A few days ago I turned 37. It was a pretty uneventful birthday (40 - 3!). I did spend it with friends and family – safely, of course – so I feel lucky. Based on a blog post I read earlier this year, “68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice”, I thought it would be a fun exercise to come up with as many life lessons as my age (or as many as I could think of if I didn’t hit 37). They are personal reminders to myself for the upcoming year. I post them in case you might benefit as well:
1. It’s a privilege to be able to complain about old age. There’s a reason why we celebrate birthdays and New Year’s Eve. It marks our survival of another year. A relief and a joy: that’s what growing old ought to feel like.
2. Nothing is fixed, everything is in flux – you are not your thoughts, nor your emotions, nor the person you were yesterday, or the day before, or the time you cried when the entire class called you Spaceboy. Circumstances can change, people can change, the world can change.
3. We have less control over outcomes than we think we do, which is why outcomes can be misleading, so it is best to avoid evaluation based on outcomes. Instead, focus on the process.
4. We have more control over ourselves than we think we do – our thought processes, our habits, our knowledge, our abilities, our health. Gandhi’s oft-cited phrase “be the change you want to see in the world” hints at this.
5. It takes work. We invest so much in our careers and our jobs, and then skimp out on ourselves even though self-improvement pays dividends in other areas (our jobs, relationships, hobbies, etc).
6. We are more emotional than rational.
7. “Judge not lest ye be judged” does not mean what you think it does. When we judge others we are really judging ourselves. Not judging others will lead to less self-judgement.
8. Unless you are a trial lawyer or in a formal debate, you never really ‘win’ an argument (I love to argue, so this is a hard lesson to swallow).
9. Nobody is right 100% of the time, nor wrong 100%. This is liberating. Everyone is fallible, including me, including you. You don’t have to be right all the time, only when it matters. You get to decide when it matters.
10. Absolutes corrupt absolutely. Being so wedded to an opinion, an ideology, a worldview, or whatever is one way to ensure that you will be wrong. Doubt, skepticism and questioning lead to truth, not blind faith. This is also a warning against the hubris of the expert.
11. As we age, we become better at subtraction, which eventually serves us more than addition. We learn to subtract the unnecessary – information, words, possessions, duties, worries, etc.
12. Knowing when to say ‘enough’ is an underrated skill.
13. Use fewer words. Be comfortable with silence.
14. Patience.
15. Moments of great personal transformation are usually those in which we discover who we truly are.
16. Experience is your best teacher. And it’s another reason to celebrate growing old.
17. Extrinsic motivations (money, grades, likes, follows etc.) become ends in themselves. If you’re not careful, you will end up chasing these things instead of your original goals.
18. Money can bring freedom, but it can also enslave. There is a reason most stoics came from money. In material abundance, freedom requires material self-denial. In material scarcity, freedom requires enjoying what you have (like the Epicureans).
19. Take yourself seriously, but only inwardly.
20. It’s impossible to know everything. The trick is determining what you need to know and how to find out.
21. Learn how to make a great shot, you will impress the other players. Learn how to make a great pass, the other players will want to play with you.
22. You learn a lot more by playing dumb than you do by playing smart. Don’t let your ego get in the way of your learning. Anytime you decide to learn something new, you’re going to suck at it and/or be dumb. Be humble. Be an amateur ;)
(At this point I started running out of ideas, so I drew on the podcast. Forgive the shameless plugs).
23. Put your phone down and you’ll have the time to accomplish great things. Deb, from episode one, is able to create beautiful furniture, birdhouses, and more, in part, because she does not have social media accounts. Your most valuable resource is your attention.
24. Don’t be afraid to take risks because no matter how big the mistake is, “everything is correctable”, as Rob tells us in episode two.
25. Classics never go out of style, as Krystian argued in our men’s fashion episode. Stick to the classics and you can’t go wrong – classic fashions, recording artists, movies, books, etc. are called “classics” for a reason. They’ve survived and will survive longer (otherwise known as the Lindy effect). Also, older clothes are more comfortable.
26. Quantity in first drafts; quality in final products. Take lots of pictures, find the really good ones, and then work on identifying what makes them really good, as Layla explained in our photography episode. Like I tell my writing students: You improve your writing by editing. Work on your filter.
27. You don’t need to study something in school to get good at it, or even build a career in it, as Spencer reminded us in the computer programming episode. This is antithetical to my career as a college professor, but it’s also the ethos of this podcast.
28. Sometimes getting things right is just about figuring out one or two key details. Then everything else falls into place. In vegetable gardening, this is making sure you have good soil, as I learned from Camille in episode six. If you’ve got that covered (and enough sun and water) the rest is easy.
29. Perfect the process and make your environment work for you. This is the idea of mise en place, exemplified by the little bowls that Monica of episode seven uses to organize her ingredients before cooking (a trick she picked up in chef school).
30. Trial and error is a masterful self-teaching method. This involves not being afraid to fail, taking time to reflect on what works and what doesn’t, and trying enough times until you find what does work. Our guests from episode eight learned woodworking, small business management, and van living with this method.
32. For everyone, there are some things that come easy, and some things that come hard. Most people will avoid doing the things that come hardest. However, at some point, to fulfill a goal or a dream, or simply to get something you want, you will have to do something that does not come easy. In fact, you may even have to start from the beginning to achieve your goals, as our episode nine guest did. It takes immense courage and humility to do this. And if you give up, that’s okay. It’s an indication that whatever you were after just wasn’t worth it. Let it go. These moments will reveal what is really important to you, so don’t be afraid to try difficult things. But don’t feel bad about quitting either. Some things just aren’t worth it. And then at some point, you’ll discover something that is worth the trouble.
33. Act locally. Learn about your community (like Enrique, from episode ten), and what resources are available, such as plants. Plants can do amazing things. We don’t learn enough about plants and nature, which is partly why we treat the environment like a garbage disposal.
34. Learning is generational wealth. Most of what we learn comes from our parents, whether it’s how to cook a holiday turkey, how to be a good person, or how to raise our own children. New approaches or technologies come along that allow us to augment the methods of the previous generation. In this sense, the intergenerational wealth of learning compounds.
35. Break from conventional wisdom that doesn’t work for you. Glen Shackleton from episode thirteen threw out the HR playbook for hiring and training employees. Instead, he was able to build an awesome sense of community within his company because he figured out what worked for him.
36. We’re all going through some shit, so don’t be afraid to ask for help.
37. Preaching is easy, practicing is difficult. I’ve lost count of the number of politicians that told everyone to stay home, only to be caught at a family gathering, the cottage, St. Bart’s, or somewhere else they weren’t supposed to be. Life lessons mean nothing if we don’t put them to work, and that is by far the hardest part.
Learning makes life interesting. It gives us something to work towards, no matter what else is going on in our life or the world. Whatever happens in my 37th year, I’ll learn from it; that’s definitely something to look forward to!