34 thoughts on my 34th birthday
Reflections from my journal over the past year.
Today I turn 34, and even though I am still very young, the gap between 34 and 33 seems exponentially bigger than that between 33 and 32. Not only do I feel older, but I’ve also started to experience time accelerating in a more perceptible and inescapable way. This is both scary and simply how it’s supposed to be. I find myself more susceptible to bouts of nostalgia and reflection, the latter being something I’ve been trying to capture by writing more.
As the future emerges clearer, a direct consequence of my every action rather than a mere byproduct of time passing, I, too, wish to have more clarity. To that end, I have found that three things help: being present, thinking about my mistakes, and constantly re-evaluating what matters. The following is a collection of thoughts I journaled at various points throughout the past year, mostly reflecting on those aforementioned three things. I’ve organized them in no particular order, other than how often they haunted me.
If you become great at something, be great at making decisions. What you spend your time on, who you marry, where you live - these are the most consequential decisions that can alter the course of your life and you’d better be the one making them.
But don’t make important decisions in moments of crisis, during times of transition, when you’re depressed or burned out.
No matter how far you’ve gone down a wrong road, turn back.
Know yourself very well. Don’t be the kind of person who never knows what to order at a restaurant - or by extension - gets paralyzed by more important life choices. If you let that happen, others will decide for you.
If you don’t know “who” you are, it’s unlikely that you will “find” yourself at a meditation retreat, traveling the world or doing psychedelics (I am a fan of all three). You make yourself everyday by devoting your time and attention to something that matters (your work, the creative act, your family, whatever it is).
There’s no better way to develop a mind of your own than by disregarding all rules - except those preventing you from committing a crime.
How you spend your days is how you spend your life.
Avoid future-discounting like the plague because it will make you complacent and afraid.
Favor action, staying in motion, doing the thing.
Discipline is knowing what you most want.
Loss truly is the most powerful engine for growth as it eviscerates all sense of control.
You will not learn from others’ mistakes. You can only know what to learn when you hit a roadblock.
There is no grand purpose. You make it up every single day, so be as present and awake as possible.
Be more like the Bhutanese and think about death everyday. I don’t know of a better way to cultivate gratitude.
Happiness is to spend everyday without craning your neck to look forward to tomorrow, next week and so on.
Be wary of naked ambition. Curiosity and love are longer-lasting.
Be rigorous in your thinking, your work, your expectations of yourself. No one else will care more.
Try to always do the best you can, even when you’re not (yet) good at something.
If you want to develop intellectual honesty, beware of excessive subjectivity.
Seek quality. If you settle for average food, average books, average work, average people, etc., your life will reflect that mediocrity.
You cannot control talent and luck, but you sure can control perseverance and consistency.
Resist the urge to consume more than you produce (it applies to content, resources and so on).
Be more outward focused, especially when you’re down. Directing your attention to others, to the world and to making things will help you more than obsessing about yourself.
Reject cynicism and jadedness. They’ll keep you stuck in a fixed mindset.
Pessimism and cynicism don’t signal depth. They signal fear.
Everything good in life is downstream of love. Love of people, love of creating, love of life itself.
What comes up must come down. It applies to everything, including happiness, good times, money and so on.
You can have it all, but not all at the same time.
Time keeps accelerating. To make more of it, be really good at prioritizing. The only way to do that is to say “no” a lot.
Some wounds never fully heal. If you’ve always feared being abandoned or not having security, no amount of therapy will eliminate those fears, but that’s OK. A level of fear is necessary for survival.
If you’re 30 years old and still blaming your parents for all your shortcomings, it’s time to find a new therapist.
Even the closest of friendships can come and go, but family is everything. If you were not lucky to be born into a great one, make one.
Health is wealth because you don’t realize how great it feels to be in optimal health until you do.
Don’t waste any energy on how you seem to the world.
Happy birthday!🤍🤍🤍