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DO NOT WASTE YOUR LIFE: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE YOUTH

admin June 27, 2020

2 minutes read

By Ubukombe Hallellua Pacifique CONTRIBUTOR (Opinions expressed by YOH contributors are their own.)

When you’re in your 20s, it’s better to miss out on the fun than to miss out on building the foundation of your life.

You can have all the fun later (you’ll have more time and money to spare too) but almost impossible to catch up when you waste it.

You can go “all in” (business or career) for 5-10 years and set yourself up for the rest of your life or you can spend 40 years working 40 hour weeks striving for “work-life balance”

Easy choice, but most people can’t do math.

Besides there’s lots that’s only really possible when you’re young – like taking investment risks and starting high risk high reward businesses.

When you’re 30-35 and have a wife and children, much harder to quit that job.

Most people do it wrong.

They waste their high energy nothing to lose 20s on partying and long winded relationships and drama and try to build wealth and infrastructure in their 30s when they lack flexibility and energy and risk taking ability.

It’s an upside down world.

But they fail simply because of how much time and effort building anything takes.

If you’re running a business, it really can’t be priority #3, especially in the early days. Same with corporate careers (the ones that matter).

It takes time and energy and a lot of slogging.

And the later you do it, the harder it gets. You become less flexible, less ability to slog, less patience, and more importantly, less *margin or error*

You could blow up in your 20s, it doesn’t matter in your 30s, and it’s a disaster. The stakes are different.

There is no wrong or right way, there’s just what you want out of your life.

If you want hedonism then that’s what you should pursue.

If you want greatness but you pursue hedonism, you are headed in the wrong direction.

Even the people who dedicate their lives to pleasure (alcohol, drugs, weed, unhinged partying etc) come to regret it.

Even the people who constantly travel and eat (“foodie”) come to regret. There’s a difference between hedonism and fulfillment.

It’s the difference between drinking a small glass of water and seeing a pond from afar.

The former gives you more satisfaction because it actually quenches your thirst.

It’s quality not quantity.

Being cool and actually being successful are two very different things.

Being cool is based around impressing others and is externally focused. We all want to be well liked.

Ambition is more internal, a sense of urgency and thinking big. It’s not for others.

All those parties and sex, hope breaking the ability to bond again with anyone was worth it.

All the food you inhaled, welcome to obesity land where everything sucks and nike tells you you’re beautiful but you know they’re lying.

You reap what you sow.

UBUKOMBE HALLELLUA PACIFIQUE is a Voracious Reader, Entrepreneur/Investor, Business Scientist, Writer, Renaissance Speaker & Student of Life. He can be contacted at the following email: [email protected]

Ubukombe hail from Kigali, Rwanda