Every year on my birthday I sit down and write a letter to myself. It’s basically a, “Here’s what we learned last year, don’t fuck it up again this year” type of post. You can see past years here.
Without further ado. Here are the things I learned and the things that stuck with me last year.
1. The worst moments in our lives make us who we are
Health isn’t guaranteed. I spoke about this last year, but it really hit home this year as my family faced some scary times. As a result of the experience, I did a lot of soul searching during the end of the year, and one of the best resources I found was Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree. Here are a few things Solomon taught me:
-You must find seedlings of joy in what looks like sorrows.
-We could have been ourselves without our delights, but not without the misfortunes that drive our search for meaning.
-If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes.
In what is the first ever Bible verse I’ve shared on my blog (I think), I found a lot of power in 2 Corinthians 12. It really drove home these ideas I’ve listed above. Here’s the passage:
“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2. Comfort is limiting
This year, I left my old company and started a new one. I’d been meaning to do it for a long time, and finally pulled the trigger. I was nervous about the move – leaving a steady paycheck and fear of the unknown kept me tied to what was comfortable, even though I knew it was wrong for me. Some thoughts on comfort and taking chances:
–“Comfort is the enemy of progress.” -PT Barnum
–“Embrace suffering and avoid comfort – when you welcome suffering, nothing can take away your peace of mind.” -Darius Foroux
–“Own the story. If you do, you write the ending.” –Brene Brown
-(paraphrasing) “Some people will be miserable for seven years to avoid seven days of discomfort. Sometimes the mountain you think you need to climb is just a curb.” -Bill Burr
And finally, on the subject of leaving comfort and writing your own story, I read the Chronicles of Narnia this year so quoting CS Lewis feels like to good place to end:
–“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” -CS Lewis
3. Patience is a virtue
I learned this the moment I left my job. It was scary, but with hard work and persistent effort, the clients came.
This year I learned from James Clear that a good choice may go unrewarded for a while. The best choices tend to provide exponential returns and a hallmark of any compounding process is that the greatest rewards are delayed. I felt that this year. I had bad luck month one and it took some time for our tree to bear fruit.
Patience prevailed. I’ve set myself up for future success and have enormous pride in what we’ve built in a short period of time. This has turned out to be the best career decision I’ve ever made. Zero regrets.
As one of my favorite copywriters, Cole Schaefer said once: “Be patient. Being in a hurry is a race to the grave.”
4. Go all in
Part of the reason patience paid off for us is because we gave it our all. Here’s what Charles Bukowski says about giving things your all:
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery — isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
5. Be present
Some form of this will probably show up in my birthday posts every year, and it’s that important. Every year I seem to view it from a new lens.
These year, that lens was through a couple of my favorite movies. I won’t go into how much they mean to me right now, I’ll save that for a later date. But quotes from these two films reminded me to stay in the moment this year.
Groundhog Day
-Where’ve you been? You’re missing all the fun.
-Ned: Where are we going? Rita: Let’s not spoil it.
-No matter what happens tomorrow – or the rest of my life – I’m happy now.
-Today is tomorrow.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
-Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around every once and a while you could miss it.
-You’re not dying, you just can’t think of anything good to do.
-Be a man! Take some Pepto-Bismol.
The quotes above, out of context, might not make any sense. But each of them comes at an important point of the film – when Ferris’s friend Cameron is letting his anxiety keep him from living his life, or when Phil Connors finally figures out what it means to live. So much of life is showing up and being present. If you can’t be happy today, you can’t be happy tomorrow. Or, as one of my favorite comedians Pete Holmes would put it:
“If you can’t enjoy the plane ride, the beach won’t save you.”
6. Figure out what’s essential to you
I got married this year. It was an amazing day. Seeing all of our friends and family in one place, supporting us, driving from across the province, flying from around the world…being with them was what mattered, not the flowers or the view.
Family and friends are an essential part of my life. Spending one-on-one time with my amazing wife on our honeymoon was probably the best part of my year, and it’s become very clear to me that quality time with her is completely essential to me as well.
I made a personal list of other things that I think are essential, and I’m doing my best to make them a priority and cut away the rest. I got this idea from Greg McKeown and Seth Godin.
-“Your goal should not be more, your goal should be better.” -Seth Godin
–“If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” -Greg McKeown
My wife, my family, my friends, writing, reading, exercising – these are my priorities. Everything else takes a back seat.
7. Monitor your thoughts
Mindfulness has been huge for me throughout my late 20s and early 30s, and I continue to invest a lot of time into meditation. This year I really worked on recognizing negative thought patterns. If you can catch them right away, you can save yourself a ton of wasted energy.
I read The Daily Stoic every day in 2019, and one of the main principles that stuck with me is that worrying is like praying for something you don’t want. I’m working hard on noticing worry and have made gratitude a daily practice.
8. Learn to let go
One of the most important things I learned this year came from reading The Courage to Be Disliked. It’s a great book.
(Side note: I rated every book mentioned in this post 5-stars on Goodreads)
One of the key points in the book is that you should not accept other people’s tasks as your own, and on the flip side, you must not let one person intervene in your tasks. You must be true to yourself, and leave others to make their own decisions. It sounds easy, but in reality it’s quite hard. I’m definitely working on this.
It’s not, and never has been your job to fix people as you best see fit (unless they’re harming themselves or someone else). That’s their task. Taking on that responsibility is in a way, selfish. Letting go of that weight can be extremely liberating.
9. Time blocking works
The biggest victories often come from consistency. Like I mentioned above, showing up is a superpower. Whether it’s to your desk in the morning, to the gym in the afternoon, or to a side project every weekend. I’ve seen it in my own life, and I’m trying to use it to my advantage.
Time blocking has been very successful for me. I’ve used it to make things stick – working on certain projects at certain times. I’m also trying to use it to get my hardest task completed first thing in the morning. “Worst first” is a new mantra of mine.
“If the first thing you do in the morning is eat a live frog, you can go through the rest of the day knowing the worst is behind you.” -Mark Twain
While I’m quoting Twain, this is another quote of his that resonated for me this year. It has nothing to do with time blocking, but it’s worth sharing:
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.”
10. Remember to recharge
Going slow and going all in are related.
When you sleep, go all in on sleep. Sleep at home like you do on vacation. Rest is critical to reducing stress, and you need to make it a priority if you want to go all in on the things that are essential to you.
Speaking of vacations, when you take them, don’t stress about money or minor inconveniences like car rental line ups or overbooked flights. You’ll laugh about it and miss it when you get home.
Get a massage. Take time to meditate. Turn off the TV and read a book. Stroll without listening to anything. The “Instructions for Living a Life” by Mary Oliver are one of my favorite things I came across this year (I found them in Keep Going by Austin Kleon). It’s seven words and reads as follows:
Pay attention.
Be amazed.
Tell about it.
11. Follow your bliss
More great instructions for living a good life, and maybe the best career advice anyone could get. Joseph Campbell coined this phrase, and I try to follow my bliss as much as possible.
As you can tell by the amount of notes I took, The Hero’s Journey was definitely one of the best things I read this year.
12. Eat more plants
It turns out, they’re pretty good for you. I read The Longevity Diet by Dr. Valter Longo this year after hearing him on Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s podcast, and it’s led to significant changes in my diet. Ones that I’m happy to adopt, like more vegetables and less processed food.
13. Keep good company
Keeping bad company bites you in the ass. If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
14. Emotions cloud judgement
It’s one of the reasons I love to write. I can separate my emotions from my self and let it all spill out.
“Memory believes before knowing remembers.” –William Faulkner
15. Doing good makes doing more good easier
I’m going to close on this one.
Near the year’s end, I realized that doing good – whether it be acts of kindness, acts of self-improvement, or giving to others – inspires you to do more good. It’s like a snowball, it just needs a push.