20

It was a rainy day when I realized that I was 19 years old, and I only had a few months left to turn 20. I’m no longer becoming a teenager, just like how John Green puts it, my 20s will go fast. My 30s will go faster than I can imagine, and suddenly I’m 40.

You can’t let your mind stop thinking about the future or let the things from the past stop controlling you. I have experienced life and responsibilities, but surely the 20s will be different, and I tried to answer one question: what am I afraid of?  Why I’m afraid of being 20: and it turns out it is not only one question,but I was filled with lots of questions:

1. What do I want to do for the rest of my life?
2. What do I want to keep?
3. What do I want to quit?
4. Who will I stay with?
5. Which people would I leave?
6. Will I be able to practice my hobbies as the time I need to make videos and pursue my cinematography projects?
7. What would happen to the way I think? Will my beliefs keep helping me?
8. Will I remain a robust young dreamer or a dull mechanic worker in this fast world?
9. Will I ever be able to never forget what I wanted to achieve?
10. Will I be able to go through the mud as I entered the 20?
11. Will the opportunities come?
12. Will the things I love remain the same?
13. Would I remain settled even after experiencing my 20s?
14. Will I be able to interpret the complexity of the world and answer these questions, or just be the silent man who never ever thinks beyond his responsibilities? Or I will just ignore all the questions, and say in everything and every time there will be a crack, and it’s where the light gets in. And I should never create competitions and challenges that don’t exist yet. I’m sure Allah swt will guide me in every step, and just focus on what matters and eventually everything will come, and keep believing that all the things that I have lost will find their way to me. And it will come back to me.

I’m turning 20 next week. Here are some lessons I think I learned in my teens, I may change my mind about some of them in the future.

1. Your family must be no.1 priority in your life.
2. You must have one thing that your life revolves around(Religion, category of people).
3. People are not good at understanding themselves.
4. Being Busy can prevent you from doing stupid things, and at the same time from good things, make sure to balance.
5. Sleep early and wake up early.
6. Don’t create competitions that doesn’t exist, be realistic.
7. You can explore life in your teens and 20s and be a generalist, but set a limit for that and try to specialize and focus on the important parts.
8. Routine is the small steps you take towards every big goal you set for yourself.
9. A good level of understanding yourself, is knowing what you are not good at.
10. If you’re a junior and you think you are smarter than an old outdated seniors, think twice; they have experience.
11. Someone may find your presence warm and lovely without you knowing, so always be kind.
12. If people do like you and you don’t know why, try to know why and keep practicing this thing for the rest of your life.
13. Memories are the most warm feeling in the world, and the time you’re remembering them, will always be a happy time. I guess
14. Happening is something that you pursue indirectly.
15. Pray to Allah for giving you a clear mind, and practice exercise, eliminate distractions and you will have super flow state.
16. Our beliefs are changing every time and we probably notice that late.
17. If you ever felt happy for no reason try to ask yourself why? Write it down and read it when you’re down.
18. Being optimistic about something and putting massive emotions into it doesn’t mean it will succeed. Reality is just independent of your thoughts
19. Sad, or in pain? This will always come back at some point; you gotta use the time you have when you’re at your best. 
20. You may hurt people without knowing that you did, so you need to make sure you apologize frequently and ask people about how you behave.
21. Chasing one thing will make the other things run away, like chasing a job but your health is in danger.
22. You can be good at anything, including research and engineering, without a university, but the university is still important.
23. We are not alike in the way we receive new information and knowledge; some know how to extract every possible information out of it, while others don’t.
24. Mainstream titles like “entrepreneurship” can wait, and people who are seeking it since early ages of their career or uni want only the money, but they don’t have the needed skills and capacity to be the one.
25. You may be good at using one of the technologies that uses scientific methods, but till you should always be humble to that outdated professor who spends his life solving equations and teaching math that you see as useless. You just didn’t realize the importance of it yet and the impact he is having.
26. Avoid blaming your family members