“Love is not the answer. Get your twenties out of your system. Travel. Take risks. Move around. Quit school. Go back to school. Change careers. Change religions. Change your name if you want to. Do everything you need or want to do that requires absolute freedom to act quickly and often. Travel often. Travel light. Let your dreams and aspirations be your destination, but let curiosity be your guide. Follow every side road that intrigues you. Explore. Exclaim. Don’t worry about finding your way back. The only constant is change. The only threat is baggage. The twenties are carry-on baggage days. Preferably tote bag and a toothbrush days. Love is checked baggage. Love is freight. If you fall in love too soon, and allow yourself to get in too deep, you have just tied yourself to a freight train track. This doesn’t mean love isn’t the best thing that will ever happen to you. Eventually it might be. But probably not in your twenties. Twenties love is what divorces and mid-life crises are made of. Here’s what this particular train wreck looks like: a spouse you once loved more than life, sucking the life out of you. Kids, if they’re unlucky enough to be born to this relationship, that you’ll never be able to love more than you love yourself. Kids deserve better. Spouses deserve better. You deserve better. So follow this next simple rule.”
~John Howell, 5 Things I Wish I’d Known In My 20s