I'm 34. Here's 34 things I wish I knew at 21

Overall reaction & self-help framing

• Many found the list thoughtful and relatable, praising the effort to reflect and write it down.
• Others joked it reads like a draft self-help book and linked to satire of “rules”‑style advice.
• Several noted that compressing life lessons into tweet-sized bullets sacrifices nuance and context.

Men, sexual urges, and harm

• A line about men’s hardest battle being “not giving in to sexual urges that cause harm” triggered the largest debate.
• Some men said they’ve never remotely struggled with urges that would harm others and found the framing insulting or revealing about the author.
• Others argued sexual cheating and abuse are common, and that warning men explicitly is warranted.
• The author joined to clarify: they meant cheating, coercion, and sexual violence broadly, and not that all or most men constantly fight such urges; admitted the wording was clumsy.
• Discussion broadened into rape culture, “#NotAllMen”, and whether many men secretly rationalize harmful behavior versus a smaller minority.

Gender, relationships, and sexuality

• Disagreement over claims about domestic violence directionality; consensus that harm goes both ways and stats are contested.
• Some challenged the idea that women are less sexual; others pushed back on framing women’s “value” declining with age.
• A lesson that “women can be as horny and lonely as men; just talk to them” was seen by some as a late, but important, realization.

Aging, health, and lifestyle

• The claim that you wake up “off” around 28–38 resonated with some, but others said it happened earlier, later, or was reversible with major lifestyle changes.
• There was support for simple health basics (sleep, exercise, diet, social life), though some noted unexplained health issues don’t always fit this model.

Morality of eating meat

• The statement that eating meat is “quite clearly immoral” drew mockery as well as serious engagement.
• Critics questioned applying human morality via nature analogies (carnivores, instinct).
• Supporters emphasized factory-farming cruelty and argued that knowing alternatives exist makes continued meat consumption morally fraught; the author endorsed this view while admitting they still eat meat.

Boundaries, broken people, and family

• The advice to cut “profoundly broken” people from your orbit split opinion.
• Some argued you can’t fix everyone and must protect your own mental health; others felt abandoning such people is unkind and potentially damning for them.
• Many interpreted it as situational: when someone’s issues are harming you and require professional help, distance is justified.
• Similarly, the “spend more time with your parents” advice was praised by some but rejected by those with abusive parents as not universally applicable.

Advice, criticism, and curiosity

• One thread highlighted that criticism affects you whether you accept it or not, and humans care even about opinions they “don’t care about.”
• A popular counter‑maxim: don’t overvalue advice; everyone is improvising. Meta‑debate arose over the paradox of “don’t take advice” as advice.
• Curiosity was widely endorsed as powerful, with emphasis that curiosity plus follow‑through, not curiosity alone, drives exceptional outcomes.