Turning 34: 34 lessons for a well lived life
Society screams at us to focus outside of ourselves, our minds, our desires, our thoughts. To feel like our beings aren’t good enough until shaven, stripped, policed, conditioned and reworked into a sterile contained blob, trying its damndest to not ooze outside of the lines. But living outside of these oppressive lines is really where the most transformation begins.
Every year I write on my birthday to reflect on the past year of my life, and one of the biggest lessons I kept pondering on was personal values. We all have a unique blend of personality, random circumstances, drives, and values, and no one has the exact experience you have on earth. It is life giving to share inner perspectives that can then also show us even with all our various differences, we still share so many universalities.
For the first time in my life, I am not striving for just survival -- I’m thinking of legacy, impact, and future. The question that rings true on my birthday today and turning 34 years old is what is my legacy and work? How am I changing hearts and minds? How am I pushing myself to live outside of oppressive lines that stifle my potential? Here’s 34 quick lessons that come to mind:
Love isn’t finite. We live in a scarcity culture, afraid of not having enough and constantly striving and competing for what exists. When it comes to love of all kinds (romantic, friendship, familial etc) there’s always a possibility of new friendship, new love, and new connection in every year of your life. There isn’t some finite schedule of when you stop making connections, new friendships or even the possibility of new love, no matter your age. I met someone recently whose mother got remarried at the age of 70 and has been in one of the happiest and most fulfilling relationships of her life for a decade. If she hadn’t been open to love, she would have missed a significant chunk of connection. Every single year of my life, I have met with and deeply connected with someone I had no idea I would meet, because I was open and willing to new experiences, new conversations, and new ways of relating. Love isn’t finite, it comes down to effort, desire, self-confidence, and openness. I can’t wait to see who I continue to bring into my life in the years to come.
Fear can’t be the main motivator in a well lived life. Fear is a useful emotion in helping us avoid certain risks and pain, but if it’s your main lens for making decisions, it can be suffocating. We’re taught all these “shoulds,' and adopt a fear based view of the world, worried about every decision and action we make. Using fear as your main decision making tool is like trying to run a marathon while wrapped in a California king size comforter blanket with no shoes. Dig deeper to discover what your true values are outside of fear, is it creativity? Community? Connection? Use those values to organize your day to day life and you’ll feel a deeper sense of purpose, contentment, and alignment.
Most hatred rests in anxieties and fear. Inequality is born out of a set of narratives, one of them being that we live in a zero sum game: when one group gains, another group loses. This is a fallacy used to justify discrimination, violence, and mistreatment of various groups. Adopting new beliefs around abundance and interdependence can combat this process.
Growth requires shedding. Stepping into better versions of yourself requires some levels of loss -- loss of old habits that harm you and others, relationships that don’t support or nourish you, ways of thinking that create anxieties, distrust, and stall your creativity. The more self-awareness you gain and the more you change both internally and externally, the more you’ll shed. Let them layers go like an onion honey and come forward in all your shedded sweetness.
Endings can be good things. I picked up the book Necessary Endings a few years ago at a time in my life where I was experiencing a lot of endings - job loss, apartment loss, friendship and romantic endings. It helped me to see that in order to invite new things and people into my life, I needed to make space for those things; just like when a plant is growing and you have to remove the dead leaves and branches that are taking away nutrients from healthy parts of the plant. See endings, even if painful, as an opportunity for regeneration and new things to come.
You’ll achieve greatness by sowing seeds. The business advice I give to everyone is to sow seeds -- share your ideas about the questions and problems you’re insatiably curious about solving and tell people who are values aligned. Those conversations will lead to unexpected connections and opportunities that will propel you forward. You can’t control the exact outcome but you can control sharing your ideas and seeing what grows.
Radical imagination is how we’ll overcome inequality and broken systems. When discussing the problems of our society, there’s a tendency to spend a significant amount of time pointing out the problems in excruciating detail, and little to no time on solutions. Most of us are fairly aware of what isn’t working. I want us to begin to use radical imagination, thinking up new systems and ways of relating, working, and being that can be an alternative to what we currently have, no matter how wild they seem. All the crusty dusty structures of our current society were made up, we can make something new with a little imagination. When I radically imagine a new future I think of universal basic income and healthcare available for all. Higher education is free. Infinite growth isn’t encouraged or seen as success, regenerative growth is (sustainable, nourishing, cyclical production vs destructive production). Businesses recontribute profits back after a certain profit ceiling into a pool that’s evenly divided and distributed to the communities it affects. Businesses also are more flat, with a much smaller gap between leaders and employees in terms of power, resources, and capital. Hoarding of resources is discouraged. Every person is encouraged to pursue learning, research, personal development and creating in their free time that’s sustainable, eco-conscious, and inclusive and doesn’t stop at a certain age. Inclusive history is taught and social justice/positive social change is a primary skill trained into all individuals, not just for do gooders or folks going into non-profit/philanthropy. Media is democratized and not just focused on sensationalism and negativity bias, with a much better balance of invention, inspiration, and education shared. Trust is much higher, and folks feel more connected to each other locally and globally. Emotional and social skills are emphasized and taught just as much as tactical and mathematical skills from a young age. People have free time for self actualization and only work 3-4 days a week max. It may sound unachievable but change begins with vision.
One of the most fulfilling and scary things is living in your truth. There are times where you’ll have ideas that go against convention in terms of lifestyle, relationships, self-expression, career path etc, and we need you to speak truth to those ideas. Being on the outside can be scary and isolating, but it’s far more fulfilling to be your full self than to live someone else’s lie.
Do not take your physical or mental health for granted. For the first time in my life I experienced a serious health issue both mentally and physically this past year which felt so debilitating given I hadn’t ever had those issues in the past, one of them being claustrophobia (probably due to a combination of living in NYC during a pandemic). I was able to overcome them and when I got to the other side, I was so grateful for a healthy state of being as it’s not guaranteed and can be taken from us when we least expect it.
Creativity is a birthright. You do not need to be Jay Z or Picasso to create. You’re born with the ability to create unconventional connections between things and ideas. The more you do this, the more you can enter a flow state and gain all the benefits of a creative mind and life, whether you consider yourself an artist or not.
True belonging is being fully seen and heard and recognized for what you have to share. We all deeply desire acceptance, and when you find the people who light up when you are unabashedly yourself, and encourage you to be your best, you’re experiencing true belonging.
Power can be extracted through admiration and courageous self-expression. Power is influence. Each one of us holds various levels of power that we exert on a daily basis. Power doesn’t have to be negative and violent, it can also come from courage, vulnerability, sharing your ideas with the world, and building a platform people are drawn to and inspired by. Believe in your power to inspire others.
Everything we believe and do is influenced and impacted by stories. Our brains are wired to organize the world in narratives for memory, quick decision making, trust building, and more. We have the power to change ourselves and the world around us by simply changing the narratives we believe and hold.
Happiness is fleeting and so is pain. The beauty of the human condition is that we have the ability to experience so many complex and overlapping feelings. You have an equilibrium state of being, that with highs and lows eventually goes back to baseline. This baseline emotional state can shift over time with intention, gratitude, and mindfulness. Appreciating and savoring the highs when they arise, and understanding the lows aren’t permanent, is a freeing state of mind.
Boundaries are necessary for a healthy life. Loving boundaries allow you to safely interact with the world, to both love and care for others while getting your emotional, physical, and spiritual needs met. It takes self-awareness and open, direct communication to set boundaries which is damn hard particularly if you were raised to not have your needs respected or validated. When people say they “love hard” many times that can mean they have poor boundaries or betray their own needs out of fear of losing others. Boundaries are the kindest way to love others while also loving and caring for yourself. As Ru Paul says if you can’t love yourself how the hell you gone love somebody else?
Length of time doesn’t dictate the quality of a relationship. Anytime I see folks celebrating a union of many years I always think — but what is the quality of it? Long standing relationships can be a beautiful thing if they are overall healthy and nourishing, but I’ve witnessed too many people overstaying in dysfunctional and harmful connections solely because they’ve been connected to that person for so long. Length doesn’t automatically equal depth or quality. Strive for growing and continuously nurturing quality connection regardless of time, and ending things when necessary for your well-being and growth.
True confidence is knowing you can have just as much fun solo. Don’t wait around for others to fully live your life. Take yourself on a date, go on new adventures, explore what you want to. Be the lover you wished you had. Love your own company like an old friend. When I traveled by myself for the first time when I turned 31, I was a little scared and also exhilarated. It was amazing to see what I would like to do solely on my own whims. You have to live within your own body and mind and being confident enough to do some things solo can bring more personal contentment, and also strengthen your relationships to be interdependent instead of co dependent.
Stop personalizing other people’s actions. Folks do negative things for many reasons - unprocessed trauma, anxiety, fear, selfishness etc. I became much happier when I realized that people’s behavior, especially when it negatively impacts me, many times has nothing to do with me and isn’t because of some mistake I’ve potentially made or an internal flaw that I must have. That doesn’t mean poor treatment is acceptable, it just gives you the power to not internalize other people's pain in unproductive and self-destructive ways, and can help you with setting healthy boundaries (see point 15 above.)
Your circle of relationships is a reflection of your inner work. Your circle reflects your values, your boundaries, and what you believe you deserve. The more I learned about what I want and desire, the more my personal relationships have been reciprocal, aspirational, and nourishing in ways that have helped me thrive.
Freedom comes from being fully self-expressed. It is a privilege and an honor to express yourself. We live in a society that shuns self-expression that doesn’t assimilate to dominant norms, sometimes with dire consequences. Sharing your beliefs, feelings, and ideas with the world is where true freedom lies.
Infinite growth isn’t a good goal, regenerative impact is. We live under the pressure of what I call the King Kong effect i.e. success means collecting and generating more and more and more with a never ending moving goal post to measure success. Cancer is unfettered growth of unhealthy cells in the body that take over healthy cells. Our obsession with constant extractive expansion is like a cancer leading to our individual and collective destruction. I desire the radical imagination of new goals - ones that are regenerative and impactful instead of extractive, especially in the business world. It’s what I strive for personally.
We are interconnected, and learning healthy interdependence will save us from ourselves. If living through a pandemic has taught us anything; it's that everything in this universe is connected. Every action has a reaction. We need each other to survive and thrive. No one is a lonely island. The phone or computer you are reading this on was made by hundreds of hands in far away lands. Your literal livelihood depends on thousands and thousands of people you don’t personally know. Until we realize this truth on a massive societal level we will continue to suffer.
Food, water, shelter, safety, health, education and love are human rights that shouldn’t have to be earned. They should be a given for the well-being and functioning of us all. Full stop.
Whatever we value becomes inherently powerful. Similar to the stories we attach to things, whatever we give attention to grows. Spend your attention wisely.
Innovation isn’t replication of the status quo, it’s creating a new normal. I've seen too many entrepreneurs claiming socially-conscious goals while replicating the oppressive structures that created harm in the first place. Replication is not innovation. Innovation requires discomfort and stretching ourselves in unexpected ways, outside of what we know.
Age doesn’t dictate emotional intelligence. We are all on divergent personal journeys. A person can stop growing mentally at many different stages and ages of life. For example, I believe my father’s emotional intelligence stalled in his teen years from trauma and he unfortunately hasn’t put in the work to grow that skill in his 50s, which has significantly impacted his life and relationships in negative ways. It is never too late to change, and age doesn’t also automatically mean wisdom. Effort and self-awareness does.
Great leaders focus on helping others reach their full potential and not resource hoarding. The old ideas of leadership being about extractive power have got to gooo. They are played out and have gotten us nowhere. Leaders who understand their role is about personal development can align people to opportunities and uncover strengths that can solve insurmountable problems. We need more of those types of leaders.
A romantic relationship is beautiful but will not give you purpose or fill internal voids. Society teaches us, especially women, that the only valuable goal is marriage. Romantic love, married or not, is incredible and can help with growth, but think of it as icing on the cake versus the cake itself. You gotta bake your own foundation because romantic love is a mirror and will reflect back your strengths as well as flaws. Purpose and contentment is an inside job always. Do not put your happiness solely in the hands of your romantic partners. It’s a burden to them and to yourself.
You don’t have to earn, people please, or sacrifice yourself for love. Love takes work and compromise but does not have to be abusive. This dominant narrative of love being continually painful and unconditional is toxic and has convinced too many people to accept poor treatment over the healthy state of being on their own.
There are people who are invested in the old versions of you and don’t enjoy change, leave them behind. The right people will be inspired by your growth, not intimidated or resistant to it. If people in your circles do not like healthy changes you make or put concerted effort into trying to draw you back into old versions of yourself you’ve left behind, let them go.
Appreciate what you have -- there’s a past version of you that hoped for what you currently have that you aren’t appreciating or recognizing. Every year I do a self-reflection activity where I take stock of what happened that year and how I feel about all areas of my life. It’s amazing to look back over the years and see many of the things I’ve desired I have achieved. Even though there are still many things I want to do, taking a beat and appreciating what I already have is so necessary because it’s easy to forget just a few years ago what I have now is something I truly hoped for.
Let go of diet culture. Health is much more than size. Your size isn’t the sole indicator of how healthy you are. I repeat your size isn’t the sole indicator of how healthy you are. We live in a fatphobic culture with an obsession with thinness, and villainize various foods and fatness. Even if we all ate the exact same things and worked out on the exact same regimen we would all look different. Body diversity is beautiful. The more I’ve accepted the body I have, the happier and ultimately mentally and physically healthier I’ve been.
Mindfulness is an underrated tool. It’s easy to ruminate on the past and mentally trip and worry about the future. The only moment you truly have is the present. The more you can be fully present in your body and in the moment the happier you’ll be.
Pleasure is activism. Especially if you are marginalized, joy is the antidote to hate. In the midst of the many societal and individual battles we face, cultivating big and small joys on a regular basis is imperative for your well-being and for resisting the dominant forces who don’t want you to experience or have joy because they ultimately have none themselves. Lean into and curate your physical, mental, and emotional pleasure, you’re changing the status quo when you do.
I’m excited to see what new lessons 34 will bring and know the best is yet to come.