Today, I enter my 20's.
By: Derek Chang
Tags: College, Growing Up, Lessons Learned, Reflections, Youth

Today, I am no longer a teenager. Yikes. I recall someone said how our 20’s are the most crucial years in our life. It is supposed to combine maturity, responsibility, dense life lessons, and everything in between. And even maybe kids?? To be honest, I am terrified of growing up. However, since that line is one step back, I want to reflect on what I learned during my teenage years.

First, a quick run-down of me. I am an Asian kid born and raised in Southern California. That should do it. Now for some lessons that I’ve learned — oftentimes the funny way, other times the hard way.

Lesson #1: Practice Kindness

I try to move throughout the world while showing kindness to others. More specifically, treating others empathetically. I’ve notices that this maintains a high caliber of awareness. However, I must be honest. I have not always been kind in every single interaction with every single person I meet. I have let myself slip into pure anger, drawing words and thoughts from rage. I am not proud of these moments. But I now understand their importance in my life. These moments show me how hostility is like wielding fire. It burns bridges and leaves your hands red hot. No one wins. Always choose kindness when possible.

Lesson #2: Man Up and Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

The day I truly decided to step out of my comfort zone and take a risk — a truly scary risk—is the day I gained a new flavor in my life. In high school, there was a remarkably beautiful girl. She was shy and introverted. At the time, I overthought everything. I sketched out every single scenario (the good, the bad, the ugly) in my head beforehand. Part of me found solace in it. But in reality, it was my way of avoiding risk. Without taking any action, I had already suffered ten times in different scenarios.

For more context, we had conversed approximately 15 words over the last 2 years. After mustering the courage for a month, I asked her to the winter dance. To my surprise, she said yes.

My advice to my younger self: Understand where your comfort zone is and poke at it. Try different things that scare you. You will often fail and lose. But you will also begin seeing the scary things shrink. They become manageable and digestible. And that is unquestionably worth it.

Lesson #3: Practice is King

It took me a while to realize that a skill or concept is within reach simply by practice. I understand that I cannot learn anything by relying on practice. However, I argue that the majority of my interests during my teenage years are rather feasible. I was interested in basketball, soccer, math, computer science, video games, playing the ukulele, and talking to girls. Unfortunately, the only things that I put true time into were video games and less so math. Like I said, unfortunate.

In college, it dawned upon me that if I truly want something, there is often little to no barrier physically preventing me from learning that something. If I truly wanted to step up my game with the ladies, well hell, man up and practice. If I want to become more adept in computer science look under any one of the millions of online resources. It is bizarre how my mind blocked off many of my ambitions because I believed they weren’t feasible. I felt incapable. In reality, it is the opposite.