461. 10 things I NEEDED 21 year old me to know

0:05 Hello everybody, I'm Gemma Speck and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast and thank you for tuning in. as we break down another episode on the psychology of our 20s. So this is more of a personal episode. I guess there's been something on my mind recently or something I've been really contemplating in the last few months is that I've spent my entire 20s essentially recording my life and kind of bringing you guys on this journey with me over the past five to six years and I've recorded nearly everything that has

1:01 happened to me, every experience that I've had, all my life lessons since I was 20, 21. And last week, I had the privilege now of being able to listen back to these episodes. And I listened back to an episode I made right at the beginning in December 2021, the first year I was making this podcast. And I recorded this episode titled The Psychology of Big Life Changes.

1:25 At the time, I was just about to move to Sydney. I had just graduated university. I was heartbroken. I didn't know what I was doing. Did I have a job? I don't know. I don't think I did. And there was so much advice that I wanted to give this version of myself as I listened to this episode. And it really got me thinking, what advice would 31, 32, 33-year-old Gemma have for me now during this chapter? There's just so much that doesn't become apparent until you've lived through something. And I cannot tell what 32-year-old me is thinking of this episode or any of the other episodes that I make, but I do know what I would have told my younger self at the time listening back to that episode. And as I thought about it more,

2:10 I thought it would make a really interesting topic and a really interesting kind of exercise to think. If I was going to tell her, you know, five, six, seven things, what would they be? What would I scream at her? And I guess also, what would I tell you guys? So if somebody who's a to this episode, who's in their early twenties about how to make the most of like this next chapter in their life. I made so many mistakes in my early twenties. And if I'm being honest, I would do about 90% of them again. And then there are some that I wouldn't do. This list contains a bit of a mixture. It contains all these things that I really think were the biggest lessons I took from this time in my life that was just chaos.

2:56 And there was nothing really that I could hold on to. And yet I've made it through. And this, I don't know if I would call it wisdom, this loose wisdom that I have is kind of all I had to show for it. And I just wanted to share those lessons with you. And also I wanted to hear perhaps what you guys would say to your younger selves. If there was something that you could literally grab younger you by the shoulders and be like, just listen to me.

3:21 I'm from the future. Don't do this, do that. please think differently about this experience. What would it be? Here is my list. Feel free to share your own. Without further ado, let's get into it. Let's start off with number one. These days, you guys know I am in like the most amazing relationship. I love my boyfriend. I kind of understand all those like funny sayings people used to have in movies where they would be like, you know, he's my best friend and like I fall in love more every single day and like that idea of like puppy love, like I get it. And it genuinely it's gag worthy sometimes, I'm sorry, but he truly is like the, just the best. He's so principled. He's so funny. He's the best person I know. Now, before this relationship, I

4:08 had some shockers. If you've listened to me for a while, you'll know that I documented them on this very podcast. And the biggest thing I took away from it, and the first thing my 21-year-old self would be hearing from me and would be getting an earful about if I could talk to her right now, would be that the right person will never force you to compromise your friends. Period, full stop, never, ever, ever. They will never make you choose between them or me. And the right relationship should never put you in a position where you are willing to go against your deeply held loyalties and and your deeply held bonds with these people for a man, a woman, or a romantic relationship. Now, this is a lesson I learned.

4:52 I learned it way too late. And it's part of those rare 10% of mistakes I would not make again, and I would choose to do differently if I could and if I knew better. Now, does that mean your partner has to become best friends with all your best friends? No. That's obviously nice. You would hope they would get along.

5:09 I don't think that's necessary. I don't think that they need to be buddy, buddy, buddy. But What they shouldn't be doing is getting in your ear and bad-mouthing these people and judging you for spending time with them or using manipulative tactics, so guilt or shame or the silent treatment, to get you to prioritize them and them only. And I don't think they should be in your ear saying nasty things about these people, and you certainly shouldn't be listening.

5:36 I think it's also true that they say that the right person should bring out the best in you, and that's not the best if they make you or turn you against your friend. Friends, plural. There is this idea in psychology known as the self-expansion theory of love. It was coined by Arthur and Elaine Aron in the 1980s.

5:54 And it essentially says being in love is a pathway to personal expansion. One of many pathways, but a pathway because the best aspects of somebody else get incorporated into our own self-concept and that results in deeper self-knowledge. Yeah, there were a lot of relationships that did the opposite. They did not expand me. They shrunk me. They made my world smaller. They made me hate myself. And a lot of that came down to the influence they had on my friendships and the friendships that they caused me to lose because they wanted me to prioritize them. So younger Gemma, listen to me right now. Run as far away from these people as you can and as soon as possible. So that's number one. That's the first thing

6:36 she would be hearing from me about. Second... please do not try and play house with somebody before it is your time. Again, another love-based one, but why in the world did I contemplate or even think for a second that moving in with my boyfriend at 21 was going to be a good idea? Why did I seriously think? Yeah, I think it's totally about time that I start settling down.

7:02 This man is totally my forever. This seems comfortable. This feels like the right adult step. Why did I think that? I have a lot of grace for that version of me. I think a lot of us feel drawn towards this kind of move because we kind of want to appear older than we are, especially in our early twenties. And we particularly want people around us, adults, to take us seriously and to see our relationships as important. So one way that we do that is that we mimic what we see or saw them doing or what we think is socially correct. And we try and force these adult moves too soon. You know, there is this deep social conditioning that Your life begins when you find a partner and you move in with that person and you fall

7:43 in love with that person and you are forever now and you are this partnership. You and them are not separated. But I really do believe that the ability to have independent experiences before you make this move is insanely, insanely important. I'm a firm believer that everything has its time and you really do have to focus and appreciate the chapter you are in right now rather than speeding towards the next milestone faster than you need to get there. If you're 21 and there is no legitimate or legal or important reason for you to move in with your partner, do not do it. Don't do it. I had a friend who moved in with somebody when she was 18.

8:27 They got a mortgage and they got a cat and when they broke up, she was 26. And it's one of those typical things where, I don't know if you've noticed this, I'm sure you have, where like after two people break up, suddenly like all the problems and difficulties they were having the entire time, like come out into the open. And she kind of admitted, you know, I, at 18, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to be with this person forever, but playing house and having this kind of domestic bliss relationship was something that I imagined for myself since I was a kid. And it felt fun at the time. And then soon I realized that this, I was in too deep. Another thing she mentioned to me, and this has stuck in my brain since she said

9:05 it is that, you know, it was like she had skipped an entire developmental period of her life. An entire chapter in her life was done. Everybody else was able to have these solo experiences and they were able to have the opportunity to live in a share house by themselves with their friends and make those really deep memories with people. They lived in different states to their partner or a different city and they lived by themselves. She was now coming into these experiences at a time when a lot of her friends had already had them and kind of felt like they had gotten what they needed from it, right? When they broke up, we were 26, 27, and she was like, well, a lot of my friends don't live in share houses anymore. A lot of them

9:51 don't do these things. So if you have the opportunity to live alone, especially if you have the opportunity to live with people that you care about and friends and to have those like solo fun, independent experiences, please, please do it. Walking around Ikea, cooking dinner together, looking at apartments.

10:12 It's really fun and it's really romantic and it's really cute, but like it's not for now. And if you wait for those things, I think it makes it a lot sweeter. I also think this links to a bigger message that I would say to 21-year-old me, which is just don't rush into adulthood earlier than you need to. Adulthood is going to hit you face. It's coming. It's not going to wait. It's going to catch up. You're going to get there eventually if you have the privilege of aging and growing up. Eventually, things like moving out on your own or moving in with a partner or having this like kind of domestic relationship with somebody or with yourself like it will happen you don't need to be doing that prematurely and kind of turning like the metaphorical tap

11:00 off of all these other experiences that have a time and a place often before you do those things and it's not to say that like my path was the path you should take and it's not to say that if this worked for you that you should go back on your decision but from myself to myself from Me at this age, to me at 21, I would say the thing you are contemplating, do not do it. Really enjoy this time where, yes, you are attached, but you're also unattached. Okay, let's move away from the romantic things for now and onto some more practical matters like money.

11:37 What would I say to my 21-year-old self about money? If you are in your early 20s right now, all the way at the back, please listen up. your savings account should not just be decorative. And it should not be something you just put money into and then take out again. If you are doing that regularly, so not in emergencies and not for serious need-based reasons, you are putting too much money in your savings account. And I actually think you would be better off putting less in if that means you are better able to separate kind of like church money and stay in your mind. If you are able to psychologically separate money that you can spend and money that you have saved and that cannot be touched, that is so much better than putting heaps

12:24 of money in your savings account and then taking it out. I'm going to confess, I did not have a proper savings account until I'm going to say my early mid-20s because I was such a financial avoidant. Financial avoidant is a term I learned from a 2024 paper that was honestly incredibly eye-opening to me about our money attachment style.

12:47 And it kind of laid out some of the different ways that we mentally approach and we mentally represent our relationship with money. Money has always made me anxious. I remember being so fixated on how my parents made money as a kid and whether they were going to go bankrupt because I was doing all these music classes and whether things I was asking for were too expensive. They never gave me a reason to worry about that. I was just like that. I was so anxious about money.

13:15 I was always really anxious about how did celebrities and public figures make money? Were they okay? What if they weren't working? How did they pay their rent? I was so invested in where are they getting their money from? What's this person's net worth? Are they stressed about money? Are they surviving? How do they afford these lavish lifestyles?

13:33 And it honestly just felt like money was something that only ever caused stress and anxiety and deprivation. And so The easiest way to emotionally kind of take care of that was just to ignore it. I would just ignore it. That has set me back. I can admit that now. If 21-year-old me had just put $ 25 a week into her savings account, I would have made, I would have had a 5k emergency fund by now. That's great. I would have loved to have $ 5, 000 for an emergency fund.

14:04 I saw an interview with Anna Halford the way I think it was the other day where she said, And I really liked what she said. She said, it's not cute to be financially illiterate. And I wish I could drill that into the mind of younger me. A head in sand approach is not a healthy or helpful approach. And your future self is not going to be very grateful that you've done that. So heed my warnings, get a savings account, dealer's choice, have some kind of understanding about money and how it works. And you set yourself up for life, or at least for the rest of your 20s. at least for the next couple of years. Okay, let's take a short break here. When we return, let's talk about, what have I got on this list? The

14:47 risks you should take compared to those you definitely shouldn't. Oh, and my thoughts on grades. Should we worry about our grades or not? I'll be right back. So these next three points are all around risk. Actually, they're all around like how to create more luck and more opportunity in our lives. At 21, I had, I think, a very traditional and widely held idea of like what made somebody successful and what earned, in quotation marks, success. This was primarily in my mind, just hard work and following as specifically as possible the capital P plan. The capital P plan is one that you've probably followed as well. or at least you've been informed of, which sounds something like this.

15:39 High school, study hard, do as many extracurriculars as possible. University or college, get into a good one, get into a good college, continue to study hard. Internships, networking, summers working. Post-college, get a prestigious job, continue to work hard, 12 hours a day, move up the corporate ladder. This is your guarantee that you're going to be happy. I'm going to be honest, that worked for me for a while, but there is something beyond this system that I think is much more helpful and much more fulfilling. And that is A, pure audacity and B, a strive to fail approach. 21 year old me had a great plan. She had a good plan. She was doing okay. But what really shifted things in my life was realizing how many people who

16:27 were much less qualified than me probably worked a lot less hard than me, definitely spent less time planning and ruminating, achieved things that I really wanted for myself because they just asked for them and they just did stuff. They didn't just like sit around planning. They just like actually went after it. It should be your mission if you are in your 20s, early 20s, to appreciate the remarkable gift of being able to fail continuously for years and years and years and years and still end up exactly where you need to be. That is the gift of our early 20s. And that's the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is that you fail and you fail and you fail and then maybe you win. But the majority of the time that you actually just win a

17:12 lot earlier and a lot more than you think, a lot of the time trying does not result in failure. It actually results in you know, some degree of success, some essential pivot or connection or opportunity. So number one, something I'd say to my 21 year old self, shoot all your shots. Do not just like leave the ball sitting there. And number two, trust in the serendipity of things.

17:34 Younger me was so terrified and worried about how her life was going to turn out because she only had one formula. She only had the capital P plan and she only had like one narrow vision of like what a life that worked out would look like. What I wish you would knew was that a lot of life is a surprise and a lot of success and fulfillment is an accident. And also a lot of those accidents take a while to come to fruition. Like a lot of those serendipitous moments, you only realize a little while later.

18:07 For example, when I was 19, I took a random international political economy elective where In that course, you had to make a podcast. That was an assignment, make a podcast about a political event. Had I not done that, a year or two years later, I wouldn't have known how to do any editing or recording or scripting that allowed me to do what I'm doing now. I don't even remember what that first podcast was about, but it serendipitously set me up for the career that I now have.

18:40 That's insane to me sometimes to think about it. Another example is a random person I met at a party when I was 18 was a big reason why I moved to London seven years later. And if I hadn't met that person, would I have made that move? Maybe not. Probably not, to be honest. One more example here, because I really do believe in the power of serendipity. I had this discussion with somebody months ago about how we need to make research more accessible. And we were talking about it. That became like my study of the week series.

19:15 It's like huge on Substack. Even like I changed my major to psychology at the last minute when I was like 18. And that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had one specific class that I loved. Like all these things, serendipity has helped me in equal measure to hard work. And one of the biggest ways to increase your likelihood of encountering serendipity is to simply just like do more things.

19:41 and to get outside more and to talk to more people and to increase your surface area for that serendipity and that luck to kind of hit you. Okay, so this is point number five. I think we're up to number five. By this stage, I'm hoping younger Gemma was taking notes, but she probably wasn't. However, younger Gemma, stop spending all your Thursday and Friday nights inside and drinking.

20:07 Allow yourself to be inconvenienced by people and inconvenienced by plans and get outside of your house. Your life is not going to change or evolve or do anything if you don't move and you don't get out of your home. My point above about talking to more people in particular is really important here. And it's essentially a less corporate way of saying your network is what makes you. And the only way to create a network is to not be at home. You know, when people would say to me when I was younger, like your network is the most important thing for your career. If I'm being honest, I was like, I don't understand that and I don't really care. But over time, I've really witnessed repeatedly how the greatest catalyst for my job, for my life, for

20:54 my personal life, for my career have not been job applications. It hasn't been anything formal. The biggest pivots in my life have been relationships. You know, for example, people who have spoken highly of me in rooms that I'm not in or have heard about an opportunity and thought, Gemma might be good for that and told me. Literally last month, I had a chance to do a live podcast recording in the tallest building in London because somebody pulled out last minute and the person who was hosting this event, I just happened to have been speaking to the week before.

21:30 We had a relationship. That's literally it. That opportunity was never going to be advertised. There was not going to be any formal procedure for that. Having those relationships because I got out of my home is what made that happen. And I don't want this to come across as bragging, especially like being like, I was doing this cool thing.

21:46 But I also want it to come off as like evidence. Like this is, I want this to be a convincing argument for why you should be doing the following things. When you get invited to things, go. Even if you leave after 30 minutes, go. If there is some kind of live show, networking event, talk, anything you're interested in, be there. go to that thing. Do not expect your life to change from your bedroom as I truly believed it could at that age. At 21, I wasn't doing nearly enough and I feel like I would have had more opportunities if I had. Additionally, and I'm going to treat this as a separate point, do not let drinking be your only form of socialization. I was saying this to a friend the other day. What was I saying?

22:29 I basically was saying to them, going out for drinks is so boring. It's so boring. Like you sit around, you spend $ 40. And unless like you're going somewhere, you just rehash the same stories. And somebody's probably heard the story before. And somebody, the person telling it's already lived the story, especially in my early twenties, like every activity had to have some kind of alcohol involved. And it's just a social crutch. And it actually doesn't help you create as many memories. So take a break from it for a second, give your liver a break for starters, for your health, And actually engage with people in a way that builds shared experiences. Because a lot of my stories back then started with like, oh, well, we were

23:07 drunk that one night. Or like, remember that time we went and did this? And like, remember when we were drunk doing that? Remember when we were drinking at home? Don't get me wrong. I love a wine. I love a gossip. But did I like it enough to be doing it four to five times a week and then actually not even going anywhere? Probably not. And I wished that at 21, I'd gone outside I'd explored, I'd experienced more.

23:31 I think I also wish I'd gotten into nature and gotten a few more hobbies that didn't just revolve around drinking. And I will give myself some grace, like it was lockdown when this was happening, so there wasn't as much to be done. I probably should have mentioned that at the beginning. But even so, like where I was living, we didn't have a serious lockdown. There was heaps of stuff that I could have been doing. Like I could have been out in nature. I And I do think it's a rite of passage in our early 20s for drinking to be this problem, or at least this thing that we're very fixated on. 21-year-old me, give it a rest.

24:07 Give it a little rest for a while. I want to return to an earlier point here for a second. I've got my little notes up with my points. Before we get into the final break, I spoke earlier about this idea of the capital P plan. And one of the biggest components of that plan, as you may have noticed, was study. Now, a little bit later, we're going to dive into some of the advice that you, the listeners, would have for your 21-year-old selves and people who are in their early 20s. We're going to get to that.

24:40 But one thing that came up a lot and which was quite interesting was this split. Half of the time people mentioned grades, they said, care less about grades. And the other half of the time people said, care more and invest more. I'm going to give my opinion. If younger me was to ask current me, who should I side with? I'm going to side with teen care less.

25:06 My life at 21 was home, study, study, study, drink with friends, sleep, study, study, study, home, drink with friends, and study some more. And it's hard at that age to not be preoccupied with grades because it feels like one of life's few guaranteed promises. There seems to be a direct correlate between input and output. It is a safe investment to emphasize study. If you get good grades, something's going to come to you. There's going to be some kind of reward. Now, these days, can I tell you in all seriousness what good grades got me? It kind of got me very little. I can't remember the last time somebody asked to see my GPA. I couldn't tell you a single score that I received on an exam or an essay. None of it. You know, I

25:58 was in a grad cohort of people much smarter than me, who had a lot more fun than I had, and had gotten much worse grades, and yet here we were in the same place. Like, grades unlock very specific opportunities. I understand that. So if you're trying to get into med school or law school or a specific program, feel free to disregard this. However, in general, A good grade, I have learned, can be supplemented by life experience and it can be supplemented by that aforementioned like audacity or entrepreneurial spirit in my mind or just experiences. Additionally, like say you didn't get good grades and you feel like that's limited your opportunities and you feel like it's held you back. Very few people end their working life with

26:46 the job that they began with. The memory of grades and the memory of GPAs and test scores, you will realize that fades extremely quickly when you enter the workplace. And I think that's really important to inform you of, especially if you're still in uni or school and you're quite fixated on it or you're feeling very demoralized by a bad term or a bad semester. I'm going to give you a Jemma Spegg psychology of your 20s promise right here, right now. Your future boss will not care about what your grades are if you work hard and you're nice to work with, and you show some enthusiasm.

27:25 Very quickly, it becomes something nobody talks about. Okay, I feel like I've done, I think I've done six lessons, six things that I would really tell my younger self. I wanted to hear from you guys. What did you have to say? What were your points about this? And I collected some of them, put them into a little list.

27:46 Let's talk about them after this short break. So as I said, in thinking about this episode, I knew I also wanted to hear from you guys. I am just one person. These are the lessons that I'd impress on my younger self. And they may not be the lessons that your younger self needed or would resonate with. These lessons, these things that I would scream at her, they are based on a very narrow life perspective, i.e. the life of one person. So I wanted to hear your collective wisdom as well. We had over a thousand responses, a lot of responses, and it was difficult to kind of siphon them down. But here is a curated selection of my favorites. What would you, the listeners, scream, shout, yell, grab, impress on your younger selves? Number one, don't hang out

28:47 with people you don't want to be like. I will say there is psychological evidence for this one. Behavioral and emotional contagion is a real thing, a very real phenomena, and the attitudes and personalities of those around you is going to have an effect on your own attitude and personality. So if you don't admire and respect the people in your life and the people in your social circles, break out of that circle, run far away, you will make new friends. Okay, number two, I love this one. Don't let doctors dismiss your symptoms. I actually think I probably should have put this one on my list. There were so many things that were going wrong or didn't feel right in my body at 21. And I would go to the doctor and they would just say, you're fine.

29:35 It's just anxiety. And now that I'm older, they have actually turned into very serious things that like now need treatment and now need medication. And I get so mad thinking about those doctors who could have just listened to me. And I also get kind of sad for my younger self who didn't just like speak up for herself and didn't say, pay attention to me or didn't ask for a referral or another opinion, if you're 21 and you're like, something might not be right, I don't feel good in my body or my mind or I just know that something's off, advocate for yourself, push, push, push. your doctors, you are paying for that service. It is a service that maybe your taxes pay for, or you are paying for out of pocket. It is there to serve you

30:24 and to make you well. So if it's not making you well because you're still there, stressed, anxious, not feeling good, it is your right to keep pushing and to get an answer. Even if that answer is actually, no, everything is all right, the peace of mind that it will give you will just be so, so valuable. Okay, number three, This one I love, try not to grow up, get a degree in full-time work so quickly, take a gap year, take two, take your time. This next one was funny because these two things came up right next to each other.

30:57 The first one was date him, the other one was don't date him, which I think was funny. This one also good, you are not making a life-changing decision when you choose a college or choose a major. This person said, 21-year-old me has to understand that paths unexpectedly converge. I 100% agree with that. Go dancing was another one that somebody would scream at their younger self. Let your friends make their own mistakes. That's a big sign of emotional maturity when you can let your friends do that. Don't get a boob job. Don't get a boob job. That's what they would say to their younger self. I haven't gotten a boob job, so I don't know if I could relate to that one, but take that as you will.

31:41 Be careful with credit cards. Yes, be careful with credit cards. That goes hand in hand with the savings one. If you don't have the financial literacy to save or to budget or to do any of those things, like if you don't just have the skills or even the income yet, do not get a credit card. It spells danger. This was another funny one. Again, literally these were side by side.

32:03 When I tell you I was reading through and it was like this one came up and then the second one came up right afterwards, they said, date the 28 year old. That's what I would tell my 21 year old self. And the other one said, don't date the 28 year old from work, which I thought was funny. This was a theme actually. This was a theme in itself.

32:23 Time and time again, I would see this thing where one person would be like, buy stocks instead of dinner at the club. And then somebody else would be like, who cares about being financially responsible? Go and have a drink. Somebody would be like, I would tell my 21 year old self to like, yeah, marry their childhood sweetheart. And then somebody else would be like, don't marry your childhood sweetheart.

32:45 The contradictions and the differing opinions contained here, I think actually create a beautiful summary and a beautiful ending to this episode. And it actually kind of leads into the final thing I would say to 21 year old me. And it's might actually undermine everything else I've said. So I'm sorry. I've like brought you here under a ruse and I'm about to completely contradict a lot of my advice, but The final thing I would imprint on my younger self, somebody else's advice may be helpful, but it's not everything.

33:18 You don't have to believe or follow or abide by what somebody else suggests just because they think it's what's best for you or just because it worked for them. I think the scariest thing about our 20s is that they are defined by a lack of definition, right? Nothing feels known. And that creates a desire to find clarity or certainty in any corner that we can. that is simply a human urge. It's a human urge to insert any kind of structure or rule book or guidelines where sometimes one just simply doesn't exist. And in that desire for clarity, we're sometimes imprisoned by this constant rumination and this constant thought of, am I making the right choices?

33:58 Am I making the right mistakes? How do I make my life turn out perfectly? It just will. It just will. Like I've been in such a strange state recently as I contemplate my next chapter and my 30s and what comes next and am I going to make the psychology of your 30s? And it is a similar state to how I felt at 21. And what I continue to remind myself is like things never turned out exactly as planned.

34:24 They turned out very differently. They also turned out so much better. And even when they didn't turn out so much better, they turned out okay. every single mistake, every single thing, moment led to this perfect, and it's not even a finale. It sounds like I'm at the end, but it's not a finale. It led to these perfect circumstances that I wouldn't change. And there were a lot of things that got me to this place. Terrible boyfriends, terrible grades, really big friendship fallouts where like I was the one in the wrong and I still feel guilty about it. And bad, bad financial decisions. Let me tell you that. I've made bad financial choices. Would I make them again? No. But how can I say that if I didn't make that bad choice, I would be any

35:17 better off? I actually can't. And so the best thing I can say to myself is, well, that had to happen. There had to be some reason behind that to bring me to where I am. And there always is I don't want to say a reason, but there always is this serendipity and this kind of invisible string that you will be able to connect through your life experiences that have brought you to where you are. So if you are in your early 20s, especially if you're 21 or younger, I get so many messages. There's just so much anxiety and so much fear. And I just feel so much deep empathy for you because I remember how that felt so deeply. supremely and how it felt like nothing was ever going to make sense. I wanted somebody to tell

36:05 me that my life was going to be okay. And here I am five, six years, I can't remember, five years, I guess, later down the line. And it's like a gift that only hindsight can give you. So keep pushing on. It's all going to be fine. Take what I say with it with a grain of salt. As I said, half the people said this, half the people said that when it came to grades. when it came to age gap relationships, when it came to marriage in your early 20s.

36:29 So do what feels right. Know that all mistakes are in some ways a form of guidance and bring you to perhaps where you need to be. So that is all for today. That is the 10 things I would say, I would scream, I would give on a nice golden platter to my younger self. I want to hear yours. If there is anything in this episode that you felt I should have included or something that you really think people who are younger, 21, 22, 19 need to know, leave a comment down below, especially if you are listening on Spotify. I'd love to hear from you. Make sure that you are following us on Instagram at thatpsychologypodcast so you know when new episodes come out or you can hit follow slash subscribe wherever you are listening. We also

37:15 have a sub stack where I shared this full list so you can go and follow us over there. And a final reminder, if you haven't yet, please watch an episode on Netflix. It is one of the easiest ways to help out this podcast. So if you've ever gotten even a tiny, tiny little bit of joy or comfort or, I don't know, factoid or assurance from this podcast, please go and watch an episode if you have Netflix. It really shows them that podcasts like this are important and it's a great way to help me out. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Until next time, Be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon.