What I wish I'd known when I was 20

 The following are some examples of things I wish I'd known or done when I was 20 in year 2013 (This advice is suitable for people who were born in year 2003 and beyond)


- Be careful of popular things like law, medicine, accounting (translating into 2023 it might be something like web 3.0, crypto, data science). They are not necessarily bad, but think twice because you are gonna be sucked into the prestige magnet


- Always aim for the super long term. Want to have a girlfriend/boyfriend? Ask yourselves if you could still live with such a person 10 years later? Want to choose a career? Ask yourselves could you stand doing that thing consistently for 10 years. If the answer is not a solid yes then they are not your right partner or your right career.


- Dare to give harsh criticisms to friends and family. Being too nice to them in the short term by sugar coating is actually harming them in the long run. By being truthfully harsh to people around you, they also tell you the truth in return. By being very unctuous and prone to sugar coating, your friends will do the same in return and tell you sweet lies. Lies are always sinister no matter how pleasant they seem to be initially (“White lies” is itself a lie!)


- If you like something you should give it a 1-year deep dive. Even if you fail you will learn a lot (I loved DotA2 a lot but i conformed and did not dare to form teams and fight for eSports competitions)


- When people criticise you, do everything you could to suppress our biologically innate desire to defend. Painful words often contain some doses of deep truth; When people shower you with compliments, be skeptical, very often they are just trying to make you happy (or worse, make you like them) at the cost of sacrificing truthfulness.


- Be hyper allergic to popularity games. Avoid the fame addiction at all costs. Don't feel happy for the number of likes or followers. 1 real fan is way more important than 100 superficial friends who won’t stand for you when you become unpopular.


- Don't get addicted to competitions and champion titles. I used to envy those people who had gotten a lot of medals, prizes and high CGPAs in universities. But it is much better to be the worst in a great team (so that you can learn from the champions) than to be the champion in a mediocre team.


- View everything as a positive sum game. Be pathological in wanting to make every “pie” larger and to seek "win-win" solutions. For example, by being a secretary or an administrator of a CEO, even though on the surface you are doing puny administrative work, you are actually the epitome of the comparative advantage concept who make the CEO’s life better. Avoid zero-sum games where when one wins, another must lose (for example sports or politics).


- Seek happiness generated from overcoming struggles and problem solving. Shun happiness generated from consumption. 

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