I was talking to my grandson last week. He’s twenty-six, living with two roommates, working a job he’s already planning to leave.

He said, “I feel like I’m wasting time. I should have my own place by now. I should be further along.”

I asked him what he was rushing toward. He didn’t have a good answer. Just a vague sense that he was behind some invisible schedule.

I see this constantly with younger people. They’re sprinting through stages of life that deserve attention. Treating their twenties and thirties like waiting rooms instead of destinations.

Meanwhile, I’m seventy, looking back at those same stages I rushed through, and thinking, what was the hurry?

Nobody tells you this when you’re young, but there are certain periods of life you only get once. And when they’re gone, you can’t get them back. You can’t recreate them. You can only remember them and wish you’d paid more attention while you were living them.

Here are seven stages I wish I’d slowed down for, and that I see younger generations racing through just like I did.

1. The years of having energy but no obligations

This is roughly your early twenties, sometimes stretching into your late twenties. You’re healthy. You can stay up late and recover by noon. You can move your body without planning around joint pain or recovery time.

But you also don’t have a mortgage. No kids depending on you. No aging parents requiring care. No major health issues demanding management.

This combination doesn’t last. And it never comes back.

I spent those years working constantly, trying to establish myself, convinced that every hour not spent building my career was wasted time. I was saving money for a house. Planning for a family. Rushing toward the next stage.

I barely traveled. I turned down invitations because I was too focused on work. I didn’t take the spontaneous road trips or say yes to the adventures that required flexibility.

Now I have money and time. But I don’t have the energy. I can’t sleep on floors or in hostels. I can’t hike all day and go out all night. I need comfortable beds and predictable schedules.

My grandson has that window right now. That brief period where his body works perfectly and his life is unencumbered. He’s treating it like a problem to solve instead of a gift to use.

2. Living with roommates and figuring out who you are

Younger people see roommates as something to graduate from. A phase you endure until you can afford to live alone.

I lived with roommates for three years in my twenties. At the time, I couldn’t wait to have my own place.

Looking back, those were some of the richest years of my life. Late-night conversations. Shared meals. Learning to navigate conflict with people who weren’t family.

Those roommates became lifelong friends. The apartment was cramped and sometimes frustrating, but it was alive in a way my solo apartments never were.

Now I live alone. It’s quiet. And sometimes the silence is crushing.

That communal phase teaches you things you can’t learn any other way. Once you skip it, you don’t get it back.

3. Jobs that teach you skills but don’t define you

I see young people treating every job like it has to be their career. They agonize over whether it’s the right fit, the right trajectory.

In my twenties and early thirties, I had jobs I knew were temporary. I worked construction one summer. I managed a warehouse. I did accounting for a company I didn’t care about.

But I learned so much. Construction taught me about physical work. The warehouse taught me logistics. The accounting taught me how businesses function.

All of that became useful later, in ways I never expected.

Now young people want to skip straight to the career. But those placeholder years teach you things about work, about people, about yourself.

4. The phase of dating without the pressure to find “the one”

Younger generations date with such urgency. Every person they meet is evaluated as a potential life partner. Every relationship that ends is treated as a failure.

I dated casually through my twenties. Some relationships lasted months. Some lasted a year. I wasn’t trying to marry every person I went out with.

Those relationships taught me what I wanted, what I didn’t want, how to be with another person. They were valuable even though they ended.

I didn’t meet my wife until I was thirty-one. By then, I knew myself well enough to recognize what we had.

Now people in their mid-twenties are already anxious about being single. They commit too fast because they’re afraid of wasting time.

But that phase of figuring out relationships, of learning about yourself through different partners, that’s important.

5. Time with your parents as adults, not just as their child

When you’re young, your relationship with your parents is what it’s always been. They’re the authority figures. You’re still partly the kid they raised.

Then somewhere in your thirties or forties, if you’re lucky, the relationship shifts. You become adults together. You can talk as equals. You can ask them about their lives, their regrets, their experiences, and actually understand the answers.

I got maybe ten years of that with my father before he died. Ten years where we could have real conversations. Where he told me things about his life I’d never known. Where we could be honest with each other.

I wish I’d had more of those conversations. I wish I’d slowed down during the years when that was possible and paid more attention.

Now I watch younger people stay busy, stay distant, check in with their parents out of obligation rather than genuine interest. They’re waiting for some future time when they’ll be less busy, more available.

But that time gets shorter every year. And the version of your parents who can have those conversations won’t always be there.

6. The early years of parenting when kids actually want you around

I was so focused on being a good provider when my kids were little. I worked long hours. I brought home the paycheck.

I missed a lot. School events. Bedtimes. Random afternoons. I told myself it was necessary.

But they didn’t need a bigger future. They needed me present in their actual childhood.

Now my kids are grown. And I can’t get back those years when I was their whole world. When they wanted to show me every drawing, tell me every story.

That window closes. Suddenly they’re teenagers who’d rather be with their friends. Then adults with their own families.

I see younger parents making the same mistake. Rushing through the early years, focused on careers and the next stage. Not realizing those exhausting toddler years are also the years their kids will remember them being there or not being there.

7. The decade before retirement when you still have health and time

I thought retirement was when life would really start. When I’d finally have time to do all the things I’d put off.

I retired at sixty-five. I was lucky. I had my health. I had savings. I had time.

But I’d spent the previous ten years counting down, thinking about what I’d do “when I retire.”

I wish I’d treated those years differently. I was in my fifties. Still healthy. Still energetic. I could have taken trips. Started hobbies.

Instead, I waited. And by the time I retired, some of those things weren’t possible anymore.

That pre-retirement decade is a gift. You likely have some money, some flexibility, and you’re still physically capable. It’s a stage worth slowing down for.

The pattern underneath all seven

Every stage I’ve listed has something in common. It’s a time when you have something you won’t always have. Energy. Freedom. Relationships in a particular form.

And the mistake is always the same. Treating it as a transition instead of a destination. Racing through it to get to the next thing.

But every stage is worth your attention. Every phase has gifts you can only receive while you’re in it.

When you’re twenty-five or thirty-five or even fifty, you think you have unlimited time. But you don’t. Time moves faster than you think.

The only advice I have is this: wherever you are right now, be there. Stop treating it as a warmup for the real thing. The real thing is happening. Right now. This is it.

Which of these seven stages are you currently racing through? And what would it look like to slow down long enough to actually live it?