1. If you’re over 25, what was the best thing you did when you were 25 or what one thing do you wish you had done (or done differently) when you were 25?
2. If you are 25 or younger, what’s one thing you hope you’ll do or do better when you’re 25?

Below are a collection of some of my favourite answers in roughly the order they were received.

(Be warned: there is some profanity, I’ve decided to leave the answers more or less as they were supplied except for a few spelling or grammatical touch-ups.)

The best thing I did when I was 25 or one thing I wish I’d done differently:

Marie:
The best thing I did when I was 25 was probably go to New Zealand lol. Man I don’t know. Everything I did last year was a good idea. I just wish I hadn’t got wasted on a worknight, puked on the platform at Clapham North and gone to work with the biggest headache known to man. If I absolutely have to pick something, then I’ll go with my trip to America to see the X-Files movie. Best pilgrimage ever.

Karl:
I first ventured out flatting with randoms, previously only ever lived with people I knew, but I made the decision to head out and do something new, and it really was the best thing I ever did.

Nathan:
Age 25 was when we were living at Ironmongers Place. I guess best thing that year for me was the random trip to Iran after getting pissed on Friday night.

Worst thing well…. no regrets really. A lot of stupid things obviously, but no regrets. Happy to laugh about all my fuck-ups.

Remember bro, you never regret what you did. You regret what you didn’t.

Nigel:
Best thing I did at 25 was Graduate from University with a Bachelor of Engineering. Set me up with the self-confidence that I could do any job, any where in the world.

Roy:
25 was fantastic for me. I drove in the Formula Three race at the British Grand prix, Brands Hatch. Never had a better year and no regrets. Done lots of dumb things since then though.

Anonymous:
So my greatest thing I did was come to London. I feel like It has helped me come out of my shell. Become a better person in general. More decisive, more in control of my life, and now much happier with who I am. So my advice to you, is enjoy being 25, you are in a fantastic position. Dont worry about the smalls things, and be confident in what you do, small shit can bring you down, but look past it all and try to aim for the bigger picture and you cant do wrong. I just wish I had the confidence I have now back then. There isnt anything I would do differently when I was 25, as I felt like I did the best job I could at the time with what I was given. And I’m glad for the experiences I have been through because its made me a better person in general.

Matt:
Turn 26.

Christina:
I gave birth to my gorgeous son and went to live in the UK for a year.

Jess:
I turned 25 last august and the best thing i hve done is come over here to south america.

Rae:
Best thing I did at 25 was to start my university degree while stuck at home with a 2 year old and a 4 year old. One thing I really really wished I had done at 25 was get divorced instead of waiting till 39 to do that! Also wish I had taken up flying and got my Private Pilots License then instead of waiting till I was 40!

Stephen:
I had travelled half the world, been married to Christina for a couple of years and we had bought our first house at the age of 25 – I guess times were different then but making the sacrifices to get into a property set us up financially for life, sounds a bit boring, but on reflection probably the best thing I did was marrying Christina and getting on the property ladder!

Beej:
I was in Africa at the time I turned 25. Was out there working, based in Nairobi, also travelling around on work, had been there for a year or two and missed the comforts of friends and the lifestyle back home in London. It was selfish and arrogant of me not to see the wider picture, that I was being given an opportunity at such a young age to work, live and see Africa….kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Nigeria, Zambia… I finally realised this and in my final year in Kenya I changed attitude. Really made the most of it…so glad I did, those 2.5 years were actually amazing for me… I grew up, took stock and learned about myself and others.

Steve:
I am a (youthful) 31 year old and for my 25th, based in NZ at the time, I got to go away with all my best mates (ladies too) for a feel good surf trip. What I liked most about it was being removed from our day-to-day environment and its’inherent social & financial pressures. I remember this type of thing fondly because with the increase in babies about the place now it is no longer possible… Things inevitably change so enjoy the moment.

John:
25 was turbulent times when I thought I found true love but it wasn’t to be, devastated, didn’t know who my friends where, turns out there wasn’t really anyone, even my parents offered no support, I can’t say I blame anyone but I don’t never forget and I refuse to forgive easily, even now I am still plagued by the decisions I made at that time, do I regret it? no. I tried a lot of things I always wanted to do, and found out what I am truly capable of when things are toughest, I dug myself out of massive holes only to find myself on top but not happy and sabotaging myself again.

Martha:
I turned 25 in July… now I’ve reached old age, I want to make sure I do two things: see the world and write a book. Admittedly both of these activities may take some time.

Shakespeare:
MATE, i can’t even remember what i did on my 25th!!! I’d like to think i was at punk, getting absolutely s**t faced!!

Emma:
I was 25 in 2006-2007, I worked in Tauranga (my first job as a vet) which was cool, and headed to the UK to locum and travel – also cool, but the best thing i did was get married! – awesome party!

John:
Looking back the fondest memory is taking my small children sailing.

Shelley:
I wish I had stopped compromising.
I wish I had asked myself if I was truly happy.
I wish that I had seen that I wasn’t actually fat.
I wish I had found my way into a church.

Meriel:
The best thing I did was get married, although I wish Matt and I had travelled more before I was 25 because I can’t fly now and it will stop him from travelling which I know he wanted to do.

Valerie:
I had my 25th birthday in January 1954. I was married to Clive and had a daughter, Stella, who was 2 years old in August of that year. Clive was in the army doing his two years National Service and was demobbed in November. Our son, Stephen, was born in the December.

We lived in a semi-detached house in Golders Green, north-west London and Clive’s father lived with us.

England was still recovering from the 1939-45 war and lots of things were still in short supply, although food rationing had ended a couple of years earlier. We had an Electrolux washing machine which had been Clive’s mother’s and was a pre-war model (we saw an identical one in a museum in New Zealand on our first visit there in 1977!). We had no refrigerator and so had to shop for food nearly every day, but had bottled milk delivered each morning. We had our first motor-car, a pre-war Austin 8 saloon which Clive bought whilst in the army, but then sold when demobbed. We really felt special owning a motor-car and being able to travel where we wanted, when you wanted and not to have to rely on buses and trains.

I don’t think I was ambitious for material possessions, at least I hope not, I was quite content with my little family and so pleased to have Clive home again and not just at weekends. I would not say we had exciting lives, but neither did we have the pressures or competitiveness that todays 25 year olds have to live with. I was fortunate that I did not have to juggle running the home and looking after the children with a full time job. I don’t know that I could have coped with that. I do so admire the young of today who do, but wonder which of us are the lucky ones!

Clive:
My 25th birthday was in October 1954, just a matter of weeks before I was demobbed. When released, I rejoined the firm of chartered accountants with which I had served articles and qualified before being called up for National Service. While in the army I had seriously considered signing on as a regular, but the thing which decided me most strongly against doing so was having a wife with no service background – it was not a world to which I fancied introducing my Valerie.

Back in the professional world, one immediately took stock of what the future might hold. It was apparent that for success in that area one needed one of two things, either a father already in that walk of life or a father with the money to buy one into a partnership and I had neither. It was not long before I took the step of entering the world of commerce and I never regretted doing so.

On the domestic front, I soon became again a content member of the domestic structure that had been fostered in my absence by my wife and daughter together with my father and there our number was soon added to safely and happily by our son Stephen.

Darryl:
I think the best thing I did was manage the stage at a concert venue which came with perks such as entry to after parties, VIP guest lists and back stage tickets for friends etc. Always interesting when Prodigy were playing. Not sure how you’d pull this one off though………

Oliver:
When I was 25 the best thing I did was split up with my girlfriend and find my independence! It sounds horrible but It’s true! I think independence when you are young is essential to becoming a ‘whole’person.

If I could have done anything differently it would be to grab opportunities and make things happen. With regards to work I waited too long for my company to do the right/fair thing, respected the conventions too much – it never happened which is why I now spend late nights and weekends pushing to get to the next level. My single piece of advice is to get to where you want to be as quickly as possible. Time takes it’s toll and it gets harder the longer you take.

Tommy:
I’m pass that point where I can’t remember what the best thing I done when I was 25. The worst thing that happened was that I thumped two policemen and spent the night in a cell after a school party event.

Jo:
So… as i am over 25 the thing i wish i had done.. (seeing as i have been 25 for only 6 months and have done stuff all in that time) is that i wish i had learnt a different language.. maybe Italian… or Spanish… yep. Not very exciting im afraid.. but thats it, so add it to your list.

What’s one thing you hope you’ll do or do better when you’re 25?

Olivia:
When I’m 25 I hope I find the time to make my bed on a regular basis at least haha.

Simon:
I want to have a threesome with two strippers!

Laurel:
By the time I’m 25, I hope to have gained the courage to follow my true passions with all of my heart, so that by the time I’m 50 I won’t ask “what if?” or tell myself “if only…”.

Lisa:
At the ages of 25 I want to living in London, while a job based in advertising and travelling to Europe at whatever chance I get :D

Again, a big thanks to everyone. Hope you all have an awesome Christmas and New Years!

Much love,

Mark

The core Landmark course, The Landmark Forum, is one of those things that most people have heard about in some capacity before, I’d heard of a number of people doing it in the past, but hadn’t expressed too much interest until almost simultaneously two friends of mine contacted me saying they’d had an amazing experience on the course, and that I should have a look at doing it myself.

I had a look at Landmark’s website, and found the information a little sparse, there was a lot of positive stuff about the benefits of their courses, but very little about what the course actually involved. But spurred by my friends’enthusiasm for the courses, I went on to do a little research and while doing so read stories of life-changing breakthroughs, and then right through the entire spectrum of experience to stories of people experiencing mental breakdowns, to claims of unusual experiences and cultish behaviour. Nevertheless, I decided to sign up for the course, and see what all the fuss was about.

I found the course to be incredibly challenging; both emotionally and physically. My emotions went from extreme sadness to intense happiness and back-and-forth all weekend. The long hours – 9am to almost midnight, for three consecutive days; then between half-an-hour to an hour homework each night – gave me time for a little over four hours sleep each night and left me totally exhausted by Sunday evening.

Nevertheless, despite the huge time commitment, I found the material to be very interesting, delivered well and intensely thought provoking. Whilst I am normally unable to even sit and watch TV without fidgeting, the fourteen-hours-plus class day seemed to fly by as I found myself completely engrossed in the material; and I have to say, for three comparatively short days, I found the results to be pretty remarkable.

There is a large body of work to complete over the duration of the course, which primarily targets beliefs you have about yourself and your life. These types of beliefs are ingrained in everyone, but the beliefs themselves are unique to you, and created by you as a response to failures you’ve experienced at key points in your life. Although we’re not generally aware of them at a conscious level, it is possible to dig them up and expose them. What is interesting is that these beliefs are self perpetuating; you believe a certain thing about yourself or the world, and because you believe that, that is what you experience, thus further entrenching that belief. The benefit of exposing these beliefs, is once you consciously acknowledge them, when they come up in your life, you aren’t stopped by them; you can recognise them and push through, and create new beliefs in their place.

There is a lot of work regarding being honest with yourself, and truly getting complete with your past so you can move forward unhindered in life. The biggest thing for me was realising I’d not completely dealt with my fathers suicide when I was 17; I believe at the time it was too much to bare, so I just ‘boxed up’all my emotions and hid it in a dark corner of my mind. One exercise was to ‘clean up’your relationship with your parents, so I wrote my Dad a letter.

As I sat in bed with my laptop perched on my knee in the small hours of the morning, the moment my hands touched the keyboard I knew what I wanted to say and the letter just poured out of me, all the thoughts I’d had surrounding my Dad’s death, and the things I’d left unsaid, spilt forth on the pages. Tears streamed from my eyes as I opened myself to fully experience the pain, and I wrote and wrote until everything I felt I needed to express had been said; and then – peace. Serenity washed over me; and I realised I had finally accepted my fathers death and I could close that chapter on my life. All that remains now is my love for him and my respect for his memory. He felt his life was intolerable, and he did what he felt he had to do, I can appreciate that now. I can move on.

Part of getting complete with the past, is to clean up your relationships with people; getting over old arguments, being honest about things you lied about, or obscured, basically making good with all the people in your life. I found making these calls to people, often in middle of the night, to have these really frank conversations about your history together terrifying and horribly difficult. Aside from admitting all the terrible things I’d done in my past, calling my friends and family out-of-the-blue, in a highly emotional state, and then launching forward with brutal honesty is incredibly weird and awkward for all concerned. My call to my Mum caused her great distress, as it would, having your child on the other side of the world calling in the middle of the night, incoherently crying and babbling, only to hang up without any clear explanation of what the hell was going on. Only when I called her some hours later could coherently explain what was happening, and we could have a conversation while I tried to ease her concerns. Nevertheless, despite the initial challenges these calls presents, the exercise is incredibly liberating, and a number of my relationships, including that with my mother, strengthened as a result.

As the course came to a close, I was euphoric, for the first time I could remember, I felt strong; invincible in fact. Completely unstoppable. This euphoria lasted for days, I was bouncing off the walls with energy, and everything just seemed right in the world. Eventually this subsided, but I was left with a noticeably increased sense of self-confidence and my overall experience of life seemed enriched, and the future suddenly brighter.

After such a positive experience with the Landmark Forum, I decided to go on and do the ‘Landmark Advanced Course‘, and the ‘Self Expression and Leadership Programme‘, the second and third parts of their three part ‘Curriculum for Living’. The courses each cover different material, and I found the Advanced Course in particular to be especially thought provoking.

The Self Expression and Leadership programme is a long duration course, spread out over three months, with one night a week at the centre, and one full day once a month. The coursework differs considerably from the earlier courses, as it focuses on creating a community project and bringing it to fruition. My project was an outdoor festival celebrating London’s backpacker community, a community I strongly identify with, but councils flatly denied me use of an public grounds, and private venues were equally un-enthused. After much deliberation with two major London drinking establishments, and despite having already signed a number of artists and obtained modest corporate sponsorship, they both eventually decided to pull out; and I decided to kill my project.

Still, despite my lack of success, a number of my fellow course participants had amazing results, such as one woman who managed to get over 2,000 books donated which were then sent to Africa where disadvantaged children didn’t have access to such things; and another who organised a street carnival which allowed local residents to meet and get to know each other, and in turn unite their previously antisocial community, apparently with great success.

Despite my overall positive experience of Landmark, there was one part that really bothered me; and that is the huge amount of emphasis on recruiting other people to enrol in Landmark courses; while I can appreciate their view point – If you are getting benefits from something, why shouldn’t you share it with others? – I found there was too way much emphasis on this aspect and the unceasing pressure to recruit was incredibly invasive and annoying. In addition to this, the few occasions I did bring guests to the introductory evenings, they were pressured, bullied and manipulated into joining courses, and it made me embarrassed that I’d forced my guests to endure such behaviour. Furthermore, it made Landmark look like a slimy operation; and I genuinely believe this is a shame, as there is a lot of good stuff to be learnt from the courses, and Landmark are doing themselves a disservice by trying to push it so hard.

It’s now been almost a year since I last attended a Landmark course, and I’ve now had time to gain perspective on the experience. My life has indeed improved in a major way since then, but that said, it’s hard to credit all the changes in my life exclusively to Landmark, undoubtedly a significant part is just the experience of growing up, my travels through South East Asia and the United States, and just meeting new and interesting people along the way; nevertheless I regard the course as catalyst for my own personal growth, and indeed a really positive experience.

Landmark offer a whole raft of other courses in addition to their ‘Curriculum for Living’ programme, but since finishing my course last year, I’ve had no desire to return to Landmark for their other courses, nor do I have any intention of returning in the future. While I gained a lot from the experience, there is something about Landmark’s practices that makes me uneasy. This said, I would still recommend the course to anyone interested, once you get through the high pressure recruitment, there is some genuine gems to be found.

I watched Steve Jobs’Stanford Commencement Speech (above), and heard this fantastic quote:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs

It got me thinking.

Despite the fact that largely I am very happy with my life, in some ways, I still ultimately feel I am stagnating. I’m not sure if I have an undiagnosed case of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), or I am just restless; but I struggle to spend too much time in one place, doing one thing. Maybe that’s why I love to travel, and maybe why I am constantly searching for new experiences, learning new things, and exploring new ideas. Even in my career, working as a contractor, never too long in one place, always on the move, new people and new places every few months.

Having more or less fallen in to my current Technical Support career path due to my inability at high school to commit to anything else, I feel the time has come for a change. Perhaps drastic change.

Working intermittently as both Technical Support and a Project Engineer definitely had its highlights; I’ve met a lot of interesting people, found well paying work quickly and easily when emigrating to the United Kingdom, and gained an understanding of computers that undoubtedly qualify me as a total geek.

But where do I go from here? I’m no longer in love with technology, at least not in a support capacity; I want to do something interesting, more challenging, something that I am passionate about. I want to be excited when I wake up in the morning, not unenthused, bored and depressed.

I look at the bland uninteresting lives of the people around me and am petrified at the thought that I could be like them; middle-aged, balding, working a mundane job I hate. This may be fine for them, they might even like it, but it’s not for me, and I refuse to lower the bar of what is acceptable in my life. I don’t just want to tolerate my life; I want to love it.

Recognising my predicament, the first step seemed to be finding work I was more interested in. Having a lot of experience in the Project sector, Project Management seemed the next logical step; so I went out and got my Prince2 Practitioner certification. Six months after obtaining the qualification, while I still think Project Management would be more interesting, and definitely more challenging; I don’t think it’s my passion in life, it’s a conservative step, I need to think bigger.

While travelling through some rural parts of Cambodia, I couldn’t help but notice how joyful people were, despite the fact they had nothing and lived in bamboo huts; I found this an startling contrast compared to the discontent and misery of the comparatively rich I see everyday in the UK. This epiphany got me thinking; maybe my quest for happiness is misled. Maybe a secure job and a pension plan weren’t going to provide me with the fulfilment all humans are ultimately seeking. Furthermore, despite my adolescent dreams of big yachts, fast cars and owning pacific islands, maybe material assets and expensive toys are not going to make me happy either, maybe no amount of money could provide me with what I was after.

It became apparent, I should seek happiness first, and wealth second. While I still would like my own Pacific island, I can appreciate that should not be a goal by itself, but a by-product of reaching my goals. Fortunately, wealth and happiness are not mutually exclusive, in fact I would suspect money made more people happy than poverty ever did, but I believe it should be a secondary objective. I would choose to be happy and poor, rather than rich and miserable; but ultimately I want both.

So how does one go about creating a life they love? To be honest, I’m not sure. The advice you hear most often is to find something you love, and then pursue that with all your energies. But for me, at 22 years of age, I haven’t quite figured what my passions in life are. According to Steve in the video, you can only connect the dots looking back; so with that in mind, my goal for the next few months is to explore my fringe interests and see what I can find, maybe those dots will connect up and I can find something I really want to sink my teeth in to.

Since moving out of my flat in September, during the brief times I’ve been staying in London I’ve been using my friends camper as a base. Despite the benefit of not having to pay any rent, my thermometer is reporting the temperature in there to be between 1 – 2 degrees celcuis when I get in there in the evening and we’ve had some snow over night. So, a bit frosty for my liking, so conveniently, I’m moving back in to my old flat!

Next step, pass exams, get a job, contribute to society…

Despite an interest, I never really pursued it or knew much about the subject, but while experiencing the Buddhist culture first hand in Thailand I decided it might be an interesting experience to learn a technique a little more fully. So after half an hour on Google, sitting in a Chiang Mai internet café, I found a ten day Vipassana retreat in Hereford.

I can now say, I really had no idea what I was getting myself in to when I enrolled in the course. I thought that I would spent ten days in a zen state, feeling very nice with a big grin on my face and then come back to London a master, feeling refreshed and ready for action.

I arrived on a cold, wet and blustery evening at Dhamma Dipa. There was an immediate separation of guys and girls, we were all assigned a bed and met in the dining room for further instructions. The main rule was we were all to commit to observing noble silence’for the duration of the course, no form of communication between students was allowed, including oral communication, note writing, gestures or eye contact; one was to act as if one was totally alone. Strangely, I didn’t miss talking at all.

Vipassana is the style of meditation that Buddha used to reach enlightenment, and subsequently taught himself. Although named after him, Buddhism wasn’t founded by Buddha, it was created in his honour, however it went against his own person beliefs of not blindly following a faith, or any rites or rituals, but only to believe what you experience first hand – as such, Vipassana has no rites, or rituals, no praying or chanting, no affiliations to any organised religion, just a very pure, basic, universal technique – and that’s it. There were no religious artifacts to be seen anywhere, no candles, pictures of Buddha or any such things anywhere at the camp.

The technique of Vipassana is remarkably simple, in theory, but I found in practice it to be incredibly frustrating. The task is just to sit, eyes closed, and focus on respiration, and then the sensations within the body. Simple. I very quickly found out that this is a surprisingly difficult thing to do. I’d be able to focus for a couple of breaths, then my mind was away, thinking of all manner of unrelated and irrelevant things. So you keep bringing your attention back, and again the mind wanders, and you do this eleven hours a day for ten days straight.

The amount of time you can focus on your breath slowly increases, towards the later part of the course, I had a few times where I slipped in to a pleasurable trance-like state where I was not really aware of time and anything around me, just the subtle breath, in and out, and various sensations of the body. It’s in these states real meditation begins, however it’s only a special few who can achieve this consistently within the ten day course, the ten days are definitely an introduction, rather than a course of mastery.

A nice plus of the course is that it is always given free of charge, and they provide accommodation and delicious home-cooked meals throughout the duration. The facilities are simple, although clean and modern. The centre is totally funded through donations from past students, but there was never any pressure to donate, in fact, they insist that if you do want to donate, you should only do so if you’ve personally received benefits from the teachings and want to donate for the benefit of future students.

The course definitely was a challenge, but a worthwhile one I think. I can’t say I’ve had any major breakthroughs yet, although I can see there are benefits to be had, I will keep practicing the technique, and see how things progress.

More Information on Vipassana: http://www.dhamma.org