Now, immediately, you might read the title of this post and think: What life lessons does someone who hasn’t even reached a quarter of a century have to teach someone else? And to you I’d say: I don’t blame you for thinking that. But didn’t a wise person once say that age wasn’t about the number — or something like that? Most of you won’t know more than 5 things about me (and a lot of them were probably learned from this blog), but you should know that I’ve been both fortunate (and sometimes unfortunate) enough to experience more than some people who are twice my age (all the good, bad and ugly). And through it all, I’ve come to at least learn a few things, even if they didn’t hit me immediately.
Most of my life experiences were pre-made and boxed, just waiting for me to come upon them at some point — that is, if I tell you that I don’t believe in some sort of alternate destiny, where the decisions I’ve made at every fork in the road have led me to those experiences. It’s hard to tell. On the other hand, there are many instances in my short life when it’s been easier to see a cause and effect of a decision I made, myself. Whatever the case, I’ve learned a lot and am still unraveling these clues to living wisely that were so cleverly wrapped up in an experience.
Sometimes the thing you think you’ve learned is not always the bigger picture. Maybe in 10 more years, I won’t have these same lessons to pass on — even when I look back at the same experiences. But for now, these are the 10 life lessons from a 23-year-old:
- You can never make someone love you — ever. No amount of guilt, kicking and screaming or mind-games can ever change that. If someone loves you, they just do.
- Being jealous or angry of what someone else has is completely pointless. Your lives are entirely unrelated, and what one of you has nothing to do with what the other person does or doesn’t.
- Relish your time alone. That overwhelming sense of feeling everything you’re feeling is often the best time to make sense of it all.
- Putting yourself out of your comfort zone over and over will only help you to understand what you want in life and what you don’t. Plus — it gets less scary each time.
- Keep a journal. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to time-travel (pictures aren’t the same at all), and there’s nothing like hearing from yourself during the happiest, saddest, most tumultuous and ridiculous times of your life.
- Have fun. Lots of it. Every opportunity you get to enjoy life, do it. Why would you pass up such precious time?
- Make peace with death — with your own and the ones you’ll experience. As soon as you stop seeing it as a tragedy, you can accept it as just another transition.
- Work on having faith — in people, yourself, love and life in general. It’s probably the single, most difficult thing to possess, but also the most powerful.
- Learn how to properly use they’re, their, there and you’re, your — please! People will and do (rightfully) judge you.
- The proper way to sneeze when you don’t have a tissue at hand is into your shoulder — not your hands! Stop the spread of germs, people!!
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- 10 Life Lessons People Learn Too Late – Hughes it or Lose it? (frazierhughes.com)
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