Weekend Challenge #45: 31 Lessons for 31 Years

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” Socrates reportedly said in response to allegations of corrupting youth in Athens (he’d eventually be put to death in that trial…yikes). In honor of that notion, I’ve written a lot about reflection in the last year. I’ve told you to reflect and I’m even working on something to help you do so with a purpose for 2021.

Well, I’ll turn 31 in a few days and I figure I better put my time where my mouth is (there’s no money here but it takes time, so we’ll go with that). To be honest, when I turned 30 last year, a milestone birthday immortalized in shows like Friends and plastered to social media, I didn’t reflect much. I wasn’t in the space and it wasn’t that big of a deal. But this year, I’ve started writing more, giving ideas to the world, struggled with self-negativity, settled into my marriage, started a new job, set out for the most ambitious fitness commitment I’ve ever made, and just generally experienced a lot. I think some reflection is in order.

To honor my 31 years on the planet so far, I want to offer 31 lessons I’ve been given or learned through experience. I’ll keep each short but hopefully useful to you. Some are my own ideas; most are stolen from someone else along the way. It’s not plagiarism, it’s learning. Here we go:

1. Life matters most. This year we all felt loss. In my life, I’ve said goodbye to more people than I wish I had had to. The loss of life should hit you hard and make you really think. If it doesn’t, you don’t know true loss and you don’t know full life. Don’t seek loss but realize the value of life before it’s gone.
2. Your mindset makes what matters, matter. I haven’t traveled a lot in my 31 years and people tell me it’s something I’m missing. They’re probably right but if you can’t enjoy your life at your house when there isn’t much going on, you won’t enjoy your life in some exotic place either. You’ll just pretend to.
3. True strength is in letting go. Life is too short for grudges, anger, or whatever. As it is said, holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Let it go. (This lesson presented by Frozen…what a movie.)
4. Kids are the best BS detectors ever. If you want to know if you are authentic or not, go hang out with some kids. When I was teaching middle school, those kids knew when I was full of it, and when I was being real. They helped me be more real, more of the time. If you aren’t in a profession like I was, get around people who have nothing to gain from you. They are the only ones who can and will be honest.
5. Luck isn’t real, blessing is. Luck is random, a blessing is not, and I don’t mean blessing in a religious sense. When someone helps us, that’s not luck, it’s a blessing. When we receive love, it’s a blessing. Nothing is random or lucky when you look back because it all connects. Don’t give credit to luck for your successes and don’t hide behind, “oh, they are so lucky.”
6. The worst pain is often what we need most. I thought I knew exactly what I needed in a long-term relationship during my twenties. Then that relationship was ripped away from me and the pain was unbearable. I fought the pain, tried to get them back but ultimately couldn’t. When a new relationship came into my life, I realized the pain of losing that last one forced me to really think about who I was and what I wanted. Now I’m married to the best person I’ve ever met.  
7. Friendships are underrated. Friends in our society are often seen as the people we have fun with, but they are so much more than that. The last few years have shown me that friends are the people we have fun with but they are also the ones we cry, overcome hard things, and get better with. Don’t underestimate true and meaningful friendship.
8. Friendships are overrated. Yes, it’s the opposite of the last one but our generation has become obsessed with the number of friendships we have in real life and social media. The friends we have on the periphery of our life who we engage with here and there are overrated. Get a few good friends and you won’t need hundreds of half-way friends.
9. You are not who you were. Most of life seems to be a progression of days and weeks where we become who we are as we go. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can be different than your parents or your past self. It will take work and it’s worth it. Don’t be a victim of your circumstances.
10. An 8-hour workday is a damaging myth. As many of us went to work from home in 2020, we had to wrestle with the notion of an 8-hour workday. Over my life, I’ve been blessed with many types of jobs in various settings. Somedays I’ve put in way more than 8 hours, and many days didn’t require it. It’s a lie, people in offices don’t work 8 hours even if they are in the building that long, and there was no reason for 8 to be a magic number anyway. Let it go. Get done what you need to get done and enjoy your life.
11. Learning is a superpower. If you can learn how to learn, you will be Batman.
12. Learning is not school. I was a teacher, I have a Ph.D., and I taught teachers how to teach. But school is not learning. School is an accumulation of knowledge and student skills. To truly learn, you must take school knowledge and use it in life. Many teachers are moving in this direction, but it will always rely on a student to learn, no one can do it for you.
13. Unlearning is the key to happiness. In a society of strong opinions and people willing to create violence over half-understood beliefs, to truly differentiate yourself and find happiness, figure out how to unlearn. Hold your beliefs with less white-knuckles and realize that you’re probably wrong, or at least partially wrong, pretty much all the time. It seems like it would make life worse but it’s actually what allows you to find happiness in new places.
14. The process really is more important than the results. Results are sexy, processes are ugly. Processes are the hundreds of drafts behind a book, the scenes on the cutting room floor, the conversations behind a strong marriage. Learn to love the process, lean into the ugliness and the beauty will come on the other side.
15. Leave your phone alone. At multiple times in my life, I’ve decided to not look at my phone in the morning. Then I fall off and go back to old habits. But when I leave my phone (and especially social media) alone until noon, my life is so much better.
16. Challenge yourself because other people can’t. Anything I’ve been able to accomplish that was hard, has been a challenge from myself. Other people hold you to their standards, so their challenges are sometimes offbeat and often too small. Go big for yourself and you’ll be amazed at what you can do.
17. Conversation matters. I’m an introvert by nature and love my alone time but I’ve learned that my most incredible moments happen in conversation. Talking to another person about ideas sharpens everything we think.
18. Be intentional with your time. You build a life one day at a time, don’t go into them without a plan. Even a plan to relax is great but don’t operate on default for too long. I’ve chased material gain and money most of my life but recently I’ve been able to better understand that freedom of time is the best reward in life. Control it, or it will control you.
19. Nothing and no one is as simple as they seem. The media, people around you, and every article will make things seem simple. They’ll give you either-or decisions to make it easy to live. None of these arguments make sense if you look further. Think more in “and-both” than “either-or” in regard to situations and people.
20. Limitations are mostly our own. There are real limitations in life and some of us have more than others. However, we are almost always willing to put more limitations on ourselves than the world puts on us. If you can lift self-imposed limits, you’ll really move.
21. Trust yourself. I’m working on this one a lot with my work. It took me 30 years to gain the realization that I had to send my work out and not worry about the result. For most of my life, I trusted others with everything, now I’m learning I have to trust myself first.
22. Be prepared. My dad’s favorite piece of advice was to always be prepared. I used to roll my eyes at him, now I channel it every day. Thanks, dad. In life, opportunities seem to arise from nowhere. Your job is to be ready for them when they do. Opportunities for new jobs, relationships, or game-changing events in your life can’t be forced but will come without much warning and with a short expiration date. If you’re not ready to take a risk when they show up, you’ll miss them and then say you never had a chance. You did, you just weren’t prepared.
23. Read well, live well. I’ve loved to read since the first Harry Potter book showed up under the Christmas Tree back in my preteen years but learning how to read well, was a much more recent lesson. Even through a Ph.D., I didn’t learn to read well. If you can figure out how to read in a way that engages your life with the book or article, you start to read well. Reading might not give you a great life but reading well almost certainly will.
24. Leadership isn’t that complicated. I spent 5 years studying leadership with a certain framework and set of literature. I’ve read hundreds of leadership books. Guess what? They all say pretty much the same things in different words (and sometimes the same words). Leadership is a way of living, not a job. Care about people, show them you care, serve them the best you can for the common goals you have, and don’t be unethical. Boom, leadership. Only after those are in place should you worry about the nuances of a certain context, position, or team.
25. Goals aren’t magic. Everyone loves talking about goals. There are smart ones, peer ones, and tons of other ones. Setting goals is cool but most are never attained. Why? Because goals aren’t as useful as they’ve been chalked up to be. The real power is in changing behavior toward a new identity. If you want to be a writer, you write. If you want to be a painter, you paint. You do it not to reach a goal but to become something new.
26. Exercise isn’t just for a beach body. When I started working out, I was 15 and training for baseball. Okay, I was 15 and I was trying to get ripped so girls would like me. The idea that your fitness commitment should have nothing to do with vanity is crap, and you all know it. At the same time, after sticking with exercise for a while you realize that the physical benefits are only the tip of the iceberg. If you’re unhappy with your life in any area, my first recommendation is to get physically healthier. Trust me, it will change everything else too. Work out, drink some water, and sleep 7-8 hours.
27. Humor is connection. Can you believe that I wasn’t the popular kid at school? Well, there you go, I wasn’t. I was, “too serious and straight-edged” because I didn’t party. What I learned was that even while maintaining my priority of sobriety, the best way to really connect with people was through humor. Let your humor shine for others.
28. Don’t take it so seriously. Serious things happen in life and there are serious problems to tackle. You have to learn how to balance that seriousness with lightness and fun. I struggle with it at times so learn before I have. You’re important to the world but not so important that you can’t have some fun here and there.
29. You don’t have to drink. This is more personal but if it’s for you, you’ll know. In 31 years, I’ve had 2 beers and 1 shot of whiskey. I didn’t like any of them. I don’t drink because I’ve never seen a benefit in it and no one has been able to really show me one. In college, it meant that I didn’t go to certain parties or the bars and I worried that I was missing out on something amazing. Looking back, I don’t think I missed a thing. This is just for anyone out there who feels pressure to go with the crowd like I did but wants to stay strong, you don’t have to and you won’t miss anything.
30. Don’t quit. The old dad’s platitude that you can’t quit the team because you made a commitment, stands up in my life. There is a time for quitting, but it comes after a whole lot of analyzing and planning for what’s next. It isn’t the impulse decision to get out of things that are challenging that most of us have made it. With pretty much everything in life, be courageous enough to make a commitment, and then do not quit even when it doesn’t seem to be working. Remember water boils at 112 degrees, not 111 so don’t turn off the stove at 111 and forever wonder if 112 was the secret.
31. Life is awesome. Go live. Do it your way and don’t try to live someone else’s life.

This list itself is a lesson I learned this year more than ever, so maybe we’ll call it a bonus. For anyone out there that has an idea or wants to contribute to the world in a meaningful way that requires you to do something creative, there is a lesson I’ve used every Friday this year to write. It’s the same one I used to finish this list.

A year ago, I would have mulled over this list to get the perfect 31 lessons that everyone needs to live better. I would have reworked it for weeks before putting it out to you. Then I would have tried to hit the “unsend” button a thousand times because I might have missed that one big lesson. Not now though.

Here’s how this went. I sat down on Monday, wrote the introduction. Tuesday, I came up with 14 lessons that resonated with me that day. Wednesday, I wrote out the rest of the 31. I didn’t create a list of 100 ahead of time that I narrowed down or brainstorm all year. I simply sat down and wrote what came to my heart that I thought might help you live better, if even just in the smallest way. Then, I reviewed it for general writing, added some flair to a few, and hit publish. That’s it.

We are incredibly blessed with the opportunity to create and contribute. Maybe my work isn’t for you or you read some of these lessons and rolled your eyes as I used to toward my dad. That’s great with me! My hope is that something I say resonates with some of you, but I know it won’t always matter to all of you.

When I was teaching, I tried so hard to get my middle school students to listen to one piece of advice from me. Nearly every day, I’d say, “don’t try to be perfect for me, work toward it for yourself.” Now, I’m listening to my own advice and I hope you will too.

If you have an idea or something you want to try, go. Live life to the full and enjoy. Let the haters talk behind your back, they’re back there for a reason. It’s not always easy but just think about how you’ll feel if your life comes to an end with every dream you had still within you. The only way to guarantee failure is to let your ideas stay with you. Let them out for yourself and more importantly because we need them.  

31 years of wisdom boiled into 31 lessons that may or may not be the ones I’d write tomorrow. All well, this is for today, not tomorrow anyway.

I hope something here meant something to you. If it did, I’d love it if you would share with me, or maybe you have a lesson that you’d add to the list. Perhaps I’ll steal it for lesson #32 next year.

Weekend Challenge

This was a fun exercise for me and this weekend, I think you’d enjoy it for yourself. Grab a piece of paper and write down some lessons. It doesn’t have to match your age, I’m just trying to be an effective click-bait blogger so the numbers matter here. Write 1, 3, 10, or 100. Think about what you’d want your kids to remember most or what you’d tell your younger self to prepare them for the life they will lead.

Then share some lessons with us! The LIFE Council was literally created on the notion that ee can all get better and we don’t need gurus to do it. We just need one another to be willing to share the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Have a great weekend!

Best today. Better tomorrow.