Why does 22 feel old?

Old man smoking a cig after a long day of beating his wife

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I know what will happen if I say it, but I have to face the music. Yes, I’m 22. Before you 16-year-old $2M ARR founders scream and deride me with slurs like “unc” or “PDF”, just know, you will also grow old.

When you’re young, you feel like you’re the center of the universe, that every single historical event in the world revolves around you and your generation by extension. When you saw someone successful, 99% of the time they were older than you, reassuring your poor, naive soul that you still had time, time to waste, learn, and grow. That sentiment is what I dub “before the wall.”

Being before the wall is awesome. There’s no pressure to succeed or outpace the current successful racers in this race of life. If you succeed early, let’s say at 14, 15, or 16, then great - you’re set for life. If not, it’s ok: you still have two-ish years left to shove Nature Valley granola bars into your mouth and get crumbs and honey particles all over your Xbox controller. Meanwhile, you can look at the successful people 2-3 years older than you and convince yourself, “I still have time - I’ll reach their stage soon enough.”

Then four years in a bubble pass. Let’s say you graduate high school and achieve nothing of note, nor do you take advantage of social opportunities to grow a strong friendship circle - then what? You graduate with a bittersweet sentiment of feeling like your life is over after high school, deciding to pin your hopes on college instead. You decide to bet on the future, thinking it’ll be better even though the past is the best indicator of future results. Your future self is always the greatest person alive: a guy making 6 figures with 6 girlfriends and 6 packs. Funny how you’ve never been able to meet him once in the past four years, then.

But when you’re in college, you’re still young. There’s no pressure, no expectations, just another 4-year paradise to live through without thinking about the future. Despite how most coming-of-age movies end right after the high school graduation scene, the copers believe in the 5% of movies that end with graduating from college. Some people get over their regrets in high school and take full advantage of university, preparing themselves for the future they desire. Others reliniquish themselves to sink into the vat of pleasure. They delay the inevitable and think 4 = infinity.

The math doesn’t work out. You graduated, forced out of the vat - your head meets concrete and now you’re 22. Maybe you get a job and people congratulate you, but you know you’re not where you wanted to be in life. So you resign yourself to comparing yourself to others to feel a sense of pride, saying copes like, “My income of 85Kisbetterthanthemedianfor22yearolds,"and"Mynetworthof85K is better than the median for 22 year olds," and "My net worth of 10K is better than the average for my age.” Funny how you stopped comparing yourself to the high achievers before you, lowering your standards. Before, you had an abundance of fantasies and ambitions that if had achieved them, then your life would have been fulfilled. Now? Comparing yourself is your life. It’s the only way to stay sane, an insane method to pretend wasting 8 years of your life is perfectly normal. Maybe it is, though. If 80 year-olds waste 8 years of their life in a retirement home by eating jello and watching The Nutty Professor for the 64th time in a row, then who cares? But you didn’t waste any 8 years: you wasted 14-22, the ages that define who you are and who you will be forever. You wasted the ages of unlimited potential, missing what could have been and instead landing on the mediocre reality.

Congratulations. You’re on the other side of the wall.

Nobody will call you a kid anymore, nobody will give you lenience, nobody will expect growth from you. What they perceive of you now is your perceived value forever. You are no longer a sprout - you’re either a flower to praise and celebrate or a weed to discard and deprecate. Nobody will give you props just for trying. Trying isn’t good enough, and success is what’s expected. Whether you’re 22, 23, 24, or 37, it’s all the same to adults: same expectations demanding the same results.

There’s a reason YC, Paul Graham, and Peter Thiel like ‘em young: early success breeds praise, and praise constructs a lifetime of wealth, success, and power. If you’re in high school and you succeed at something, you will be adored no matter what. College, a little less so. but if you achieve anything of note during the malleable years of 14-22, it changes the trajectory of your life entirely.

Maybe I’m too cynical. Certainly, if I were in the remote woods of Alaska and nowhere near a school bus (if you know, you know), instead allowing myself time to enjoy the tranquil sounds of rushing water and to contemplate the striking simplicity of nature, then none of what I previously said would matter. But I do know one thing: