The world is full of rules, guidelines, and people telling you what to do.
What’s harder to remember is that most of them aren’t real laws. They’re not things you must do or even things you should do.
Yet people spend their entire lives following a preset path.
Rarely taking chances. Rarely doing something unexpected.
We’re told:
Get good grades
Go to a good college
Get an internship
Graduate
Get a job
And now you’ve joined the rate race, and your best years will soon be behind you.
For some people, this path is genuinely fulfilling.
But for most, it’s not chosen because it’s fulfilling, it’s chosen because it feels like the only option.
Don’t be one of those people.
There are a million ways to live an incredible life. The smallest and easiest one is travel, especially to places people don’t normally go.
Don’t just do a week in Mexico or France.
Go to Colombia. Go to Austria.
Walk paths your peers don’t. Experience things they won’t.
Grow old with stories that make your kids want to go even farther than you did.
Don’t graduate early. If anything, take a victory lap (or two).
Yes, money matters. But there are ways around it: fewer classes, remote credits, cheaper cities, fewer takeout orders and nights at the bars.
Once you leave those shiny university walls, the “real world” comes fast. Some responsibilities are real. Some are imagined. But the pressure to conform to what society thinks is best for you is relentless.
Enjoy each phase of your life while you’re in it. Don’t rush it.
Take a semester off and work in an industry you’ve never considered.
Live with a family in the Amazon for a few months.
Be a deckhand on a yacht and get paid to see the world.
Go do research in Abu Dhabi. (Seriously, there’s some incredible stuff coming out of that city.)
Eventually, most people should want to get more serious. The house. The job. The family. The stability.
But I promise you this: you will not regret spending a few extra years being young, curious, and slightly unreasonable.
So when your friend asks if you want to work on a farm in Australia for six months: say yes.
When you’re choosing between a job in your college town or one abroad: go abroad.
When you’re deciding between graduating early or staying one more semester: stay.
You can always make more money.
You might have to mow lawns, or work for an uncle/aunt.
But you’ll become a far more valuable person because of the breadth of your experience, and the stories you accumulate along the way.
Yes, there’s nuance. If you want to become a doctor, things look different.
But even then, studying or working in developing nations can be an incredible resume builder, and an even better life builder.
Don’t waste your youth.
Cherish it. Stretch it. Use it.
Experience as much as you possibly can in your teens and twenties.
You won’t regret it.
I promise.
-Mack
Let me know what you think. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. Tell me in the comments.