Now that I’ve entered my twenties, I find myself worrying over things that I know I’m not ready to deal with. How am I supposed to worry about taxes and bills when I don’t even know that I’m supposed to take my clothes out of a public dryer? You mean to tell me that the respectable thing to do in bathrooms is flushing the toilet after using it? This is news to me and almost every single person my age.

Another thing adults seem really adept at is controlling their emotions and not letting flippant comments get to them. I really admire this trait. I never know how to stop crying when reading mean Facebook comments about this newspaper’s articles. How do adults deal with being criticized by people who watch One America News?

A quick Google search of “Are the twenties good” brings results of a decade that many duck-feeders were born into, but it also introduced me to a promising Quora discussion entitled “Are your twenties really the best years of your life?” Being a newly inducted member of this esteemed age group, I was eager to know the pros and cons of entering my third decade of life.

The top post in my search said that a benefit to being in your twenties is that “Society cuts you more slack,” and a disadvantage is that “Some people might not take you seriously because of your age, regardless of knowledge or skill.” This is clearly a contradiction. Under the part about society cutting us more slack, the author mentions that the slack enables us to “job-hop.” Shortly thereafter, under cons the author lists a disadvantage as being “You might be on financially shaky grounds.” My first attempt at preparing for the future ended in nothing but confusion and discrepancies.

The excitement of my first birthday in a year was quickly wearing off. I was entering a ten-year period in which many people get married and have children, and yet I still couldn’t tell the difference between a landline and a landlord.

My priorities this decade revolve mostly around buying those golden stickers that adults put on envelopes. I think this is considerably more mature than licking the corners, regardless of how good they taste. I can feel my two decades of immaturity and sheer lack of knowledge warring with the decades to come.

When will I start feeling old? Will it be when Tik Tok makes me think of the sound a clock makes rather than a popular social media app? Do you even know what an analog clock is?

Oh no. I think it’s happening…

Ryan Meyer is a sophomore journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].