《A must-see for those in their 20s》How to live? What is a truly satisfying way of life for those in their 20s?

I've realized I've turned 30, and meeting various people has finally made it sink in these days. In that context, I was asked, "Was there anything you wished you had done in your 20s?" I actually tried to think about it, but couldn't find anything in particular. What I can say is that my 20s were truly fulfilling from the bottom of my heart. I have no regrets. No 'I wish I had done that' or 'I wish I had done this.' Rather, I feel like I've done everything I could.

The person I happened to be talking to was in their early 20s, so the conversation turned to how one can spend their 20s without regrets. I vaguely thought this could be a blog topic, so I'd like to summarize how I lived and how one should live to avoid regretting their 20s.

However, this is purely my personal opinion. I hope you'll read it as one perspective for reference. After all, everyone's values are different. Just because I'm satisfied with my current life doesn't mean your values will be exactly the same. If anything, this might apply to those who want to try something new, live an interesting life, or go a step further than just building a normal family. If you feel similarly to me, it might be worth a read.

Do everything you can think of, except for crimes.

This is indeed the first thing. People are creatures who can easily spend 10 years thinking 'I'll do it someday.' There is no 'someday' for 'I'll do it someday.' If you want to do something, start acting now. If there's something you've thought of that you want to try, there's always something you can do, no matter what your current situation is.

For example, if you want to travel the world, find a high-paying job to save travel funds. If you want to work for yourself as a sole proprietor instead of a company employee, research what you need to do to succeed as a sole proprietor and start studying. You might also consider a job search that ultimately leads to a position where you can become independent.

If you want to be able to speak English, start studying English now and look for English-speaking friends. If you want to start a business and become an entrepreneur, put together a business plan immediately, start saving capital, or find investors and present your plan. You might even apply for pitch events. No matter how big or small, there's always something you can start right now.

Also, start with what you can do now and make a proper plan. What route should you take to reach your goal? What steps should you follow to get to where you want to be? If you proceed blindly without deciding this route, you might end up going in the wrong direction. As long as you can clearly see the path to your destination, all that's left is to execute. Try to proceed as much as possible according to your plan.

The most regrettable pattern is thinking 'I'll do it someday' and never actually doing it. If you're thinking 'I'll do it someday,' you probably won't have done it even 10 years from now. To truly achieve things, you should start taking some action immediately and take the first step. What you think you can do in the future, you can do now. Conversely, what you can't take a step towards now, you won't be able to take a step towards in the future. Please, don't be afraid, and take that first step. Not taking a step is the biggest cause of regret in life.

Go as far as you can, using the fastest pattern you can conceive.

This is no time for '10-year plans.' If you spend 10 years just to achieve one thing, life will be over in no time. Aim for the fastest pace you can imagine. If you can reach your goal quickly, you'll have plenty of time to recover in case of failure.

A 'multi-year plan' is a defensive stance, unable to fully commit to the current situation. It's like, 'I don't want to disrupt my current life. I don't want any impact.' Unless you're married or have a family, there isn't much to protect in the first place, so let's push forward without thinking about defense. Ultimately, by diving in headfirst like that, you'll gain a lot more experience.

For example, if it's about becoming independent as a sole proprietor and creating a system for a free lifestyle, most people start by saying they'll study for three years. That's too much time. If it's something people master in three years, aim for less than one year. Have an aggressive mindset like, 'Others take three years, so I'll do it in one,' and strive to actually achieve that goal.

Even if you can't master it in one year, you can, at worst, extend the time from there. You can just revise your plan. No one will complain if you strive to master it in one year and 'graduate' in one year. However, don't actually think, 'I can just revise the plan.' You must work relentlessly to truly push forward on the shortest possible course.

This is a pattern where people just vaguely and groundlessly think, 'Maybe I'll take three years.' This is far too common. Let's stop saying 'three years for now.' Always aim for the fastest possible time you can conceive and keep striving for it. If your environment doesn't allow for that, change it quickly. Change your environment and quickly reach the place you aim for. In reality, there are many people who have reached a kind of pinnacle in their 20s by doing just that.

Don't think of your 20s as practice. Think of everything as the real thing.

You often hear phrases like, 'Your 20s are for practice, the real game starts in your 30s, so go all out,' but that's half wrong. That's because if you approach everything in your 20s as the real thing, you'll gain more genuine experience. For example, the quality of experience is completely different between a business started with the thought, 'This is practice for a big business in the future,' and one started with the determination, 'I'm going to seriously generate sales and succeed.'

In other words, thinking of starting a business now as 'practice' is like doing an internship indefinitely. There's no particular impact if sales don't increase, and failure isn't too painful. You simply accumulate superficial knowledge and experience.

Serious business and work can be quite tough. If you fail, it might leave a scar on your life. If sales don't increase, you might not be able to make a living. Such experiences, with their tension and the drive to overcome the current situation no matter what, are what truly forge a person.

To put it extremely, between someone who continued an internship for a long time and someone who, despite difficulties, generated their own sales, whose growth would be faster? Of course, the person who was able to generate their own sales will experience more struggles, failures, and successes. I believe this difference will become apparent after turning 30.

If you're going to do it, don't think of it as practice; challenge everything with serious resolve. And by saying, 'Well, the practice period is over, and now the real thing begins, generally speaking,' after turning 30, you'll be able to take a step forward in your career as a significantly more confident and capable person in your 30s. Life's 'practice' is merely an afterthought; everything is the real thing. Dive in with all your might.

Meet many people and get to know them. Learn many different ideas.

Life is changed by encounters with people. While it's crucial to take the initiative yourself for changes to happen and for enjoyable things to occur, nothing stimulates life more than meeting people, talking, and exchanging ideas. Meet many people and absorb many personalities and ideas in the path you forge yourself.

In life, human relationships are unavoidable. If you can talk to someone, enjoy spending time together, and build many good relationships, the world will become more enjoyable. To master communication with people and enjoy life, immerse yourself in a lot of communication in your 20s. How you interact with people is also practice. The more you practice, the more you will enjoy it.

And when you take action, everyone will come to your aid. People who are good at building relationships will have many friends who will lend a hand when they are in trouble, in pain, or facing a wall. These connections will not only make your 20s overwhelmingly exciting but also bring you smiles throughout your life.

If you are bad at communicating with people and avoid it, it often leads to difficult situations. As I wrote earlier, human interaction is unavoidable in life. Just because you're not good at it, if you procrastinate or are too lazy to improve your interpersonal skills, you won't be able to enjoy social interactions. In other words, you'll be bad at something you can't avoid. You will eventually be driven into such a predicament.

Furthermore, by talking to many people and listening to various ideas, your own way of thinking will expand. With only your own thoughts, you often lack perspective in whatever you do. You often only see things from one side. By learning and accumulating numerous ways of thinking, you will be able to consider things from multiple angles.

The benefits gained from this evolution of thought are immense. How to achieve results, how to overcome difficulties when you encounter them, how to think to accept something sad or frustrating when it happens. Whether externally or internally, it brings immeasurable growth. Talk to people, exchange opinions, and expose yourself to many ideas.

Visit various places and try living there.

There are many different worlds out there. Many landscapes, many phenomena, many cultures, many people. What you once thought was common sense might not be common sense at all on the other side of the world, or what you thought was unconventional might be global common sense. This teaches you that there isn't a single, clearly defined set of values in this world.

Certainly, with the spread of the internet, you can learn about the whole world with just one computer. However, nothing speaks as much as the experience of visiting a place and immersing yourself in the actual scenery. Traveling everywhere breaks down your own fixed ideas. It allows you to loosen your way of thinking more flexibly and create a foundation for considering all sorts of things from multiple perspectives. And this flexibility of thought is what holds immeasurable value in a society that will face numerous changes.

There's this problem, but couldn't it be solved this way? I want to do this, but wouldn't this approach lead to success? Of course, what actually shapes whether you can achieve results is the experience and effort accumulated on a foundation. However, if a foundation for thinking freely about things isn't built, no matter how much knowledge and experience you accumulate, you won't be able to grasp things from a blind spot. That's because you won't even notice the possibility that a blind spot exists.

To pull your way of thinking out of the prison of fixed ideas and show you the world from more angles, the most effective training will be to actually experience firsthand that "common sense is not as clear-cut as you thought." Visit more places, live there if possible, and simultaneously gain many experiences to continuously increase the flexibility of your thinking. Eventually, your flexibility will undoubtedly lead to new ideas, concepts, and imagination.

Aim to be recognized by society rather than by a company.

In your 20s, try to eliminate as many elements of anxiety about your future life as possible. One of the most unsettling factors in life is not having a job and not being able to earn enough money. While there are various other factors, it remains questionable whether you can achieve satisfactory happiness while remaining poor without economic power. Raising children, getting married, traveling, gaining many experiences—all of these are difficult without economic power.

Moreover, we are now in an era of great change. Even if you join a large company, you never know what might happen. It's clear from recent news that major Japanese companies are experiencing unusual changes. This is where your perspective on the future becomes important. So, what should you do to truly stop feeling anxious about the future?

Achieve results at a company? While that might be an option, what if the company's management falters and it goes bankrupt? Perhaps your achievements were only valid within that specific company. The only way to find out is to leave before the company goes bankrupt and try working for another. Even if you achieve results within one company, that knowledge and those achievements might be almost useless in other companies.

In other words, achieving results within a company itself doesn't necessarily guarantee future stability. So, what should you do? The answer is to be able to achieve results in society itself, not just within a company. It means acquiring skills that allow you to be recognized by society and earn compensation, no matter where you go, which company you work for, or even if you start your own business. No matter how many results you achieve within the framework of a company, if you can't achieve results even one step outside that framework, it will be meaningless in the society of the future.

How can you continuously enhance "your own abilities" and acquire skills that make you reliable no matter who you team up with? If you don't fundamentally train your own abilities, no matter how prestigious the company's name, you'll have no choice but to live surrounded by the anxiety of potentially being cast aside at any time. It's crucial not to rely on the company, but to ensure all results come from your own power. Continuously improve your skills and perform your work in a way that allows you to achieve results anywhere, even if you step outside the company.

Just be aware of the direction: "I want to live this kind of life!"

The often-mentioned "dream" is not necessary. What you want to do changes over time. The methodologies and progress also change with the times. Therefore, your current "dream" will likely change soon. However, there is one thing I am confident you should have. Successful people often say this, not "have a dream," but "have a vision of how you want to live."

What is a way of life? Do you want to become rich and live a luxurious life? That's a way of life. Do you want to live freely without being constrained by society? That's also a way of life. Do you want to create innovative businesses and services to change the world? Of course, that's also a way of life. Do you want to build a happy family? Naturally, that's also a wonderful way of life. In other words, it's perfectly fine to have a rough direction like, "I want to live my life something like this."

For example, if you want to "live a free life," there are many paths. It would be best if you could start thinking about how to get there in your early 20s. After all, you can plan from the starting point towards the goal of wanting to live such a life. If you work hard for 10 years, you can usually achieve your ideal way of life.

You don't need a specific goal like "I want to be a baker." If you think about how you should act to live the life you desire, the destination will inevitably be decided. We often hear cases where people say their dream is to be a baker, but when they actually become one, it's not very enjoyable. That's because it was different from the life they truly desired.

Listen to your heart and determine what kind of life you desire. At first, you might only see an outline, but it will soon become clearer. And even if it's still vague, try to gradually walk in that direction. To have hope for the future, it's okay for things to be uncertain. Once, please think about the life you desire. And once you find it, try walking towards the place you seek. You will surely find a satisfying result waiting for you.

Summary

Your teens and twenties are the most important periods in life. How you spend this time will change the next 50 years of your life. Act often, absorb many experiences, see more of the world, meet people, and continuously improve your skills to be sought after by society as a whole. Most importantly, take action now to seriously make what you "someday want to do" a reality. Your twenties are still a time when you can start over, but precisely because of that, if you don't keep challenging yourself, the regrets that will later haunt you will last a lifetime.

When I myself turned 30 and looked back, I could truly say from the bottom of my heart that it had been a fulfilling 10 years that I ran through. And now, when I received the words from a senior, "Your twenties, which were a warm-up, are over," I felt as if I had gained a lot of time, thinking, "I did all this, and it was still just a warm-up!" After all, I hadn't thought of it as a warm-up at all; I had tackled everything with full seriousness. I felt like I had another main event ahead of me!

Some people might think about doing things but find it hard to get started. However, the only way to cross that line is to start moving towards what you want to achieve, right now, at this very moment. Nothing else is needed to take that step. It's simple. If you are someone who doesn't want to have any regrets in your twenties, try challenging everything you want to do right away. And learn many ideas and perspectives, and start building a foundation for flexible thinking.

Those of you who have run through your twenties without regrets, giving it your all, are surely the people who will create the coming era. I sincerely hope you will live through your twenties with many experiences and challenges and create a new era. That said, I also received advice that "the main event" is finally starting for me, so I hope to create services or businesses while thinking about what I can bring forth into future society. Let's enjoy ourselves across generations, both in our twenties and thirties. Enjoy!