As my 25th year of life has come and gone, I’ve
taken up a great deal of time sitting and reflecting on the most valuable
lessons I’ve learned in this lifetime. This article has been in the making for
well over a year. I’ve changed the
lessons over and over and reprioritized them. It’s hard to pin down just 25
important lessons you wish you could tell a younger version of yourself. There’s
a lot I’ve learned and yet, even more things that I don’t know. Life has thrown
a lot of lessons at me, and many that I can attest have been learned the hard
way. Here’s to life and the lessons it has taught me.
1. Love Yourself
People will come and go in and out of your life like fads.
There will be some consistency, but the world will continue to evolve and
change. Through this whole experience
called life the only constant you have to hold on to is yourself. With that being said, you have to learn to
love yourself. As humans we often serve
as our own worst enemy. Our own
insecurities seem to be projected and magnified by others. We constantly feel
as if we are not adequate, not good enough; constantly doubting. It took me well over 25 years to learn to
love myself. I don’t have that kind of
time or effort to convince anyone else to do the same. If you can learn to love
yourself and be yourself, there is great satisfaction that at the end of the
day you can at least count on that.
2. Do What Makes YOU Happy
There are so many times I’ve wanted to do something or join
an organization but none of my friends wanted to do those things so I ended up
not doing them. I missed out on having
the opportunity of doing something I wanted to do for me, just because no one
else would do it with me. Your circle of friends will grow, change and evolve
throughout the course of your life, but you will always be with you and you owe
yourself a favor to do your own thing and find what you love to do for
yourself. You are not in this world to live up to anyone else’s expectations,
nor are you a slave to how you think you should look to others. Do what makes
you happy and everything else will fall into place.
3. Help Others
Some of the best feelings you can have in life come from
when you are serving others. Whether it’s paying a compliment to a stranger or
donating money to a charity, serving others in an altruistic fashion is truly
uplifting to the soul.
4. Find a Passion
There are many things in life you’re obligated to do whether
you enjoy them or not. At some point you should find at least one you are
passionate about. Everyone needs an
outlet to turn to when they need to get away from the monotony of everyday
life. Whether it’s painting, running or
basket weaving, find something you truly enjoy doing and make time to do it.
5. Don’t Care What Others Think
Much of my younger life so much wasted time and energy was
spent on caring what others think. In
retrospect it doesn’t matter if you behave like Mother Teresa or Courtney Love,
someone is going to talk shit about you.
You can be the best cup of tea in the world, and some asshole out there
doesn’t care for tea. What matters in the end is how you handled yourself. Did
people make up rumors? Probably. But getting a reaction turns them on. So do
not let the opinion of mindless sheep influence who you are or what you become.
6. Expectations and Assumptions are the Parasites of Life
There have been many disappointments in my life. However, many if not most of the
disappointments have come from unrealistic expectations and false assumptions
(on both the giving and receiving end). Sometimes we have an idea in our head
of how things should be, or how we want them to be. Others may not even be
aware that we have this picture already painted in our heads. This has been the
beginning of many misunderstandings and many feuds. Expectations and assumptions
become the foundation that disappointments are built upon.
7. Everyone Comes With Baggage
Every experience in our life shapes who we are. The past, how
we are raised, and what experiences we have all play into who we are and how we
perceive the world. Everyone you meet has their own unique history and
collective experiences that have molded their foundation for what they believe,
how they feel and how they behave. We are all broken, in one sense or another.
Know that you are not perfect, nor will you ever be, but no one else ever will
be either.
8. Accept Things For What They Are
There are things in this life that we cannot change. There
are things out of our control and that has been one of the most difficult
lessons for me to learn during this lifetime.
You have to accept things for what they are at the time. You can’t be in
love with potential, nor can you beat on a wall expecting it to change into a
door. You have to learn to accept things for what they are.
9. Appreciate Differences
There is a great deal of variety in life and we are meant to
enjoy it. Life would be quite boring and
monotonous if we all felt and thought the same way. While there is some
familiarity and comfort in homophily, that makes us appreciate differences even
more. Differences can open us up to new ways
of thinking and lead us down new paths we may have otherwise taken.
10. Learn to Let Go
There are some things in life that were just not meant for
us. This is not always easy to accept. Sometimes these things that are not
meant for us are things we think we think we really need or want for our lives,
but they just weren’t meant to be. Whether it be rejection, inadequacy or
failure, you have to learn to let go, and do so gracefully. Granted this is
much easier said than done, but letting go is the first step in the process of
moving forward with your life.
11. Stop Waiting
I feel like I’ve spent the majority of my life waiting.
Waiting to graduate, waiting to get a job, waiting to get married, waiting to
have babies. STOP WAITING! Although all those milestones are things we
want to achieve, I cannot express how important it is to stop waiting and start
living. If your head is in the clouds
and your eyes are gazing ahead, you don’t realize how many things you have to
enjoy around you at the present. It’s
nice to see a future for yourself, but don’t get so wrapped up in it that you
aren’t grateful for the life God has set for you currently.
12. Welcome Change
Life seems to have a way of happening all at once or having
nothing happen at all. During these times it is important to learn to welcome
change. As humans we are creatures of habit and have a tendency to get set in
our ways. We become resistant to change
as there are so many unknowns associated with it. Change is necessary for
life. After all if nothing changed,
there would be no butterflies.
To continue please read 25 Things in 25 Years (Part 2)
To continue please read 25 Things in 25 Years (Part 2)
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