Every mistake has a price tag, and the price goes up as you get older. Make your messes while they’re cheap.

Consequences scale with what is attached to you. At twenty a bad decision costs time and embarrassment; the same decision later can involve a mortgage, a team, a child, a reputation built over years. Nothing about your judgement changes, only the size of what rides on it.

Take the risks now that are genuinely reversible. Try the odd course, the wrong-seeming job, the thing you might be bad at. The aim is not recklessness, it is spending your low-stakes years on experiments rather than on caution.