Nadim's advice for people in their early 20s

I turned 23 a few weeks ago, and these are just thoughts that I hope people younger than me will find useful. It's not exactly a great revelation of wisdom or anything, but I simply personally wish someone told me this when I was 20 or 21:

As you near your mid-20s, prepare for a veritable blizzard of disillusionment with a lot of the people you looked up to, the causes you thought were right, and the initiatives you thought would make your life worthwhile. This isn't because the world sucks or anything negative like that, but simply because you will observe the pattern of how human failings (selfishness, ruthlessness, the willingness to exploit misunderstandings instead of resolving them, laziness, intellectual cowardice, and the unwillingness to amend rules and institutions that aren't comprehensible or politically legitimate) permeates everything, to an extent. Not enough to make the world terrible, but enough to warrant the reconsideration of what should make up your life and what you should find important.

At that point, it's really necessary to adjust from the youthful behaviour of energetically attacking any problem, to a balanced behaviour of understanding the insurmountable importance of a simple fact: the world is composed of tons of different perspectives from different people, that are just as worthwhile as yours, and very few people you share your society with will ever think the way you do. Despite the best efforts of benevolent, legitimate governmental establishments, educational institutions and civil institutions, the world isn't sane, but is ruled by anarchy, mental imbalance, and chance.

You cannot afford to wallow in the energetic idealism of youth, because you offer yourself as prey for the fact that the world isn't fair, that many are aggressive and unforgiving, and that others, whether due to the most noble intentions or personality disorders or anything in between , simply have allowed themselves to be swallowed by the world's anger and unfairness to become agents of that same anger and unfairness, and you can't let that happen to you. Learning how to foster trust relationships properly is one of the most crucial skills you can build.

Find a passion that can foster your love for your work, that can feed into you to make you a better person, and build a small intimate world around you full of people you can love and you can help. Especially with this knowledge of the world's situation, stick to who you are and to the work that makes you shine, no matter what, because any compromise will simply be thrown like meat to the wolves, ready to be swallowed whole with little in return for you. This means that you're going to have to learn to be true to yourself and your passion, while making sure to have a healthy outlook and a discipline towards maintaining your life the way you'd maintain a healthy garden.