Being young is great. You’re full of energy, wrinkle-free, and the world is full of possibilities. As you age, you may miss the body you had in high school or the ability to eat an entire pizza without debilitating heartburn, but getting older comes with some killer benefits that make aging so worth it.
- You’ll say goodbye to unpaid internships. You paid your dues slaving away as an intern or research assistant for way too long. Now that your indentured servitude is over, enjoy those sweet paychecks and the fact that your time is actually worth something now.
- You’ll finally have some stability in your life. Backpacking around random countries and serial hook-ups can be fun… for a while. When the appeal of hostels and casual sex wears off, you can appreciate the stability that goes along with getting older. There’s a great comfort in knowing where your next meal is coming from, that you have a warm house to go home to, and that your partner will be there for you when you need them.
- You’ll stop giving a damn about what other people think. Caring about what other people think is so exhausting that it almost completely wears off in your 20s… almost. As you get older, you realize you can wear what you want, eat what you want, and screw who you want without wasting any energy stressing over what other people may think of your choices. Ah, freedom.
- Your wardrobe will be nice as hell. Years of slowly collecting quality staples pays off. You can toss all your fast fashion into the Goodwill box and enjoy never scouring the bomb site that is Forever21 again.
- You’ll feel more secure in who you are. With time, you become surer of yourself and who you are as a person. You’ve figured out what your values are and what you want out of life. Figuring all that out is the hard part, now you just get to run with it!
- People will take you more seriously. If you’ve ever felt that someone wasn’t taking you seriously because you were young, you were probably right. Brains and ambitions don’t mean a lot to some people without a few years of adulthood under your belt. Show off those crow’s feet and watch how people respond to you differently.
- You can go home at a reasonable hour. As you get older, your FOMO becomes less intense and your friends start to respect the fact that you have work in the morning. No more forcing yourself to chug down 3 am Red Bulls just because you are afraid something interesting might happen the minute you leave. You know from experience that it won’t.
- There will be way fewer cliques to deal with. OK, so there may be some workplace drama or catty PTA members, but generally the days of dealing with cliques are behind you. The sorority girls that wouldn’t let you sit with them in the dining hall have all grown up and realized that being inclusive is the only way to act in the real world.
- You’ll be able to enjoy weekends without plans. The number of friends you have tends to decline as you get older. When your crew gets narrowed down to just the MVPs, suddenly every weekend isn’t jam packed with weddings and birthday parties you don’t really want to go to. You can actually decide what you feel like doing instead of having your social calendar booked up months in advance.
