goals

Your 20s is a time to try new things, and have fun before the responsibilities of life completely begin to take over. With that said, my friends on Instagram have helped me craft a list of 20 things that everyone should do in their 20s. Maybe you’ll add one or two things from the list below to your own bucket-list. Check it out!

The Ultimate 20 Something Bucket-List:

1. Learn how to love yourself: Start a journal, take yourself out to dinner or simply give yourself a compliment. Spend your 20s falling in love with yourself.

2. Go on a friend-cation: Nothing will compare to going on a spontaneous vacation with your closest friends. Suggestions: road trip or a girls’ trip.

Road trip with the guys. Source: Giphy

3. Learn a new language : This can be fun and also super useful if you plan on travelling. As you get older, it is harder to learn a new language so why wait? Do it right now. Buena suerte.

4. Apply for your dream job

5. Binge watch a Netflix series: Choose a show that you have put off watching and get to it! Suggestions: Friends, How to Get Away with Murder, and Riverdale.

Binge watching Netflix. Source: Giphy

6. Do something you’ve always wanted to do, despite what others say: Get a tattoo or quit your minimum wage job that makes you miserable. Always remember, do what makes YOU happy and never settle for less.

7. Take a class: Take a class in something you’ve never tried before. If you absolutely hate it, well now you know, but if you love it, you have found a new hobby. Suggestions: A yoga class, an art-class, or a kick-boxing class.

Yoga class. Source: Giphy

8. Pick a cause and be passionate about it

9. Attend a multi-day/weekend music festival: Spending days away from responsibility, relaxing, and listening to good music? Why wouldn’t you want to do this in your 20s? Suggestions: Way-home, Oshega, or Coachella

Coachella 2015. Source: Giphy

10. Trace your family tree: There is no history more interesting than your own. Figure out who your ancestors were and how they impacted the world and your own life.

11. Date someone who isn’t your “type”: Maybe the relationship won’t work out in the end or maybe you’ll meet your future spouse. Maybe you’ll have a great time or a terrible time, but you will learn and grow from the experience. Suggestion: Go on a blind date

Blind date. Source: Giphy

12. Make a time capsule for yourself

13. Take a risk: Odds are once you get older you won’t be as willing to do something crazy, so get it over with now. Suggestions: Bungee jumping or skydiving.

Skydiving. Source: Giphy

14. Run a marathon: Not all of us can be Usain Bolt, but pushing yourself physically is good for your body and soul.

Running a marathon. Source: Giphy

15. Pull an all-nighter for fun (And not to finish an essay or a school assignment).

16. Learn to cook: You might not be the next Gordon Ramsey or Martha Stewart, but knowing how to whip up a good meal is critical to your everyday life.

Learning to cook. Source: Giphy

17. Discover something new about yourself: Your 20’s are a time of personal growth. Make it a goal to learn more about yourself and who you really are.

18. Move to a new city: Your 20s are the perfect time to find new cities to immerse yourself into, to see if you could build a life there. Suggestions: NYC or LA.

Walking the streets of New York City. Source: Giphy

19. Backpack around the world independently

Backpacking solo dolo. Source: Tumblr

20. Find love: Your 20s is definitely a time in your life to meet new people and experience the kind of passionate, crazy love that makes your head spin. Let love in and enjoy every minute of it because nothing beats the feeling of being in love with someone who feels the same way.

Couple passionately in love. Source: Giphy

~Miss Twenty Something

What’s on your own personal bucket-list?

As soon as I reached twenty years old, I hated going to family functions. Why you may ask? Because there was no doubt in my mind that I would be asked by at least three relatives what my future life plans were. The pressure was on, to not only make myself look good but to make my single mom, who raised me for 18 years alone, look good as well. You can be assured that my mom was on the sidelines, like a proud cheerleader parent giving me a thumbs up and a smile when I was answering well.

Photo of Lushwana and her mom. Source: Lushwana

My typical response would look like:

-Finish my undergraduate degree by 22 years old
-Attend and finish Osgoode Law School by 26 years old
-Meet the love of my life and get married by 28 years old
-Start having a family by 30 years old

Twenty years old, has been a very confusing time for me. Am I a girl, a woman…or something in between? This is a question that constantly runs through my mind. Sometimes my parents still treat me like I’m their “little girl” yet I am expected to be a “woman” …to know exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life.

Left: Lushwana as a baby. Right: Lushwana at 20 years old. Source: Lushwana

I mean let’s be real…women definitely get the shitty end of the stick. They are expected to build their career more quickly than men because they need to get married and start having children while they are still “young”. But what is considered “young”? And why do we have to put a time limit on the things we would like accomplish?

Finally, I got fed up and stopped answering the “what are your future plans?” question with a scripted answer. My new response became: “I have goals…not a five-year or even ten-year plan!”.

I have goals of travelling the world with my family and friends, of meeting someone who I can spend the rest of life with, and yes maybe even have a family.

But will that all happen? And if so, when will it happen? Who’s to know? But at the end of the day I am content with not knowing EXACTLY what my future looks like. Isn’t that the fun in it anyways?

~Miss Twenty Something

How does the question: “What are your future goals?” make you feel? Let me know in the comments below.

Miss Twenty Something

20 Things We Should All Do in our 20s

I have goals…not a five year plan!