My advice to the class of 2020 is to consider HVAC or plumbing so you can be vastly richer than I am, like the 21-year-old kid who cleaned our furnace last year

My other (serious) advice: don't believe all the "success sequence" nonsense about money and family life. There is a great deal to be said for being young and married and poor together.

There are conversely some non-trivial problems with delaying out of fear. People become comfortable, set in their ways, confirmed in habits good or otherwise; they get too risk-averse for marriage, which always involves risk, the risk of abandoning oneself for another.

People in their late twenties or early thirties often back out of serious relationships when they recognize that—gasp—the other person has certain undesirable personality traits or qualities along with all the good loveable ones. Guess what? This is just human nature.

This is the whole point of marriage. By cooperating with the grace of the sacrament two people who have committed themselves to mutual self-abnegation can actually become more virtuous. It's not magic, but it is real; it does happen and it's meant to happen.