Many sometimes forget how important and pivotal your 20s can actually be. With people mistakenly focusing too much on the seemingly dominant yet truly less meaningful aspects of adolescence and therefore ignoring the truly important factors in life, it often leaves them lost and completely fucked for the remainder of their existence as they know it.

Of course life is short and we have all become aware of the nonsense of sayings like “live everyday like it was your last” because if everyone actually behaved with this mentality we would have a much higher crime rate and most prostitutes around the world would be booked up in a matter of minutes. The truth of the matter is we cannot live everyday like it’s our last because there is a lot going for all of us and we all plan on living longer lives, as opposed to seeing our last days during our 20s.

The significance of this time is that everything that we do during it along with the way we truly decide to spend these 10 years will translate into our future and act as a building block for the rest of our lives. It’s one of the most valuable age groups to find yourself in because we are right in the middle of being a young and naive teenager and becoming an adult with most likely a family and a mortgage.

As many are deciding to just blow their 20s away on sex, drugs and the usual meaningless leisure they are actually doing more harm to their future rather than helping it. Here are the reasons why your 20s are incredibly crucial to your life:

Building the foundation

Everyone knows there are no short cuts in life and there are no quick ways to get rich fast. Unfortunately life doesn’t cater around your self-made schedule by granting your wishes so you can’t just wake up one morning and say “Hey, I’m going to be a billionaire without doing anything necessary to reach this goal.”  Nothing that is assertive, dominant or in control in away way lack a base or a foundation.

Everything has started somewhere and has usually had humble beginnings. Apple started in a garage, Facebook started in a Harvard dorm room, and any skyscraper you look at can be easily viewed from it’s root, being built from the ground up. The 20s are the point and time in your life where you need to build your foundation and create your base.

Think of your life as a building and this is the point where you are placing your concrete cement in the right places so that your building can be the tallest and the strongest. The values and work ethic you set a tone for will stay with you for the rest of your life. Have a innovative idea? Take a risk and try to make it happen.

This is the point of your life where you can make some bold decisions in regards to business ventures because of the little you have to worry about when it comes to consequence. The most important part of this process, however,  is for you to learn from your mistakes and see which parts of your per-conceived ideas you can actually make happen.

There is a time and place for everything

The last thing you want to be in your 20s is the person who only looks forward to getting wasted, going out and where Aoki is playing his next show. There is more to life than just what brings instant gratification on the surface and looks cool on your Facebook page.

Yes college is most definitely the time where you let loose but it is extremely vital to take notice of when college is over and it is in fact time to enter the real world, where  warm kegs and Greek t shirts will do nothing but further deplete an already-dwindling bank account.

Understand the time and place for everything and have an appropriate discipline in mind for each specific period. Within your 20s, it is what you put your energy into that will show you the paths to take. If your still worrying about your next high and your next bang at the age of 25, you have some thinking to do.

Have your priorities set and understand that the thrill of doing cocaine off a girls tit after a wild night out is doing nothing for your immediate future and will most likely send you to the clinic.

Separate church and state by considering which beliefs matter to you more, and which will still be there after the high wares off. Sacrifice time that was formerly used for play so that later you can really enjoy where you have come in life, maybe even driving fast cars and sitting on yachts. If you opt for partying your 20s away just remember while your doing so someone out there is working and getting smarter.

Networking

If you still think your undergraduate diploma is going to get you far in this world you are in for a reality check. That diploma, which came with a lot of debt and wasted time, is just as good as a high school diploma nowadays.  Your network equals your net worth and experience is where opportunity more often lies.

We live in a world where unemployment is at its highest level in years and it is no longer what you know but who you know and where you’ve been. Utilize your 20s to build relationships with those older and more successful than you. The one thing to understand is that people in higher positions love looking out for the younger ones and the fresh meat, the one’s who seem most hungry to get where they are.

Breaking through distractions

With the age of ADD and all of us being hooked on drugs, sex and alcohol there are a lot of distractions that are in our way as generation y. It is so easy to fall for any one of these traps that we encounter in our 20s, since at this youthful stage we might even be too blind to even realize it and will most likely end up in denial.

We can’t begin to tell you how many friends we have that are hooked on drugs, partying every night, being a Avicii groupie or being way too involved in a romantic relationship.

In our 20s we finally develop the mental capacity that allows us to make our own decisions because we are all mature enough to do so. Love is something to make sure you stay away from as it is one of the biggest distractions you can encounter in your 20s. Your girlfriend will be a burden rather than a tool for a prosperous future.

This isn’t high school and there is no time to sit there and hold hands. Trust us when say that when your the best at what you do, more women will flock to you.

Leave no stone unturned

We live in a competitive world, one full of savages and everyone trying to edge each other. It is all about who you want to be and how much you are willing to give to get what you really want. Your input will allow you to plant your seed and watch it flourish. Manage your time while developing all the skills necessary to the best in the field where you feel most comfortable.  Building values by taking in all of life’s lessons through your mistakes. It is all up to you.

You can’t climb the ladder of life with your hands in your pockets. Wake up and understand the time is now.

Elite.