every weekend with them, but if my mother casually mentioned that there had been a sleepover or weekend party I hadn’t been invited to, it hurt like hell. I wanted to be away from them and wanted them to want me. Go figure. 

I carried those insecurities well into my adult years, being insecure and hypersensitive about everything. During my postgrads and later at work, I’d convince myself I was being ignored, excluded or secretly disliked, and then spend hours feeling miserable about it. Only to realise that, most of the time, I had created an entire soap opera in my head, and everyone else was blissfully unaware they were even in the cast. 

I also continued socialising with the same group well into my twenties. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that instead of forcing myself to attend those painful get-togethers, I could have been hanging out with my para friends, school friends or gym crowd. People who actually made me feel good about myself. 

So my advice would have been- If a group makes you feel small, leave. You’re not losing friends. You’re losing the people who were never really your friends. 

Also, don’t let a few bad experiences become the lens through which you see everyone. One bad apple doesn’t mean the whole fruit market is rotten. 

Sometimes You Lose. So what?

Not every rejection needs to become a personal crisis. A contract doesn’t get renewed. Someone else gets the project. You don’t get the job. It sucks. Feel annoyed, have your little pity party, eat something unhealthy, and then get over it. 

Sometimes failure shows you what you’re good at. Sometimes it shows you what you absolutely hate. And sometimes it’s just life saying, “Not this one. Keep moving.” Either way, don’t turn one lost opportunity into a referendum on your entire life.

How my twenty-something self could have benefited from these words! I took every bit of feedback personally and treated every minor slight as if it required an emergency meeting with my self-esteem. Writing had always been my strong suit, but if a product description needed tweaking or a blog needed a little SEO surgery, I’d immediately wonder if I had somehow forgotten how to write. Looking back, it was almost comical.

You don’t need confidence. You need to Begin.

I’m rebooting my career at 40, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. Right now, I’m building Chai and Chaos partly as a portfolio, a place to showcase my writing, and remind myself that I still have something to say. But somewhere along the way, it has started to feel bigger than that. Maybe these stories will reach women who are figuring things out too. Maybe there is more waiting for me than I can see right now.

And that’s what I would tell my twenty-something self: don’t wait until you feel confident. Apply. Pitch yourself. Start the thing. Put your work out there. You don’t need to know exactly where it will lead. Sometimes you find your confidence only after you take the first step. And sometimes, that first step leads you somewhere you never imagined going.

You Don’t Need a Courtroom Defence for Saying No

I’ve spent far too many years explaining myself. And guess what? It never made people understand me better. If anything, it just made me look like I was asking for permission.

I’ve explained to a zillion people why I got married young (as if it was my decision), why I leave work on time instead of hanging around to look busy, why my child went to daycare, why I colour my hair blonde and, yes, why I occasionally wear a low-back blouse or a thigh-high slit. Honestly, I feel tired just writing this list.

So here’s what I’d tell my younger self: live your life. Wear the dress. Change your hair. Leave the job at 6. Say no. Make the choice that works for you. If you’re paying your own bills and not hurting anyone, you really don’t need a committee meeting to approve your decisions.

People will judge you anyway. Let them. People will always have opinions. Let them. They have opinions about the weather too!

And learn to say no without attaching a five-paragraph explanation. “No, I can’t” is enough. 

Life Loves a Plot Twist. Especially the Starting-Over Kind. 

I genuinely thought I’d have my shit figured out by 40. Instead, here I am, planning my second innings from the ground up.

AI has changed the content-writing game, and suddenly I’m learning, unlearning, upskilling and figuring out how to prove my worth all over again. It’s humbling, to say the least. But if my twenties had known what was coming, I’d have told her this: never mistake stability for certainty. You can finally find your footing and still have life pull the rug out from under you. Plans change. Industries change. You change. 

And when they do, take a breath, lift your chin and plough on. Because the victories you have to fight your way back to are often the ones you value the most.