5 Life Lessons I’d Share With My Younger Self
A reflection.
I sometimes imagine a panic-stricken phone call to my younger self.
I only have 30 seconds to pass wisdom to him before the call ends. No winning lottery ticket numbers. No stock advice. Just quick life advice.
Would I even be able to help? Or are some trains meant to crash? This exercise is a great way to surface wisdom. What have I learned, without a doubt?
Too many people settle
I’m a 40-year-old divorced man and will tell you firsthand— there’s never full closure.
There’s always a subtle feeling of unfinished business, which is fine; we were never guaranteed a lock and key to the past.
Divorce offers a rare and visceral opportunity for retrospective learning. For example, I spent countless hours with other married couples, and what I saw, made me deeply cynical about marriage. There were shockingly few happy couples. So many were caught between ‘meh’ and very bad.
One couple had almost nothing in common. They were always in a slow-burning fight. They were like jaded, low-pay actors, going through the motions for the sake of their kids. They got together for the same reason so many do: “I probably can’t do better, so I’ll just go with this one.”
This transactional reasoning is proven by science: those who fear being single settle for less. The greater their fear of being single, the more they’ll downgrade. Then, they’ll claw to make the already-bad relationship work, all before realizing one can only chuck water out of a sinking boat for so long. Fundamental incompatibilities have one true destination. I would urge my younger self not to settle.
This is the paradox of singledom; The less you care about meeting someone, the more you convey your value. You attract someone worth your interest.
There’s no official grown-up title
There’s no magical day when you wake up and suddenly feel grown-up.
Getting older is mostly a realization of how stupid you were before. You still feel like the same person you were years ago, with so many components removed and replaced. I wince thinking about the stupid things I’ve said, the pain I have caused, the embarrassment I have brought upon myself.
But I take solace in knowing this is so central to the human experience. Everyone steps into that merciless time machine as they stare sleeplessly into the night. Those haunting specters of our own creation are life’s way of shouting, “Sit down. Shut up. Listen.” If nobody else succeeds in humbling you, living will do you that favor.
And if enough bad things happen, if you make enough mistakes, you will eventually learn how to live.
I would tell my younger self, growing up happens under the guise of profound change. Really, it is your true self being continually revealed in the flow of time. Do not fear the pain of regret.
Some good things must die
Many of you younger folk have webs of friendships.
You may have a few close friends you see often, and groups of people you hang out with on weekends. These friends might be the most important people in the world to you.
Just wait.
As 30 approaches, as people settle into their careers, as they hear their biological clocks ticking, and they start getting married — your Facebook feed becomes nothing but engagement announcements, weddings, and baby photos. You’ll quickly become estranged from many of those friends.
There is no bad blood in this dissolution, but it surely happens to most of us. Against the ceaseless press of work emails and the wee hour wails of a babies, your time and energy wane and you’re spread thin between friends. I’d tell my younger self to make a conscious effort to preserve what friendships you can. Be social. Stay in touch with people.
Otherwise, you’ll find the loneliness of old age creeping as your phone rings less and less.
Nothing is actually lost
My 20’s were as wild as was legally allowable — and then some.
It included all of the usual suspects: partying, chasing girls, getting drunk, and wasting time. At the time — I often woke up regretting wasting time and energy over such hedonic pleasures.
Yet now, when I look back, I don’t actually feel like any time was wasted. I realized this at my final corporate job. There was a batch of newly graduated engineers. Every day, I came in at 8 AM sharp, and they were already there.
All day, they stared at these computer screens, frozen like statues heralding the arrival of the corporate grind.
I’d leave a few minutes after five, and they were still there. If I stayed late, they were still there. Their life was a computer screen.
I’m so glad I didn’t spend my early 20s doing that. My only regret is that I beat myself up over goofing off. The concerns and burdens of adulting only get heavier with time.
These days, I smile wistfully looking back. If you long for something, was it truly a waste? Time spent having fun, in good health, and free from whatever burdens you carry, is anything but squandered.
Though it might be advisable to put time limits on such activities.
Aging is a pulsing contradiction
Things hurt a bit more. Your gas tank shrinks.
The first shot across the bow is hangovers: that morning headache stretches a little longer. It starts in your mid to late 20s. Then it accelerates quickly. Going to a late movie on a work night becomes a preposterous idea. At dinner, you get into intense debates with yourself over whether to order a second beer.
You start to look forward to mowing the lawn on a calendar-free Saturday morning. You adopt a mentality that runs right up against how your younger self used to live.
You love the things you swore you never would. And if you look back further, you might even see your younger self staring back at you, with a face that screams, “Traitor!” as if you’d sold out and adopted a blasphemous old religion.
Aging isn’t a 2-page flipbook. It is a series of winces, yawns, and “oh craps”.
I’d tell my younger self, there is beauty in all of this. Those winces back you into a healthy, stable routine, chores and all. To your younger self, these things were once kryptonite, but in due time, they become like welcome, beautiful, albeit boring furniture in your living room.
Routine becomes a bedstone of contentment. And with time spent living, you should accept contentment in any form it arrives in.
I stare forward at my second half with a smile.
I'm a former financial analyst turned writer out of sunny Tampa, Florida. I began writing eight years ago on the side and fell in love with the craft. My goal is to provide non-fiction story-driven content to help us live better and maximize our potential. My content has many anecdotes and stories from my own life. This is intentional. I do this to show how these topics have impacted my daily living, and to share some vulnerability and mistakes I've made, and also to avoid being too preachy. I have skin in the game as much as you do in learning about these topics. I try to anchor my content in credible sourcing. Online writing has become too much of a free-for-all that lacks credibility, so I lean on the halls of academia, and on science that stands up to scrutiny. My goal is to have an ongoing relationship with my readers, to respect your time, and make my content worth revisiting. I'd also like to see a world where people are kinder and more empathetic towards each other. Writing is my small effort to help in that fight. Outside of writing, I live a fairly regular life, spending time with my spouse Laura, exercising, listening to podcasts, eating good food.