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Some of the things that come with age are great. Awareness is one of them.
My 40s are a lot different than I thought they’d be when I was still in
my 20s. On the one hand, I have much deeper understanding of why my dad liked
naps so much when I was a kid. I’ve learned not to ever fall asleep in
an awkward position if I want to be able to walk the next day. I can’t just eat
whatever I want anymore if I don’t want to suffer the horrible consequences
either.
However, I’m also a lot more aware and secure in myself than I thought
I’d be at this age. I’m calmer. I don’t sweat the small stuff nearly as much.
And I’ve learned a thing or three about life that I wish I’d understood a lot earlier
on. Here are some of the more important ones. Do yourself a favor and get this
stuff straight now so you don’t have to do what I did and learn the hard
way.
1. There’s no such thing as too late or too old
When I was younger, I super concerned about whether or not I was keeping
up with other people my age when it came to the big milestones in life. I was
never what you’d call an overachiever, so I didn’t care whether I was the first
of my friends to get married or land my dream job. I just knew I wasn’t cool
with being the last.
That meant I jumped headfirst into things that deserved a lot more
thought and consideration. I rushed into marriage in my mid-20s and would up
divorced by 29. I pushed myself to take on huge responsibilities I wasn’t ready
for way too soon in life and I wound up with bad credit it took me my entire
30s to fix. Now I couldn’t even tell you why I did those things or what the big
rush even was.
Don’t waste
your 20s rushing to become your parents. You’ll look back one day and regret
simply being young when you had the chance to be.
There’s no set age by which you have to find your ultimate bliss in
life, own a home, choose a life partner, or anything else major. For some
people – myself included – that ideal time is a little later in life.
For others, it’s never, because they get older, gain some perspective, and
realize they don’t even want those things. So don’t waste your 20s rushing to
become your parent. You’ll look back one day and regret simply being young when
you had the chance to be.
2. Who you were as a child is more important than you think
One of the dumbest thongs I’ve ever been led to believe was that
children don’t know themselves – that I didn’t know myself. It
eventually turned out that I knew myself better as a child than I have at any
other point in my life. It’s just that it’s so darned easy to lose sight of
yourself once society starts telling you how wrong you are for liking what you
like and being whoever it is that you are.
For instance, I knew I wanted to make my life about creating things when
I was a kid, as well as a typical 9 to 5 job probably wasn’t for me. My
parents, on the other hand, had their heart set on my working in animal care
for some reason and eventually managed to convince me that’s what I wanted too.
They did such a good job of it that when I eventually found myself
working ridiculous hours as a vet tech at a local animal clinic, I couldn’t
understand why I hated it so much. These days, I’m a full-time writer who works
out of her home according to a flexible schedule of my choosing – a much better
fit.
The thing is it is fine to want to make your family proud, but if their
dreams for you differ from your dreams for yourself, you’ll be a lot happier if
you listen to yourself. No one knows you as well as you know yourself and you
knew yourself without limits or shame when you were a kid.
Hold onto the things you loved and longed for then. They turn out to be
pretty important, especially when you inevitably find yourself wondering what
to do with your life next. Chances are the answer is connected to something
that made you come a live as a child.
3. It’s better to make memories than collect things
My mother has this huge beef with people who spend money on stuff like
concert tickets, vacations, or special dinners at restaurants. She reasoned
that once you’ve gone to that concert, it’s over and you have nothing tangible
to show for it, meaning the tickets were a huge waste of money. If you had
to spend money on fun, you bought things instead objects. Unlike the
concert tickets, you’ll have the things you buy potentially forever,
especially if you take care of them.
That’s the approach to disposable income and leisure time that I grew up
with and lived by for years. And as with that vet tech job I never truly
wanted, I couldn’t figure out why all this crap I was buying wasn’t making me
as happy as it was supposed to.
Part of it had to do with the hard truth that most “stuff” becomes
pretty useless sooner or later. If it doesn’t break or wear out, it becomes obsolete
– like the massive cassette collection that was my world when I was in my
teens. Same for all the knickknacks I spent my 20s collecting.
“Stuff” becomes
pretty useless sooner or later. If it doesn’t break or wear out, it becomes
obsolete.
Memories are a different story though. Most of the physical objects I
spent so much money on when I was younger hit a landfill years ago. But I still
remember the concerts I went to, the vacations I took, and the festivals I
attended like they were yesterday. Those memories and the way I felt when was
creating them are as shiny and precious to me today as they were back then. So
are the ways some of those experiences changed me as a person.
These days, I never thing back on the past and regret not buying some
trendy piece of clothing that I probably wouldn’t have worn or yet another
statue to sit on my bookshelf collecting dust. I think about that trip to
Romania I had the opportunity to take in college, but ultimately passed on. I
think about the time I went to Mexico on a cruise and let my stick-in-the-mud
ex talk to me out of riding a burro up a dirt trail while I was there.
It makes me sad that I don’t have those memories to look back on,
especially since I may never have those same opportunities again. But the good
news is I learned to just go ahead and do the things I want to do in life, even
if it means doing them alone. The memories and cool stories last a lifetime.
4. The little things are big things
Speaking of memories, I’ve learned that it’s not always obvious when
you’re creating one that’s going to mean a lot to you one day. Everyone knows
their wedding day or the day their child is born is a big deal and that they’ll
remember that for the rest of their life. Some of my favorite memories are the
ones that kind of snuck up on me at the time though.
I’m talking about the time my husband and I drove out to our favorite
barbecue spot on Memorial Day one year and spent the whole day there, though it
got super cold and started to snow unexpectedly. I mean the day I was walking
by the beach with my friends as a teenager in the fog, saw a seal, and thought
for a split second that it was a mermaid. There’s the time I signed up for an
online film appreciation class on a whim and realized I still love learning as
an adult. And the week a random frog lived underneath my bedroom window and
made me happy every night with all his little frog noises. Those are some of
the moments and occurrences that turned out to mean the most to me over the
years.
I couldn’t even tell you why, but there’s something magical about them –
something that suggests they are what life is truly all about. They were little
things that became big because they had meaning, especially if they were also
shared with someone I loved.
5. Taking care of yourself physically is every bit as important as people
tell you it is
Ignore that piece of advice and you’ll eventually wish you hadn’t, I
assure you. I’m not sure how things are for young people these days, but I
wasn’t taught about fitness in much detail when I was young. Sure, I was taught
it was important, but I was never properly schooled on why or told what
exactly would happen to you if you chose not to bother. I certainly wasn’t
given any practical advice on how to turn fitness and proper self-care into permanent
habits.
Luckily for me, years of working on my feet and having friends who
preferred physical pastimes to simply sitting around all the time meant I spent
most of my life “accidentally fit”. The problem came when I got older, had more
choices, and started making a bunch that meant I wasn’t very active anymore.
That quickly led to the swift and blinding development of numerous health
problems and this horrible feeling that I had no control over my life anymore.
Get so used to
taking care of yourself that doing otherwise feels unbearably weird.
These days, I’m doing much better in that department. I’ve gone out of
my way to educate myself on how body, as well as to establish a healthy routine
that’s realistic for me. The “realistic for you” part is critical
because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how effective a given fitness
regimen is. If you hate it with the fire of a thousand suns, you’re not
going to stick with it and you can’t benefit from exercise you’re not doing.
Don’t do what I did and wait until you’re 40 and your metabolism is
slowing down to get your act together. Do it while you’re still young and stick
with it. Find a way to love being active and to make it a daily part of
your routine. Get so used to taking care of yourself that doing it otherwise
feels unbearably weird.
You’ll be glad you did one day, because seriously. If I could change
just one thing about how I ran my life when I was younger, this would be the
thing. (Here’s a piece I wrote all about that in particular, should you
be interested.) https://medium.com/@cat_the_knife/7-things-i-wish-someone-had-told-me-about-fitness-and-weight-loss-a-long-time-ago-de704f2e0b
6. The best time to make your dreams come true is now
Not in 10 years when you’ve figured out what your one true career path
is. Not in a few months when you’ve finally lost that stubborn 20 pounds. Not
tomorrow when the weather is better and not “someday” when your life’s finally
the big, perfect bowl of peach cobbler you hope it eventually will be. It’s
now. … Today!
The unshakeable optimism that comes with being young is amazing and I
remember it fondly. I figured my whole life was still ahead of me and took it
for granted that everything would simply work out in my favor one day all by
itself, so why force things? I wanted to travel, but I thought the experience
would be better “someday” when I had tons of money and a perfect job that
didn’t feel as soul-sucking as my current one did. I wanted to speak multiple
languages, but I wanted to learn in the perfect house I thought I’d own someday
while sitting in the perfect combination office-study I also planned on having.
I wanted to teach myself how to do genuinely awesome makeup, but I wanted a
flawless life and a circle of brag-worthy friends to show it off to first.
Well, guess what. The perfect life never materializes because it doesn’t
exist. Even if you’re crazy successful one day, you’ll forever have constraints
on your time or your resources. There will always be something going on that
stops circumstances from being ideal, so start working on the things you want
to do, be, and experience now. Then you can spend middle age building on
what you’ve already learned, not starting from scratch.
7. Nobody’s coming to save you from yourself or your life
Like a lot of very shy young girls, I spent a lot more time reading
books and watching movies than I did having real-life experiences and
meaningful interactions with other people. That gave me the impression that my
life was eventually going to play out like the stories I loved so much and that
I wouldn’t have to do anything special to help it happen. My life was
legitimately hard for me when I was young for lots of reasons, but it never
occurred to me to try to rise above it so I’d be able to build myself a better
one eventually. Instead, I fantasized about the day someone else would love me
enough to do it for me. I thought one day my emotionally unavailable parents
would suddenly become different people and want to help me out in life the way
my friends’ parents helped them. Or that whenever that perfect partner finally
materialized he’d take care of me and provide for me. That way I’d never
have to step out of my comfort zone, try anything scary or new, and figure out
life for myself.
Well, life doesn’t work like that, so if you think this way, it’s to
your benefit to get it sorted now while you’re still young. “Princess-in-a-tower
disease” isn’t a good look on someone who’s in their 30s and it’s an even worse
one on someone middle-aged or older. Don’t be fooled either. You don’t have to
have been a young girl who enjoyed Disney princess movies a little bit too much
to have this issue, so it’s worth asking yourself some questions.
Are you an aspiring creative who’s banking so hard on “being discovered”
one day that you’re not actively seeking out and seizing opportunities? Are you
coasting through life because you assume you’ll eventually inherit money or
property when your parents croak? Are you a parent who thinks your kids are
going to grow up one day and undo all your mistakes for you?
If so, it’s time to grow up. No one is out there chomping at the bit to
save you from your apathy and lack of gumption. And if you do luck out one day
and meet someone who’d love to give you an awesome life just because you’re
you, trust that they’re going to expect you to pitch in and help on one level
or another. People get tired of being the only horse on the team who’s actively
working to pull the wagon. Always do your share and pull your weight,
even if no one asked you to.
8. No one is entitled to a relationship with you (and vice versa)
I’ve touched here and there on the fact that my home life was pretty
dysfunctional when I was growing up. It was that low-key-type of dysfunctional
that sneaks up on you though. No one hit me or put lit cigarettes out on my
arms, but there was a lot of emotional abuse and gaslighting going on. There still
is.
Eventually, I concluded that it was better to end my relationships with
some of the most toxic people in my family and put up extremely strict
boundaries with others. I’ve made similar decisions with other people in the
past, especially ex-partners and false friends who took so much more than they
gave. Learning to say no to harmful relationships with toxic people changed my
life overnight.
Healthy
relationships that are two-way streets are much too good to miss out on, but
you need to make room for them in your life.
No one is entitled to a relationship with you for any reason, especially
if they’re unwilling to treat you with basic human decency – not even family. People
who care about you don’t kick you while you’re down or try to destroy your joy
in the things you love. They don’t tell you you’re worthless, mock your
appearance, and delight in being cruel to you. If you have people like this in
your life, you are absolutely within your rights to cut them off, protect
yourself, and move on. Even if they’re family.
People also have the right to decide the same when it comes to you, so
learning how to gracefully let others exit your life is also worthwhile. Healthy
relationships that are two-way streets are much too good to miss out on, but
you need to make room for them in your life. There won’t be any if you’re
clinging people who don’t value their relationships with you to the extent that
they should.
I am not a huge believer in regret as far life goes. I do believe
strongly in learning as much as you can from your experiences. That’s a process
that won’t ever stop for me, as I’ve learned to enjoy the challenge of growing
and evolving over the years. Whatever age you are now, please do the same. It keeps
life meaningful, colorful, and worthwhile.
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