Birth of the Frontal lobe
There is a social media trend saying that when you are 25 years old, your brain fully develops, while medically wise I don't think that's accurate, from the standpoint of society, it is kind of true :
When you are 25, you are no longer considered youth, the weights starts shifting more to the adult part, you are no longer eligible for bank offers, discounts from your family jobs are no longer valid, and your social security is now yours, not your parent's.
When you are 25, you start to realize that time is no longer infinite, you might begin to watch your parents getting older, your body starts to show some signs of aging, and people around you starts to treat you differently : you are no longer "still young" where people are still expecting you to reach your potential, they start judging you for what you did from 18 yo to 25, you now have a limited budget to go shopping with : you have to pick the right groceries with the money you have, and the groceries here are what are the things you spend your time and effort on.
When you are 25, you are expected to have a job and no longer have fun : going out, playing etc... When you are 25, you body is at his peak and the chart cant go any higher, it gently starts to decline. The neuroplasticity of the brain, or its ability to create new connections starts to decline : let f(age,x) : function that links your age and the ability of your brain to create a connection.
let g(age,x) : function that links the effort needed to learn x by age.
When you are a child, f is at its maximum and g at its minimum, by the time you reach 20, f starts rapidly decreasing and g rapidly increasing, and when you reach 30, g now overtakes f : now you need to do double the effort you needed to do in 20 in order to learn the same thing, will you have the energy to do that ? If yes why did you not do it in your 20s ?
Here is the thing : for me, 25 is the perfect age : it gives you 5 years where you can shape your entire life : making money, optimizing your career, finding your future partner, you can do that because at 25 you are still young but you have enough experience, maturity and knowledge to not make silly mistakes anymore, you can still learn an instrument to a reasonable level if you give it your best in 3-5 years, you can still change careers if you want to, etc.... but you no longer have that much bullets in your gun.
When you are 25, you NEED to invest in the quality of the remaining of your life, what I mean by that, don't waste your energy on low return things such as gaming, watching sports all day, etc etc... BE ACTIVE, go to the gym, start eating healthy, try new things, accumulate the maximum of experience so that you can grow as a person.
Another thing that I forgot to mention is how sometime the standards we have on ourselves are flawed : Standards should be generalized, not specific : you need to make a living, not you need to work 9-5 in order to be successful, you need to be happy in everyday's life, and ideally this happiness should stay at a reasonable level your whole life : you might be happy now living on junk food but that happiness comes with a hidden health cost in the long term, when you have a sweet tooth, if you dont control yourself before 40, you are at risk of diabetes, so why not eat moderately and enjoy sweets your whole life?
I feel like you are given a body and a life that can achieve a certain potential, so you are deceiving everyone, first and foremost yourself, when you don't live to that potential, at least aim for 75-80% of it, whether is it your body or your social life. You should NOT live with regrets, give it your best NOW, so that even if in the future you feel like you could have a better outcome, at least you can say that you gave it your best when you could.
In order to prosper, society tries to gaslight us into doing things at a certain age, at 25 you are supposed to have a degree, and a girl should seriously start considering marriage in order to have kids, both of these examples of standards forced into us, that helps society generating more money by working, and assuring the survival of our specie by having kids, but since society is filling our minds with this idea, it doesn't mean that you should do the opposite of what they say, maybe these standards are the safest way for most people to live a decent life, do what you think is best.
Finally, every one person can pick how much effort they will put into their life , but I believe that we should pick with 3 different criteria in mind: Increasing your value, increasing your happiness, and decreasing your stress, so if I believe that MY time should be optimized that way, everyone is responsible of their own lives, but I want to go the closest I can get to greatness in all the things that matters to me.One exception is interactions with people, NEVER count it as a waste of time, and NEVER try to optimize or rationalize your relationships. DON'T be a spectator of your life, be the main character : don't let your life blindly ruled out by what others already lived : if you think that a 9-5 does not suit you, don't do it.
I will talk about stress in another episode.