Usually on this site and Quora, when people have a post like yours, the posters usually offer a piece of advice, that in my humble opinion, advices are useless because usually they say more about the advice-giver, what they wish they could've done when they were younger (doctors/lawyers who studied hard to make bank, advising all students to have fun when they're young but how did they get there?), or tout their own successes when the advice-receiver may or may not have the same background to be able to replicate it (people here with STEM background touting meritocracy and hard-work will eventually get everyone a job but when did you start learning coding and under what circumstances??).
As a 29-year old, I'll offer instead my own personal regret about my 20's without any panacea, I hope that it is relevant to your stated idea even though it may not seem so at first:
Last night I came home after going out with a bunch of friends from a startup at a "reunion outing" that we all used to work at several years ago,
We are all 28, 29, 30 now and we were 26, 25, 24 when we were hanging out everyday at work and after work; and past the superficial remembrances of the "all fun times we had," inside jokes of what-he-said, what-she-said, casual bantering at the pool table and the double high-fives for the ladies and low ass slaps for the bro's after the final game, on the back of the Lyft ride home, I thought about how we never ever really fought.
Not talking about general boorishness caused by alcohol and clashing sensitive male ego's, nor the passive-aggression between friends or acquaintances where perceived slights/differences built up but never confronted, beef never squashed instead squished down underneath the social surface that years pass by, your group's "happy hours" turns from a "thing" into a remembrance - that you heard only about XXX's wedding from your other friends who had been invited but you feel only slightly annoyed because XXX has already become someone who you used to know.
But really fight in a moment, air out your differences, coming into a fight, knowing that you or the other person may not come out at end as friends anymore, but you have a hope to salvage things, out of a conviction to be authentic to yourself and the other person, out of an intent to love the other person even if there is a such deep well of negative emotions, frustration, hatred, feeling of injustice and inspired self-insecurity, that you can't help but to still respect/admire the uniqueness/individuality of the person and even a wisp of self-reconsideration of your own part in the sordid affair; and hope you guys might come be able to come out the other side.
This is the my biggest regret about my 20's. That I have always ducked all my opportunities to fight.
Instead of accepting the up's and down's in any natural relationships, I took every setback, every feeling of feeling stagnant as an outlet to push people away. Underneath the thin sheath of rationalizations is a dread of knowing myself as who I truly who I am if I were to fight, I'll be exposed. So it is with this never-said but oft-acted upon notion I've come away with a decade of superficial trinkets instead of battle scars, and without the satisfaction that I've truly ever loved.
> But really fight in a moment, air out your differences, coming into a fight, knowing that you or the other person may not come out at end as friends anymore, but you have a hope to salvage things, out of a conviction to be authentic to yourself and the other person, out of an intent to love the other person even if there is a such deep well of negative emotions, frustration, hatred, feeling of injustice and inspired self-insecurity, that you can't help but to still respect/admire the uniqueness/individuality of the person and even a wisp of self-reconsideration of your own part in the sordid affair; and hope you guys might come be able to come out the other side.
Man, I wish there was HN gold for stuff like this.
I have learned to picked my fights but this is the key to determining who's most important in my life. If we can go through something like this and still talk to each other afterwards then we are friends for life.
I had this same problem. Took everything at face value in my 20's and didn't have the courage to fight. Once I did my life got much more happier. I hate that it took a long time to figure that out.
Let me provide a different perspective: In my early years I did not miss a single fight. I argued hard, enjoyed it a lot, and usually won. At 40, I started to hate what that habit had turned me into.
Fast forward: these days I try to resolve any conflict immediately and I value harmony indefinitely higher than being right. There is so much more to life than fighting!
Of course, knowing that you are able to fight hard might be necessary in order to avoid conflict. So I'm not saying, don't fight -- just keep an eye on the greater picture while you do!
Wow, this is great. Can we be friends because I love to argue with people I know. If you don't fight, you never realize who you are, you just think you're the same being as Pauly D, but you missed your "big shot" somewhere along the line.
One of the most incredible feelings I've ever experienced is severely disagreeing with 3 friends but really feeling passionate about it, then running into the woods to contemplate and cry, and then returning and getting 3 hugs. I want you to know that. It's a "You haven't lived until..." type of thing.
I'm going through something similar and you never want to go on a full on fight because, like you said, it's hard "knowing that you or the other person may not come out as friends anymore".
It's a hard lesson but I'm slowly realizing that it's better to know the limits of how real and true your friendships are rather than realizing it was all based off unstable foundations.
I really like it. It's something I aspire to do but cannot. Partly, it's hard, because being a female you constantly monitor the distance between yourself and a friend and adjust accordingly. This might be too uncomfortable to bear through. I tried it today and it worked though. Can I send this to friends? Have you posted this anywhere like on FB so I could share? Thanks!
Maybe it's a personality thing. I regret having one too many of the fights you'd like to have. Not all ended friendships but some of them did and although I miss none of the ones I lost - because I don't/didn't regard them as true friends - I still think that I've lost more than I gained.
As a 29-year old, I'll offer instead my own personal regret about my 20's without any panacea, I hope that it is relevant to your stated idea even though it may not seem so at first:
Last night I came home after going out with a bunch of friends from a startup at a "reunion outing" that we all used to work at several years ago,
We are all 28, 29, 30 now and we were 26, 25, 24 when we were hanging out everyday at work and after work; and past the superficial remembrances of the "all fun times we had," inside jokes of what-he-said, what-she-said, casual bantering at the pool table and the double high-fives for the ladies and low ass slaps for the bro's after the final game, on the back of the Lyft ride home, I thought about how we never ever really fought.
Not talking about general boorishness caused by alcohol and clashing sensitive male ego's, nor the passive-aggression between friends or acquaintances where perceived slights/differences built up but never confronted, beef never squashed instead squished down underneath the social surface that years pass by, your group's "happy hours" turns from a "thing" into a remembrance - that you heard only about XXX's wedding from your other friends who had been invited but you feel only slightly annoyed because XXX has already become someone who you used to know.
But really fight in a moment, air out your differences, coming into a fight, knowing that you or the other person may not come out at end as friends anymore, but you have a hope to salvage things, out of a conviction to be authentic to yourself and the other person, out of an intent to love the other person even if there is a such deep well of negative emotions, frustration, hatred, feeling of injustice and inspired self-insecurity, that you can't help but to still respect/admire the uniqueness/individuality of the person and even a wisp of self-reconsideration of your own part in the sordid affair; and hope you guys might come be able to come out the other side.
This is the my biggest regret about my 20's. That I have always ducked all my opportunities to fight.
Instead of accepting the up's and down's in any natural relationships, I took every setback, every feeling of feeling stagnant as an outlet to push people away. Underneath the thin sheath of rationalizations is a dread of knowing myself as who I truly who I am if I were to fight, I'll be exposed. So it is with this never-said but oft-acted upon notion I've come away with a decade of superficial trinkets instead of battle scars, and without the satisfaction that I've truly ever loved.