When we were in our early twenties, most of us felt like we were officially adults, untouchable, and essentially unstoppable.
But looking back, most of us made some pretty cringy decisions when we were that age.
Redditor ALLEYWAYwithanS asked:
"What's the dumbest thing you've done in your twenties?"
Free Money
"Decided against contributing to my company's matching 401k. It cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars."
- orange_cuse
"This can't be stressed enough. If your company is matching 401k contributions, the single best thing you can do is contribute up to their match. That is an instant 100% return on your investment."
"Social Security benefits will not be enough for you to retire comfortably, and when you're over 50 it gets real tough to find work that pays more than minimum wage. Make saving a priority now. The sooner the better, because it is a cruel world for unprepared retirees."
- gishnon
Much-Needed Routines
"Everyone wants to hear about dumb stuff like driving eight hours to get with someone you liked only for it to end up being a booty call."
"However, I personally think it was my general lack of effort to build any good habits like exercise. Your body likes routines, and my routine of gaming for 15 hours a day was not one I should have cultivated."
- stormscape10x
"This is such an important one! I'm 25 and have wasted the last eight years of my life being a typical Asian young adult, focusing solely on education and career instead of doing more to take care of my fitness and mental well-being."
"My culture brainwashed me into thinking of it as a good thing to sit at my desk and study for six hours straight instead of building a good habit of eating a balanced meal and exercising every day. I'm paying for that mistake now."
- ListernerSaraf
Dental Hygiene
"Not looking after my teeth."
- pgraczer
"Second best time is now! Start taking care of them and get into the dentist, a dental school even for free cleaning and check-ups."
- Weazy-N420
"I'm still playing catchup. I let my teeth go in college and didn't get them looked at until after I finished AIT in 2020. I had them in a good spot for a while, deployment in 2022 f**ked them up again though. It's so godd**n hard to fix your teeth once they're on the downward slide."
- MonsieurLinc
"I have weak teeth, too. That's not a reason to give up, it's just a reason to absolutely lock down your routine. You'll save yourself a lot of time, money, and pain!"
"Here's what I do:"
"I only eat two times per day (intermittent fasting is not for everyone but it's great for limiting acid exposure on your teeth). And don't drink anything sugary. If you have to, do it while you're eating and not between meals."
"Swish with water and/or mouthwash immediately after meals/drinks."
"Wait 30 minutes before brushing. Your enamel is softest directly after eating so brushing too soon can be harmful."
"Get really good toothpaste with fluoride or hydroxyapatite for remineralization. Your dentist can give you a prescription high-fluoride toothpaste."
"Do your brushing routine in this order: floss, then mouthwash, then brush. Use a soft-bristled toothbrush and don't scrub too hard. Don't rinse after brushing so the fluoride can stay on your teeth and do its work."
"Get a tongue scraper and do that once in a while too."
"If you're away from home (work, friend's house, driving, etc) and don't have a toothbrush, xylitol gum is great for a quick cleaning and breath freshening. Xylitol helps kill plaque-causing bacteria because they think it's sugar."
"Might seem like a lot but it's worth it! My mouth always feels clean and I get compliments from hygienists."
- pmvegetables
Deep Burnout
"I worked way too hard and burnt out. Sacrificed family time. Sacrificed health. Need to pace yourself at the age of 20-30."
- big-bad-bird
"This is me right now. 29 and totally burned out. I refused to pace myself even with my chronic illness, I refused to address my traumas because 'I am a functional member of society so why would I seek a therapist,' and I refused to say no to things because I was afraid people would dislike me."
"Last year, I slowly started collapsing under all that. Things I repressed wouldn't stay repressed and because of nightmares, I had constant panic attacks when I got home from work and eventually bordered on agoraphobia where I would try and flee the grocery store because 'everyone can see you are feeling unwell and is judging you' and started making excuses to work from home because the office would overwhelm me."
"I really wish I started addressing stuff sooner. I tire so easily now and am constantly anxious about not being productive enough now that I'm at home. Which is super counterproductive when your body is saying, 'Yo, slow down. Please go find a nice hobby and relax.'"
- Melvarkie
Chasing Love
"Begged to be loved."
- SystemNovel7112
"I’m still in my early twenties and I feel like this is what I’ve been doing. The worst part is that other people are good at detecting desperation so they move away from you, which just hurts more."
- Jakov_Salinsky
Roommate Status
"I moved in with a girlfriend before finding out more about her preferences. We had been dating for a year but I didn’t realize how much of a problem she had sharing until we lived together."
"We lived together for five years and never shared a bedroom, had everything split down the middle, including the pantry and fridge. Even when it came to spices, she insisted on me getting my own. She hated it when I would be in the same room as her unless it was on 'her terms.'"
"Whenever I asked to make our relationship more of a shared experience, I was gaslit into believing I was wrong for not allowing boundaries. She moved out a month ago, and I couldn’t believe how quickly my mental health improved simply by not having that toxic influence around anymore."
- Char10
Sobering Up
"Fell into a debilitating drug addiction. I have 26 months sober on the fifth!"
- pumpe88
Motorcycle Insurance
"I took a $12k loan to buy a motorcycle. I didn’t want to pay for comprehensive insurance, and the bike got stolen four months later."
- toyotasquad
Mental Health Assistance
"Not getting help for my depression sooner. Spent the entire first half of my 20s in the darkest place I can imagine, and all I needed to feel better was some meds once a day."
- badgirlkayy
Lackluster Love
"I got into a half-hearted relationship and wasted three years of my life."
- plutorollsvanillaice
Receiving an Education
"Not studying properly."
"At the time, studying for two to seven years seemed like a lifetime, but now at 30, I wish I had done it. Don't have the money or flexibility to do it now."
- MarmateW
Early Alcoholism
"I drank my way through my entire 20s. After 25, it wasn't really fun anymore, but that didn't stop me. I drank for another five years."
"My 20s are a total blur splattered with some fun times here and there. But mostly it was just me running away from things with alcohol."
"Almost 17 years later and not one drop. My 30s and 40s are exceptionally better."
- Blackbeltchicken
#GolfCartLife
"I crashed a golf cart at 29. I was so f**ked up with road rash, both ankles were rolled and f**ked up, and one Achilles was messed up pretty bad."
"It took two years for one ankle to feel normal again. I still have a bunch of scarring. I have never f**ked myself up so badly before. The road rash and treating it all over my body was one of the most painful things I’ve ever dealt with."
"I am so careful in those things now and honestly just everything in general. I'm lucky I didn’t hit my head."
- ochief19
...But How?
"I went to Italy and forgot to eat pizza."
"I still can't believe that happened. I had pasta there, gelato, took some amazing photos, explored a lot, and when I came back, I was like, I missed something?"
"Then I was like, 'F**K! I forgot to eat pizza, IN ITALY!' LOL (laughing out loud)."
- TheStraightishGuy
An Unexpected Life
"I remember when I was that age and desperately wanting the kind of job you work for the same place your whole life. Instead, I was in a dead-end job, working the third shift, going to school, and worrying constantly about what I was going to do with my life. I was lost and without any real direction."
"20-some years later, I still don’t have many traditional accomplishments. I’m a stay-at-home dad, and I was diagnosed with Crohn's at 21/22, so that ended school."
"All the things I thought I’d need to get through life, I don’t have."
"What I DO have is a wide array of experiences. I’ve worked in retail for decades, childcare/teaching/mentoring/etc., had kids for almost as long, worked on a shrimp boat, and tree farms, I’ve seen and been around every state except for Alaska."
" I know a ton of people and I’m generally on good terms with them, I’m healthy enough to exercise every day, I have a loving family, and all our basic needs are met. I’m still directionless but I’m no longer lost."
"Anyone else out there feeing like I did, just do the best you can with what you’ve got. Never stop trying to be better, and if you need to, just point in a direction and go that way."
"If you need a degree but you don’t know what you want, just pick something you think you’ll like. Some jobs that need a college degree mean they need someone with a Bachelor's degree."
- altxatu
When we think of mistakes made in our twenties, we might think of dating mishaps and drinking or partying too much.
But the reality is that the mistakes made in our twenties are far more serious, like creating routines that help us take care of ourselves or completing tasks that will help us reach our dreams.
Fortunately, we're young in our twenties, and we have a lot of time to come back from those mistakes.
It's also never too late to commit to doing better right now.
People Explain How They Were Blown Away By Their Own Stupidity
Most of us try pretty hard to make the smart choices in life, but every once in a while our brains let us down.
Sometimes quite spectacularly.
Reddit user ColoTinMan asked:
"When were you blown away by your own stupidity?"
20.
One time I was out in the rain and I was really cold and my fingers were icy, but my feet were warm in their socks. I said, with so much confidence, "Man I really wish they made socks for your hands."
The look on my friends face was priceless. "Do you mean, gloves?" I was astonished.
19.
I walked around my apartment talking to my mom on the phone and continued getting more and more frustrated. My mom noticed and asked what was wrong and I said "I just can't seem to find my phone!".
It kicked in about 5 seconds later.
18.
The first time my husband took me to a fancy restaurant. I grew up on the U.S. / Mexico border so I'm used to the word "con" being "with" in food. Chile con carne, arroz con pollo...you get the drift.Husband takes me to a fancy restaurant when we're still dating (and I'm poor AF so prior to this for me fancy was Olive Garden). I pick something out for dinner and he says "Do you want an appetizer?" I said "I don't care, you pick one I've got to run to the restroom."
I come back and sit down and he says, "I ordered the duck con feet pastry appetizer."
All I can picture is the end of A Christmas Story with the goose with its head still on being served at dinner. I'm kind of horrified but don't say anything. But I'm expecting us to be handed a duck with the feet still attached.So the appetizer comes and it's these little pastry cups with cubes of (I presume) chopped up duck inside and I look at him and say, "So are the feet in there too?"
Yeeeeeah....It's duck confit. Not duck con feet. And I'm never living that down.
17.
I legitimately forgot the word "piano" a few years ago.
I was trying to describe a situation to someone, and I blanked. I tried to remember, but I kept saying "panio" instead. They corrected me and it all just fell into place in my head.
Weirdest sensation of my life, I don't know how to describe it. Felt hella dumb afterwards.
15.
I am old as you will see. When we first got personal computers in the Accounting Department, we had 100 employees and only 3 personal computers to share. Since we were all new to personal computers, we weren't so careful about backups yet.
I was re-formatting diskette. I used the DOS command "DEL star.star" I was on the C: Drive. I erased the work of hundreds of files from dozens of people, none of whom had backed up. Worst day ever.
13.
I got in my car after class one day and there was a note that said "you left your keys in car, and car on. Please be careful"
Luckily they turned it off for me and left the keys on the seat
12.
11.
I once was cooking mac and cheese and started squeezing the cheese sauce in before draining the water. When I realized the mistake I grabbed the cheese sauce with my hands and that just made everything worse in every way
10.
I live in a big city and used to own a car (have since sold it) and one night a friend was getting married pretty close to my apartment. There was a small pre-game going on on the other side of the city so I drove down to meet up with everyone and was going to just drive back to my place with everyone in my car, park it back at my apartment, then we'd all just walk down to the ceremony together.
We ended up running a bit late and there were more people than could fit in my car so we just grabbed an Uber so we wouldn't have to wait for parking. I left my car by my friends house in 2 hour parking but that ended like 30 minutes after I parked and didn't apply on Sunday, which was the next day.
Fast forward to 2 weeks later, since I usually walk to work and never had to use my car, I usually needed a minute to remember where it was parked when I needed it. After looking for it for around 5 minutes it hit me.
Conclusion, and TLDR: I left my car in TWO HOUR PARKING TWO WEEKS AGO.
9.
I live in Florida. During the 2004 hurricanes we lost power, so all the neighbors got together for a little cookout, so we could share and cook the food so it didn't go to waste.
It was starting to get dark, so I pointedly asked why no one had turned on the porch light. Every single one of them looked at me as if I were stupid. Then it hit me, oh, there's a reason why we can't turn on the porch light.
8.
During the holidays I walked through an arts & crafts store trying to find something very specific. After finding out they didn't have it I got in a long line to check out. It didn't hit me that I didn't have anything to buy until it was my turn. I just walked past the cashier, waved, and said, "have a nice day". It was night. FML
7.
I brewed an entire pot of hot coffee. Without the coffee pot. Took a long time to clean up that mess. I needed caffeine badly, so I brewed another pot. Again, I forgot to put the damn coffee pot under the drip.
Giphy6.
In high school, I woke up on a day where very icy weather was expected and couldn't find school closings on tv. I begrudgingly got ready for school, stepped out my front door, and immediately slipped on ice landing flat on my back. Got up, shook it off, and cursed the school for not being closed.
I had to crawl my way up a hill to the bus stop because I kept slipping down ice on the way there. Got to the bus stop and waited over half an hour for it to get there. Checked my watch repeatedly getting more and more angry each time. Finally decide that they must have cancelled school and slowly make it back home. Where I see a clock. It was now 2:30 am.
Checked. My. Watch. Repeatedly.
5.
I uninstalled wireless drivers on a computer I was working on remotely.
huh it just went offline... Wait sh*t I'm an idiot.
I've accidentally shutdown several remote servers instead of rebooting. Calling the data center to hit the power button always makes me feel like an idiot.
4.
I recently went to pick up an order of glasses. The optician asked me to try them on, to see if they fit well.
I told him this must be someone else's order, because everything was blurry!! He was surprised and started hunting through boxes, and I kept squinting and looking around at blurry shapes. We did this for 10 minutes before the optometrist walked in. He explained the issue and the optometrist paused and asked where I put the glasses I was wearing when I walked in. I said I was wearing contacts.
GiphyI was wearing contacts.
And I put the new glasses over my contacts.
I asked the optometrist if this gave me double the perfect vision and she replied, "if you mean double vision, sure."
3.
Birthday is March 12th.
In high school I saw that my birthday was going to fall on a Thursday. So I was like "oh wow, Thursday the 12th"
I proceeded to scan the next couple of decades on my iPod touch calendar to find out if my birthday would ever fall on Friday the 13th
To those curious, no, my March 12th bday doesn't ever fall on Friday the 13th lol
Not my proudest moments, not my worst :)
1.
In school one day my friend had a pen that lit up when you pressed it to paper or if you flicked a switch on the pen the lights would flash. He kept turning it on and waving it at me. This annoyed me so I took the batteries out in front of him. He stared at me for a second before trying to get the batteries back. In the midst of the struggle I decided the best way to stop him from getting them, so I popped them in my mouth, then proceeded to swallow them. My friend returned to staring at me, but with a panicked look on his face. I didn't think anything of it at first, but eventually I realised that I shouldn't have done that. I started feeling weird. I held my hand up and asked my teacher if I could go to the nurses office. Sceptical, she asked me why. I told her I had just eaten three small batteries and was feeling weird.
She stared in disbelief, I think, for a second, then told the class that she'll return in a moment and immediately seized my hand and practically dragged me along, sprinting to the nurses office. She threw me into the nurses office and screamed "he's f**king swallowed batteries!" The nurse jumped up out of her chair, "oh my god, oh sh*t, I'll ring the NHS and find out what we need to do", I immediately felt like the stupidest idiot alive, I asked if I was going to be okay, my teacher looked at me and smiled the fakest smile I've ever seen in my life, "of course you are boy".
Long story short, I had to be taken to A&E and had to be x-ray'd to see where the batteries were. They had reached my stomach, so I was at risk of the stomach acid melting the metal coating and the battery acid entering my stomach. I was given laxatives and a sieve, and kept overnight, of which I spent 75% of this sifting through my sludgy bowel movements like some crazed Wild West miner scouring for gold. Eventually found them and I've lived happily ever after since, thankfully.
I wish I still had them, a trophy, of the stupidest I've ever been.
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People Share The Things They Couldn't Believe They Actually Had To Explain To Someone
There are just facts in life that are a given. At least that is what most of us believe. Right? By the time we're in high school we know 1+1=4... KIDDING... it equals 2. But you'd be surprised how many people believe it's 4. And not necessarily that math but a different life equation to it. The Earth is round, the sky is blue, Adele is a God. All life information that shouldn't require repeating.
Redditor u/waldo06 wanted to know information they had to discuss over and over again for some reason by asking.... What's something you can't believe you had to explain to another adult?
"the one that is always hot."
GiphyIn regards to the North and South poles, neither is "the one that is always hot."
mizboring
I guess they were thinking about the equator.
Cometstarlight
100% Fishy...
Was tipped a twenty dollar bill to be spilt between myself and a coworker. I handed her $10 I had in my pocket and took the $20. She said it wasn't fair that I had $20 and she only had $10. I tried to explain to her that I already had the $10, so another $10 equalled $20. She couldn't wrap her head around it, insisting I was trying to rip her off.
She gave me back the ten bucks, took the twenty to a register and made change of two 10 dollar bills. As she hands me mine I showed her that now I still have $20 and she has $10, but somehow she was satisfied she'd thwarted my attempts to short change her. Needless to say I didn't stay friends with her after that.
This is made all the more ridiculous by the fact that she had once told me she was forced to repeat grade 12 math class because she got 100%, and the teacher accused her of cheating. The following year she got 98%. I'm thinking something fishy is going on there.
camleep
Call Geico...
Yes sir, when you sign up for insurance you're agreeing to pay for it.
Emperor_Cartagia
I guess technically you only agree to make sure that the insurance company gets their money; they don't actually care if you pay it.
teh_maxh
"CAMO"
That no matter how much you might want to put a camo pattern on your walls, you (not the paint) have to determine what that pattern looks like and you will also have to purchase multiple cans of paint tinted differently because "camo" doesn't come out of a can that way.
MeddlingDragon
Spicy People....
GiphyI once had to explain to a college friend that Indians didn't have spices running in their blood that allows them to eat spicier food.
barackandrollband
2019!
I had to explain to my friend that the earth wasn't 2019 years old.
Antares25
Happy birthday to the ground!
hakoMike
No Cezmate....
That Earth has one moon. The new moon on the calendar every month confused her.
Frugal_Midwestern
It seems that a lot of people have confusion when it comes to the Moon!
I used to be a Primary School Teacher. We were planning our unit on Space, so talking about planets, moons and stars etc. Two colleagues of mine (other teachers in their mid 30s, I was early 20s at that point) got really confused when I explained to them the Moon wasn't a star, that it was a moon. They paused, looked at each other for a second and just said, 'No, that's just it's name, it's actually a star.' I tried explaining the difference but they were on the senior management team and because I was younger and more junior assumed they knew better.
cezmate
Pickle Seeds....
Had to explain to my wife that pickles were made of cucumbers. She didn't believe me, still not sure she does.
Brownale78
Ask her if she can buy you some pickle seeds... you want to grow some next spring. 😁
atlantacontractor
"you only have to drill through sand."
That oil isn't easier to get in the Middle East because "you only have to drill through sand."
hakoMike
I don't know too much about the drilling end of things, and even less about the specifics over seas; but your friend might have a very slight point on one small aspect of exploration and drilling.
roastbeeftacohat
Know your food....
GiphyI had to explain to my mother that muscles are meat.
A piece of meat was tough, and so I must have said something about what part of the cow the muscle came from. No, we weren't eating muscles, we were eating 'meat'. She was sickened by the concept that anyone would eat muscles. Somehow this got to the point of her claiming that humans didn't have any 'meat' on them because they aren't food.
I did not 'win' that argument. Humans have no meat, meat is not muscles. Period. Oh, it turns out people are not part of the animal kingdom either.
It was a dismal childhood.
jtclimb
Escape Rooms are essentially those early 90s point-and-click computer games come to life. You need to possess innovation, creativity, and a lot of ingenuity to find your way out. There are only so many different ways you can figure out how to get that obviously fake phone open so you can retrieve key #3 of 14. Unfortunately, not every idea is a good idea, and many can lead to disaster.
Reddit user, u/RelevantDonkey, wanted to hear:
Redditors who've worked in escape rooms, what's the stupidest thing a person has done trying to solve the puzzle?
What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen in an escape room? Let us know!
Lawyers Reveal The Moment They Knew They Would Win Their Case
Lawyers definitely don't have the easiest jobs in the world: years of school, followed by hours of studying case law in preparation for every new case sounds exhausting. Sometimes the other party makes a major mistake, and the job gets a whole lot easier, though.
Reddit user u/Apsurdista asked:
"Lawyers of reddit what was your "Oh i'm definitely winning this one" moment?"
Some responses have been edited for content, clarity, or profanity.