I celebrated my 37th birthday last week. Here are 11 of the toughest lessons I've learned in all those years:
1) When someone upsets me, they've probably triggered some insecurity I'm hiding.
I can deal with that anger/insecurity in two ways: I can deny it and label whoever pissed me off a short-sighted, ignorant asshole. Or I can ask myself why they're upsetting me. Are they making me feel stupid, weak or inconsequential?
The answers don't really matter. Instead of stewing, it's easier to let them hold onto whatever opinions they want. I just take whatever positive criticism they've got, use it to grow and ignore the rest (knowing they're probably lashing out at me for some insecurity they're hiding).
Every minute I spend letting someone else piss me off is a minute when I've given them power over my life. I'm too old to give anyone power over my life.
2) You're the only one who knows if you've won or lost.
Even as a high school player, legendary basketball coach John Wooden didn't cry when he lost the state championships. That's because he knew this: he'd tried his hardest. Since our effort is the only thing we can control in sports (or life), our effort determines whether we've won or lost.
3) The only way to accomplish anything in life is by failing, fumbling and f*cking up.
Exceptional people don't make fewer mistakes than everyone else. They probably make more. That's because they're constantly pushing up against (and expanding) their limitations. The difference between them and us is they know failures are stepping stones.
I heard once that experts are people who make every possible mistake in a field of study. When they don't have all the answers, our heroes forge ahead anyway.
4) The news is toxic.
I skim the Dayton Daily News (mostly the Life section and Sharon Short's excellent literary column), and I'll occasionally click social media links. Beyond that, I make a very conscious effort to shun the news. I've stopped listening to NPR. I don't watch television, and I don't visit news websites.
It's hard.
There's this myth that says intelligent people stay up-to-date on news and politics; that it's our duty in a democratic society. I say it's a distraction, and it's a very toxic one.
Read enough of the news, and you'll feel like war's imminent, the economy's going to collapse, and we're all going to die of some flesh-eating disease.
"Just as modern man consumes both too many calories and calories of no nutritional value, information workers eat data both in excess and from the wrong sources," Tim Ferriss writes.
A clickbait news article might have taken two hours to write. A great book takes years. Give me a book then, and you can keep the Huffington Post.
Instead of the news, I focus on the things I can actually change: local politics, local events, my friends and family, my writing life. If we all worked to build up the communities around us, our national politics would be very different.
Disagree with me? Try using the only yardstick I think matters: what would you be doing if you knew you were dying in a month? I can guarantee it wouldn't be thinking about Washington.
5) The box is a dangerous place to be.
Anytime I find myself acting too similar to the people around me, I wonder if it's time to change.
In the words of Nassim Taleb: "They are born, put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go to what is called 'work' in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they talk about thinking 'outside the box'; and when they die they are put in a box."
If you don't want that sort of life, you have to turn off the TV and do something different.
6) Sleep is the single most important thing I can do to take care of myself.
Everything feels overwhelming when I'm tired. Conversely, everything seems possible when I've had enough sleep.
7) If you don't like the way your life is going, change your environment.
Cognitively, we feel distinct from our environments. But there's really no way we can separate ourselves from the events, people and information around us. Starve me, give me a winning lottery ticket, or plunk me down in a war zone, and I can guarantee you I'll be a different person.
Our environments dictate our thoughts, feelings and emotions. That means all we have to do to change our lives is change our environments. We can hang out with different people, consume different media or take up new hobbies. Every small change ripples into other parts of your life.
8) The quietest person in the room might be the smartest.
David Schwartz puts it another way in The Magic of Thinking Big): “Big people monopolize the listening. Small people monopolize the talking.” Too many people use talking as a shield. Listening is how we learn, and it's always more valuable than opening our mouths.
9) We have to go easy on ourselves -- especially for things long in the past.
We only grow by making mistakes. If I've made more mistakes than other people (which is probably true), I like to think that means I've grown more, too. A big part of that growth has been forgiving myself; saying goodbye to that person I used to be and looking ahead to the person I'm becoming.
10) Love isn't butterflies in your stomach.
I was a little boy when my family came home from dinner one night and found a note stuffed in our door. My uncle had broken his back, it said, and we needed to go the hospital.
Many years later, my uncle told me that accident was when he realized what love was. His marriage hadn't been going great. He was drinking a lot, arguing, fighting -- said he wasn't much of a husband at all.
My aunt stuck by his side anyway and nursed him back to health.
"I couldn't even use the toilet," he said. "She had to wipe me, and I remember thinking, this woman must love me. She must really love me."
It changed him forever. And it wasn't butterflies in his stomach.
We're frail and weak when we're alone. Love is what props us up, what makes us strong.
11) Be here now.
There's a Lennon lyric that goes like this: "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans." It's too easy to waste your life wishing things were different. The real art of living is learning how to enjoy everything -- especially the mundane and unexpected things.
If my 37 years have taught me anything, it's that tomorrow isn't guaranteed. The cards have been dealt, and we must play the hands we have.
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