An Open Letter to Every 20–25 Year Old in North America.
By: Christopher Spadafora
Tags: Self-awareness, Personal Development, Self Improvement, Personal Growth, Life

Dear Every 20–25 year old in North America,

Open your bloody eyes! You are being brainwashed to believe life is simply the way it is and that’s the end of it. You have been taught that the path to living the good life, the “american dream”, is the path that will bring you the most happiness.

Go ahead be a good little boy or girl and graduate from University with stellar grades, go into the workforce for the next 40 years doing a bunch of things you don’t love and sacrifice much of your free time to make more money and climb the corporate ladder. Then once you have enough to retire, do the things you truly want to do when you are just starting the fun journey of physical deterioration.

Try it out and tell me how happy you are. Sorry to have to break it to you but the chance that you will LOVE your life with zero regrets is pretty damn slim.

But listen it’s not totally your fault that you think “societies path” is truly the best life you can live. I too fell into this damn trap that started memorizing us at 4 years old. It’s natural that we will think this way because that’s all we know. All we see on television, all we read online, all that teachers taught us, all that our parents tell us and all that those who live the good life claim they did to be successful.

The choice is yours though. You can decide to say screw that, I’m going to figure out what makes me happy and just do it. I am going to take life into my own hands and shape my destiny. Or you can save $1000/month for that down payment on an over leveraged house that prevents you from taking the vacations you want every year as you anxiously await the day you can tell your job you’re quitting. It’s your call.

Now you might be saying who the heck is this dude telling me how I should live my life. Where does he get off writing a letter to me. He doesn’t know squat, he is just a bitter guy who got burned in the past. Just let me do my thing!

Well James or Ava (extremly common names in North America) I’m not some old bitter dude, I am actually not far from your age. Next month is my 28th birthday and as of right now I am the happiest I have every been. Why? Well let me share quickly with you how I found this happiness and new perspective on life before I turned 30.

Born and raised in Toronto Canada I lived the big city life. North America at it’s finest with all the western influences shoved down my throat all day. My poverty stricken grandparents immigrated from Italy to Canada when my parents were very young with the goal of giving future generations like myself a better life. So I followed that path, after some adolescent struggles with the law of course, I got my head on “straight” as they call it and went to University only to graduate top of my class and get the coveted 1st REAL job a month later.

Life was good I will tell you. I was selling technology making six figures after my first 14 months on the job and everyone including my friends and family looked at me like that’s the way to do it young man. Then at 23 I bought my first apartment after saving and saving for the down payment. I was the king of the castle.

Then came marriage to my high school sweetheart which is by far the best thing that could of ever happened to me during my days of a “societal zombie”. A few years pass and my income was climbing steadily, I received an opportunity to move to New York for 2 years and make more money then my parents have made combined in the last 10 years. So I took it.

The BIG APPLE! Dinner’s 3–4x a week, expense account, Central park, Flatiron district, Meatpacking Parties, the whole song and dance. $3000/month in rent no problem, I’m all for it.

Then guess what? I sat back looking at everything that has occurred and where I was in life and said all this shit doesn’t make me happy. I am not sad nor depressed but in all actuality if I could dictate how my day to day and life would be this is not what it would look like.

But HOW? But Why? This is what I am suppose to be doing. I’ll start a family soon, buy a bigger house and car and keep moving up the corporate ladder sacrificing more time away from home. That’s the good life right?

No F****** way.

So on February 1st 2016 after having the best sales month of my career I said goodbye to societies path, quit my job and moved back to Toronto with my wife. Although short lived as we packed up with the money we saved and left for a 6 month vacation around the world. In the meantime I started an online business (Mybumper- The World Thinnest Detachable Battery Case) in preparation for creating a lifestyle that I LOVE moving forward.

So as I write this we are in our AirBnB in Calabria, Italy preparing dinner for friends who we have meet here in the last month filled with an unbelievable sense of freedom and control. Solely for the fact that we spent our time reflecting on what makes us happy and how we would live life if we had the power to truly dictate it’s path. Then we took action!

That’s the message I am trying to share with you from experience. I crushed school, I made tons of money, I bought the house, I saved the money, I lived in the big cities, I travelled annually to every Caribbean island you can imagine AND IT DIDN’T MAKE ME HAPPY.

If you follow the path society tells you to follow you are rolling the dice. Maybe or maybe not you end up rolling a 7 but why take the chance? Why let society dictate how you should spend your time on this earth.

Instead take life into your own hands, actually take time to think about what you would do if money was not an option, shape your own value and belief system and start your journey towards finding the always moving target called happiness.

There is NO better time than now to do this as it will become increasingly more difficult in the future. Break Societal ties and forge your own path doing things differently and reaping the rewards of that freedom.

So as I end this open letter to Every 20–25 year old in North America I hope you send me a postcard from Thailand next year stating how sweet life is rather than receiving one from Mexico when you are 66 saying retirement is not what it is cracked up to be.

Sincerely,

Chris Spadafora