In a deviation from my traditional TPOE post format, I’m taking what many would consider a milestone birthday as an opportunity to capture 30 of the distilled lessons, learnings, and ideas that I’ve amassed by age 30. The below reflects perspectives and positions developed from a combination of personal experience, philosophical sharpening, and general growth. Take what resonates, and leave the rest.
If it doesn’t make you better, reconsider (or avoid) it entirely.
Strive to exist at the intersection of your curiosity and your contribution (in your traditional work, and elsewhere). There’s something to be said for being generally interested in how you spend most of your time.
Parkinson’s Law—stating that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”—is real. Remember and leverage this amidst your efforts accordingly.
In many situations, ruthless pragmatism (read: practicality) is the answer.
Find a way to spend most of your work day doing what you’re good at. It’s likely to both a). progress you forward in a faster period of time than when spent on the opposite, and b). enable greater enjoyment in your day-to-day.
Don’t be overly concerned with the concept of balance. Be overly concerned with achieving the time-bound goals you’ve set for yourself in the season you’re in.
You become what people say you are. Be careful what you internalize.
“Bad” feelings (i.e. melancholy, frustration, etc.) never last as long as you think they will.
Routine is what maintains your foundation. The body, mind, and life cultivated through your habits (not your hopes) is what you fall back on.
Remembering that you’re going to die puts your concerns in perspective.
Prepare before you have to (i.e. save, exercise, and contemplate the hard things before your quality of life depends on you having done so).
Your intuition can be wrong. The situation itself, previous experience, and general awareness should inform whether to adhere to it or ignore it.
A right perspective of time enables you to know when to enjoy or endure. The moment, season, circumstance (or your view of it) will pass—enjoy or endure accordingly.
Reduce and/or control your inputs—social media, news, etc. Unless you work in these spheres, you need it all less than you think, and it affects you more than you may realize.
Be unafraid to discriminate between what you need to know and what you don’t need to know. Strive to know the difference.
Take notes on what you read, and make these notes easily accessible. You’ll thank yourself.
Your ability to reclaim control of your mind when it drifts into thinking of what you don’t have has a direct, real-time impact on your contentment.
Clarity contextualizes. Clarity in who you are and what you seek contextualizes your day-to-day actions (i.e. what you do and why).
You’ll never regret deciding not to drink, or deciding to work out. Simple as that.
Get your finances in order. Diligence now enables freedom later.
Aim for a handful of really close friends (or family members)—those to whom you can tell everything and around whom you can be anything.
Everything is a learning experience. See life that way, and nothing is loss.
Only be concerned with your direct output. Did you give your best in that encounter, project, pursuit? Be content in that.
Most of today’s self-help has roots in Stoicism. Start there.
Only share things with people whose opinion you’re willing to have impact yours.
Principles may be more powerful than goals. How you decide to live every day (i.e. principles) is what increases or decreases the likelihood of achieving your goals.
You are under no obligation to like or dislike what the majority appears to like or dislike. Repeat that as many times as necessary.
The loudest opinion isn’t definitively the right opinion.
Much of your battle in life will be against your own mind.
Amidst doubt, distress, or temptation, asking yourself, “What will my future self wish I’d done?” is a helpful guide.