Dear 26 Year Old MeНамуна

Kevin Kim (Pastor)

My twenty-six-year-old self had an immature view of the place of failure and challenges in life. When I was twenty-six, I looked at a failure or a challenge as an obstruction, as something standing in the way of me doing what I wanted or doing what God was calling me to do. I know better now, but I wish I’d learned this sooner. 

I love this verse: “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17 KJV). What if our challenges and disappointments aren’t working against us but are actually working for us? What if failures, challenges, and disappointments are our teammates? What if they are actually our employees and they’re there to do a job? And what if their job is to help us grow, to help us learn, to refine us, to make us deeper and stronger, and to make eternal investments for us? 

Silicon Valley is known for celebrating failure. They have mantras like “Fail fast, fail often” and “Move fast and break things.” To companies like Facebook and Google, failure doesn’t mean “game over”; it means “try again with experience.” 

What I wish I could tell twenty-six-year-old me is “Who you will become is because of your failures and disappointments. You’ll actually be better because of them. You’ll make better decisions. You’ll be slower to panic. Practically speaking, failure will teach you to be a better decision-maker and problem solver.” 

Failures are like those afflictions 2 Corinthians talks about. They’re only for a moment, and they’re investing for you; they’re achieving for you; they’re producing eternal glory for you. Don’t hate your failures or curse your challenges. Embrace failure and disappointment as mentors who will shape you and friends who have an important role. 

I would also urge my younger self not to squander resources, the greatest of which is time. I would say, “Don’t play video games. Don’t binge on Netflix. Time is your most precious gift and resource.” 

I think having kids heightens your perception of how time works. Time seems to go by way faster now. I blink my eyes, and my daughter, whose birth I remember so clearly, is now in middle school. 

I’m forty-one now, and my biggest regret is that I didn’t use my time wisely when I was twenty-six. I wish I had read the Bible more. I wish I had prayed more. I wish I had learned another language. I wish I had spent more time perfecting the craft of leadership. I wish I had learned how to surf. 

If I could go back and give advice to myself at twenty-six, I would tell myself not to squander my time.