10 Things All Twenty-Somethings Need To Do Before Turning 30

Lists dominate the blogging and writing world: "5 Ways to Save Money". "10 Top Stars of 2008", "100 Places to go Before You Die". Here to keep the listmania going is my own contribution, an answer to Ryan Hupfer's request, "10 Things All Twenty-Somethings Need to Do Before Turning 30".

1. Complete all your education. You may wind up as that charming granny who gets her first college degree at 89, but more likely you'll end up the shunned, dejected chump who falls asleep on a park bench at 42 and never wakes up.
2. Establish a series of money-making projects and products, or settle into a job with benefits you won't hate or be fired from by the time you're 40. Having a spouse and kids can be brutal on your cash reserves, and retirement will be the TKO for many people's remaining money. Focus heavily on automating your income and boosting it with the mechanics of scale.
3. Spend priceless time with your parents and relatives. Don't let regret mar your memories later. Many of your extended family, the people you grew up with, will become ill or pass away in the coming years, often by surprise. Or, heaven forbid, you may not even be fated to make it to your 30th.
4. Take up a skill or hobby that requires full use of your strength and/or senses. Take time in your 20s to enjoy a trade, a hobby or other pastime that challenges and rewards every fiber of your existence. Apathy and complacency kick in in the 30s, when paying bills is often enough of an accomplishment for most people, and raising families drains the rest of their sense of adventure.
5. Stop beating on your body. Past misdeeds catch up with you in your 30s, and overwork, substance abuse, and environmental hazards (sun, second-hand smoke, chemicals, noise) start to steal your endurance, disease resistance, and money-making ability. Practice a little precaution so you're not artificially aged.
6. Get jiggy. Socially speaking, the 30s can be a toxic wasteland. The Grim Reaper is practicing his skills on a small swath of colleagues every year, many people become worn-out parents with comfortably constricting routines, a lot of people become too ill for romance, divorce embitters and sequesters many, and still others start that inexorable sag into the pariahhood of the "Floppy 40s". Have some fun with someone special before the joy and pleasure are replaced with solo cable TV, pet-walking and TV dinners.
7. Record your life in video, sound, photos, writing. Someday you may be looking back at your past life, staring into an abyss of lost memories and disappeared thoughts. Document your life with just enough time invested so you can relive your youth from time to time when you'll feel down.
8. Make a radical change in one part of your life, to see how you could be living differently. Take the weakest, most annoying part of your life and throw it out the window, at least for a few weeks. See what life has to offer before you settle for a series of timecard punches, lifeless kisses, or humdrum routines and ten years is gone in the vanishing of a mirage.
9. Cultivate friendships and working relationships which will benefit you later in life. Many times, you will need to rely on someone else heavily later on in life: a mechanic, a printer, a bookkeeper, a technician, or even a neighbor. Be there for the people who may well be there for you later in life. Even if they end up elsewhere, it's good practice being kind and helpful.
10. Eliminate your debt, if any. Debt is one of the most exhausting, destructive and demoralizing forces when left unchecked. Start cutting off your small credit cards, focus on your big credit cards and bills, switch to debit or nothing, and change your negatively accruing interest into something positive.