Lessons from My 20s

 

Lessons from My 20s

            I’m now 31. I As the New Year approaches, I’m motivated to reflect on my twenties, which were a largely unhappy time for me.

1)     Don’t binge drink, or better yet, don’t drink at all.

2)     If you feel like you aren’t content where you are, don’t stay there. Move on.

3)     If you are lonely, isolated, unhappy, and depressed, you should do what it takes within reason to find healthy friends, become content, and develop optimism.

4)     Setting boundaries is okay and healthy, and avoid people who won’t respect boundaries. Be polite but firm when maintaining boundaries.

5)     When I felt slighted in my twenties, I would show how hurt and frustrated it made me. Now, if I feel slighted, or someone pokes at me, I laugh it off. First, because it’s likely that the person didn’t intend to slight me, and laughing disarms the situation. Second, because showing hurt and frustration is an escalation, and the goal should be to de-escalate the situation. Third, people who wear their emotions on their sleeve are easily manipulated.

6)     The most important part of a community, (workplace, church, team, city, state, nation) is the people. The military has a saying, humans, not hardware. If you aren’t surrounded by thoughtful, good people, then the job becomes much harder, or maybe even impossible. If you’re surrounded by the right people, then anything becomes possible.

7)     Humanize people. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were human and did great things. Adolf Hitler was also human, and he did horrible things. It’s easy to think, “I don’t like this person, therefore they’re a not human.” A person’s value is independent of the worst thing they’ve said or done. A person’s value is independent of their property or economic value. Acknowledging people’s human value does not mean they are exempt from repercussions.

8)       In my twenties, I thought if I had enough power, such as being President, I could solve the world's problems on my own. Now, however, I realize that it’s only through thoughtful collaboration and by working together that problems like wealth inequality, worker labor protections, literacy, and the climate crisis can be solved.