This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find … themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. … they mean to develop intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated.

Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal.

Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? … Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”

Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe … life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.

I have met older couples so happy they give me the vague impression that I’ll never be able to live up to what they’ve found. I have always been given such wonderful, lasting advice about love, and I want to collect it all and take it around with me, everywhere I go, letting it color my decisions and remind me that life is short, and that I need to be patient. We always need to be patient.

You have your own love, your heady, young infatuation, and it becomes your whole world. And then you see the couple walking down the street, laughing together, who have made it through so much and are still exactly where you are today — just so many shades deeper, richer. And you ask yourself, “How do I get from here to there? What are the tricks I need to know?” Maybe there is no secret formula. Maybe some people are just lucky enough to find the right one, to beat the odds. But I hope to make my own luck, and I hope to do it laughing.