I turned 24 today. Oof.

Inspired by Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love, I decided to outline everything I’ve learned about life as a 24-year-old, so here it goes.

1. When all else fails, chocolate devotion at Cold Stone Creamery, specifically the one in Franklin Park Township, will solve all your problems. I’m telling you, you’ll see heaven.
2. Be spontaneous. Just do things without thinking too much. Not everything needs to be planned out all the time.
3. Be your friends’ plus-one at birthday parties, housewarmings, ragers, whatever. Just go with them. This is my newly found favorite activity. It is so much fun to meet new people and even form a friendship with mutuals of mutuals. Makes for a cool story too. Dare I say that it also comes with free food, free alcohol, free laughs, and most importantly, free pong tournaments?
4. You’re not a horrible person. Chances are you’re just an immature 20-something-year-old who’s still trying to find their footing in life. As long as you’re well-intentioned, you don’t need to hold yourself to this insanely high standard of being a saint because you will inevitably fail. In the words of the icon coffee date #44, “I like to just be as I am. I just want to be a human. I do not want to be a good human. I do not want to be a perfect human. I just want to be human with the emotions, thoughts, and not necessarily name them as good emotions or good thoughts. Just a human being with thoughts and emotions with all this beauty inside of me no matter what.” – Laasya Mangalampalli, 2023
5. Don’t be so quick to make judgements about people. Everyone’s really messy and everyone’s a product of quite literally everything they’ve ever experienced or felt. So really, who am I to write people off?
6. Joy is a form of resistance. No human is illegal. Human rights apply to all humans – man, woman, trans, cis, fluid, religious or not, Christians, Arabs, Palestinians, Hindus, Muslims, all of us. We’re all together.
7. Dating. Oh boy. Shoot me in the head.
8. Don’t be on the apps if you’re in search of the “love of your life.” The apps should be used purely for practice and entertainment purposes. I had a blast during my one year on Hinge. I was having the time of my life meeting some cool boys, eating some great food, drinking some great drinks, and then partying with my friends right after.
9. Speaking of dates, plan your dates so they fit into your night out with your friends. This not only takes away a lot of pressure, but it also prevents you from overanalyzing everything post-date because you’re too busy taking shots and bussing it down to some 2000s throwbacks with your friends. I literally went on a 45-minute date, had my two friends (s/o Shivdaballer and Sruthi) chilling at a Starbucks nearby, and then proceeded to go to a friend’s birthday party shortly after. 10/10 night.
10. Don’t get so infatuated by the idea of love that you start to forget who you are and get enveloped in the idea of being chosen by somebody. Live in the present. Form judgements based on objective facts rather than the “what if” thoughts. Love will find you. Relax. It’s not meant to be rushed.
11. It’s easy to fall in love. It’s harder to stay in love. Ask yourself, “Sure, I love this person but do I like this person?”
12. Marry your best friend! At least, I think that’s what you’re supposed to do?
13. Pour as much as you can into your platonic relationships. Show up to as many birthdays as you can. Have existential conversations with your friends. Travel the world with them. Have sleepovers. Connect different parts of your world together – be the person who brings people together.
14. Abundance. Abundance. Abundance. There’s no shortage of love. No one’s abandoning you. The people you hold close to your heart also hold you close to their heart. They’re allowed to form new relationships; that does not mean that they’re doing so at the expense of you. Their world is just expanding, just like yours does, and they’re making room for more love. Who doesn’t love more love?
15. No one will ever piss you off and enrage you as much as your parents. Most of the time you’ll feel like you’re taking one step forward and ten steps backwards. But that’s okay. Your job, as their child, is not to change them (because that’s a rather laborious feat). Your job, as their child, is to acknowledge whatever love that they are able to give and attempt to let go of the rest. Harder said than done for sure.
16. Unfortunately or fortunately, it is also your parents that you will seek the most amount of validation from. A child’s always a child.
17. Maybe this is the time when you’ll start softening up a bit and recognize that your caregivers aren’t really superheroes; they’re just people. Really messy people, just like you.
18. Delete Instagram for a month or two. Challenge yourself. Live without the eyes of others, most of whom you probably don’t even know. Go on a trip without Instagram and sit with how that makes you feel – living without needing to scream to social media that you are living.
19. Read!!! Being transported to different worlds and lives and thoughts is surprisingly exhilarating. So much less toxic than watching the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives for hours on end.
20. Get a tattoo. More than the tattoo, make the experience of getting that tattoo exciting. Exhibit A: my arm.
21. Journal every night.
22. Eat more so you can move more.
23. Walk outside. No headphones. No phone. Listen to the birds. Feel the wind. This is the anxiety cure.
24. Therapy feels like a warm, weighted blanket hug. Everyone deserves to feel hugged.
25. Watch movies with Nani. Laughing with her is oddly comforting. You forget all your rage and just want to lay there and watch for hours on end because well, suddenly, it seems real that you won’t have this forever.
26. It is very possible to work alongside people who share wildly opposing political beliefs and values.
27. Don’t be so afraid of money. Make money and do some good with it. The rest, use it for adventures, for supporting the people you love, and for just living your life. Nothing wrong with money. I trust you enough to not get carried away with the attention and access that money gets you, so just have fun with it and be responsible with it.
28. You won’t always get closure in relationships. In romantic situations or even platonic situations. Without closure, it’s easy for your brain to short circuit and get carried away with many thoughts. This is the worst part. Short circuit for a while and then find a way to release.
29. Daily movement has saved my life. No joke. I get out of my mind and into my body.
30. Medicate for your mental health, if needed. What’s the point in feeling so whoozy all the time and burning yourself to the ground if there’s a way to support you? If you take an Advil every month when on your period, then I don’t see why it’s such a big deal to take a Xanax to calm your nervous system.
31. Your brother, the one who’s six years younger than you, will inspire you, motivate you, roast you, and drive you insane. But you’ll never love someone as much as you love your little bro.
32. Very few people will have seen absolutely everything in your life. Even fewer people will know exactly what you’re feeling and when you’re feeling it. And at times, it can be annoying. But more often than not, it makes you feel oh so seen and loved. Keep those people close. Love you Ravs.
33. The cure to menstrual cramps: Advil, incline walking, alcohol. Choose one out of three. Do not do all three or your liver will hate me.
34. Don’t forget to play. My aunt and uncle have shown me this repeatedly. They have this innate playfulness that radiates outward. No matter how old you are, you must remember to play, to have fun, to laugh, and to just be a kid (an appropriate kid, of course).
35. Make sure you transfer money from your savings to your checkings before a night out. Or else you’ll end up at the bar, paying for 10 rounds of shots for 5 different people and your card will naturally decline. And your drunk self won’t comprehend why.
36. Tretinoin + azelaic acid + 2 L of water a day = glowy skin at your service.
37. Shake shack is a much better post-night out meal than Taco Bell. #Shroomburgers
38. It’s easier to do things first and then ask Amma and Nanna for forgiveness. Example: getting a tattoo, hiding it for a week, and then doing the big reveal. Following a 20 minute freak out session, all is well.
39. The movies that will bring you out of whatever type of rut you’re in: Remember the Titans. Dear Zindagi. Good Will Hunting. Bommarillu. Dead Poets Society.
40. Self improvement is great. But don’t take it so far to the point where you nitpick every action and decision of yours. The attempt for perfection will ricochet and cause more harm than good. Life is meant to be lived in the gray, in the color, with the nuance.

I do feel older and that’s causing my chest to tighten a bit. I’m closer to 25 now than 19, which means I’m closer to 30 than I am to 19, which means I’m an adult and no longer a child.

But time is the only constant we have in life. Or so they say.

So I guess I have no choice.

Here it goes. We’ll figure it out as it comes. Onwards and upwards.