10 Lessons from the last 10 Years

Posted: June 25th, 2013 | Author: ctbideas | Filed under: ATW Planning, Thoughts | No Comments »

 

10 years ago, I was graduating from high school, dreaming of college and some amphorous future just beyond my reach, wondering what the next ten years would bring. 

In 10 years, I:

-Headed off to college
-Had my first boyfriend break up with me, then broke up with my second boyfriend
-Got my first job
-Moved to a new apartment
-Fell deeply in love for the first time
-Got my first professional internship
-Sucked up enough courage to approach a professor about a research project
-Moved to another apartment
-Learned for the first time what burnout felt like
-Negotiated my first salary, turning my unpaid internship into a real (albeit temporary) job, allowing me to leave my first job.
-Graduated college
-Learned how painful job-hunting, a semi-long-distance relationship, and moving home can be
-got my first REAL full-time job
-got engaged, and 15 months later, got married
-went on my first overseas trip not under the auspices of my parents (and learned what a brilliant travel partner my husband made)
-Moved yet again, tripling my commute time.
-tried and failed in innumerable amounts of personal projects, learning to dust myself off and keep going
-Had my first short story published, then my second. 
-finished my Certificate in Personal Financial Planning 
-Learned to accept the person that I am, and how close I was flirting with burnout again
-Left my first REAL full-time job and have begun packing for an EPIC trip. 

Through these last ten years, I’ve traversed through so many different phases of my life.  These are the 10 lessons I’ve learned:

1. Keep moving forward

I’ve failed.  A lot.  And failure sucks.  A lot.  On my writing blog, I’ve talked about the almost-constant rejection I’ve faced in trying to get my work in literary magazines.  Suffice to say, no matter how many times I’ve been rejected or something doesn’t take off the way I imagined, it doesn’t stop feeling really terrible. 

And I think that’s a good thing.  Why? 

One, because I care about everything I do or else I won’t do it.  There simply isn’t enough time in the day to work on things I don’t give a crap about.  Second, it means I’ve tried.  A lot.  And each time I’ve tried, I’ve tried to do it better.  If I gave up after my first 10, 20, even 30 rejections, I would’ve never had my first story published.  Keep working.  Keep trying.  Keep learning.  Keep improving.  Keep moving forward doing something you truly care about, and things (good things!) will start happening.  Even if it isn’t quite how you pictured it at first.  Don’t give up.   

2. Take something away

In every experience I’ve had, I’ve learned at least one thing (often much more!) that I can apply going forward.  Looking back on the things I’ve attempted, it’s certainly been a mixed bag, a rather mish-mash of seemingly unconnected endeavors.  However, as I think back on each one, I can identify important lessons I’ve learned from each that are essential for the next steps in my life, not only practical skills such as accounting or investments or statistical analysis, but also ways of thinking.  I know a lot of people my age feel like they’re drifting through life doing random things that doesn’t seem to improve their life in any way, but I think that’s the wrong way to think about it. 

When I was a little girl, on the way to school, my father used to tell me to learn something every day.  Then he’d roll down the window, stick his hand out, and give me a physics lesson on air particles.  No matter where you look, or what you do, there is always something to be learned.  Take it, make it yours, and no one can take it away from you again. 

No matter if I experienced success or failure, I’ve taken away invaluable knowledge and lessons from each phase of my life, adding them to my repertoire.  Everything I’ve experienced has become invaluable towards developing the person that I am (for better or worse). Even if what you’re doing now isn’t remotely something you love or expected, even if you tried and failed miserably, think of them as steps taken

3. Every ending is a new beginning

Like the legend of the phoenix rising from its own ashes, so I’ve come to realize that whenever a phase of my life is coming to an end, whether of my own choosing or not, another phase of my life starts seamlessly.  There’s no down-time between phases to mourn or dwell on what could have been, only new experiences and new things to learn, new directions to explore.  Don’t dwell too much on your past or you’ll find yourself trapped.  Instead, rejoice, because you get to embark on something new and exciting and challenging. 

4. Expect the unexpected

Ten years ago, I could not have predicted where my life is currently.  In college, I used to use the Future Me site to write letters to my future self.  I’d receive them a year later and laugh at the questions I asked, the imaginings of myself a year from then which skewed so differently from the person I was at that time.  The only thing unchanging is change itself.  Change is an inevitable fact of life, if only for entropy, our universe’s inherent tendency to fall apart to disorder.  I say embrace the change, deal with it in a positive way rather than allow myself to be dragged unwillingly. 

Perhaps it is because technology is changing so quickly and I am part of an age-group navigating through it all, from encyclopedia sets sold by traveling salesmen and library card catalogs through the advent of widespread internet usage, chat rooms, AOL Instant Messenger & ICQ, MySpace & Xanga in their first incarnations, Tripod websites, Google as just a search engine, Wikipedia, Facebook when it was only open to college students, all the way to cloud computing and professional blogging and Netflix streaming.  In the same way, ten years from now, the whole social, cultural, and technological landscape may have been reinvented, and I will be working/playing/interacting in a place I could’ve never imagined, much less predicted.  Who knows what will happen?  I can’t allow myself to be too locked into a certain way of seeing & doing things because I’ll easily be left behind.  Make plans, but be ready to revise, or even discard, them if the circumstances require it. 

5. People are the most important

I know that I am so blessed to have a great husband, great friends and family, who form a support network around me.  Even if they don’t understand what the heck I’m doing most of the time, they take time out of their lives to encourage me or comfort me.  They are the reason why I dare to do what I do. 

I know I am a product of the people around me.  The old phrase "Birds of a feather flock together" ring true to me.  I think to myself, "What kind of person do I want to be?"  This helps me to choose the people I surround myself with, supportive not enabling, discerning not critical.  They may not understand me and we may not even be remotely similar, but we support each other instead of tear each other down.  It makes a big difference.

Finally, nothing I do means anything if I alienate or hurt the people I care about.  It’s a good moral gut check before I pull the trigger on any of my ideas.  

6. Take risks

I never would’ve been able to do my research project if I hadn’t mustered up enough courage to email the head of my department about my interest.  She talked to me, introduced me to my mentor, and set me in the right direction.  When I started suffering from burnout in college, I practiced for hours the day before I met with my supervisor for my unpaid professional internship and asked for a salary, allowing me to quit my other job.  Later on, she told me she’d been so amazed at my temerity that she felt she had to offer me a salary. 

For someone who is introverted and prone towards social anxiety, it would’ve been so much easier to just go with the flow, don’t make waves, don’t put myself out there in case of rejection.  But I couldn’t allow that of myself, couldn’t allow me to hold myself back, because then I wouldn’t be able to have a chance at something I wanted. Even if it took hours of practice beforehand or giant moths with killer lasers in the pit of my stomach or dry-heaving afterwards in the bathroom, I pushed myself to take those risks and ended up with tons of rewards.  Now I’m taking a risk again, taking off on this trip, with no idea of what’s going to happen afterwards, and yeah, it’s scaring the hell out of me.  At the same time, however, I know this is the right thing to do and I’m going to do it, no matter what. 

7. Monitor Myself

One of my mom’s greatest complaints about me is that I don’t know when to just stop.  I keep going going going because I feel like there’s so much I want to do and not enough time or energy to accomplish everything I want.  I feel guilty if I’m sitting there doing nothing.  Of course, this inevitably leads to burnout.  I’ve experienced burnout only once in my life and let me tell you, it’s terrible.  In college, I was trying to juggle two part-time jobs, a research project, a full load of classes, a boyfriend (equally inundated with his own work & school), and a semi-plausible social life.  I can’t even remember how I managed to find time to eat or sleep at the same time.  I can remember, however, that I reached the point where I just didn’t care anymore.  That I just wanted to start walking and not stop until I found some tiny cave on the hill to live in like a scraggly hermit or until I dropped dead, whichever came first.  I was literally sick of my life, a constant feeling of illness dodging my every move (though there was nothing to diagnose).  I knew this couldn’t go on, so, even though I didn’t want to, I reconfigured my life so I could breathe easier. 

Ever since then, I’ve been very vigilant about the state of my life.  Yeah, ok, my mom still gets on my case about resting and I still try to do too much at once and feel guilty about taking a break, but at least I’m aware when I’m getting close to burnout again and immediately make the adjustments necessary in my life that will give me some breathing room.  It’s a good thing.  It keeps me healthy and happy and productive.  Better to be a slacker every so often than work myself to death. 

8. Home is a state of mind

In the last ten years, I’ve lived in five different places (not including vacation spots) and the longest I’ve ever stayed anywhere is my current apartment, a little more than 3 years.  Aside from learning how infernally heavy boxes full of books are and just how many pieces of furniture and people you can fit in one elevator, I’ve also learned to make my home anywhere I end up.  Perhaps I have a skewed sense of nesting or some sort of survival instinct, but give me a week in a private room with a mattress, my husband, and the internet, and I’ll be settled in just fine.  You see, home, to me, isn’t my address (though it can be irritating changing mailing addresses so many times), it’s a feeling of belonging.  As long as I have my husband, access to my friends and family, and a safe place to sleep, I have that feeling.  And I’m happy. 

9.  Kick back and relax, every so often

Sometimes, it’s ok to go out, play, soak up the sun, have a movie marathon.  Looking back on my ten years, the most vivid memories that stick with me aren’t pounding away on my keyboard but those moments of laughter and fun and new exciting experiences.  I think I’d rather look back and realize how much fun I had than look back and see one long blur of nothingness.  There’s a whole world out there just waiting to be discovered, and I, for one, can’t wait to experience it all. 

10. Trust in God

Sometimes, there’s nothing else I can do, there’s no one to turn to, nowhere to go, and the only thing I can do is trust in God and trust that He won’t give me something I can’t handle.  No matter how tough a situation is, I have faith that with His help, I can carry any burden if I must.  I also know that there is a plan for my life even if I don’t quite know what that is.  Plus, I know it’s a great plan, so I’m quite happy to look to the future and work hard.  

Conclusion

So, what do you think?  What lessons have you learned in the last ten years of your life?  I’m really looking forward to the next 10 years of my life and what new adventures they will bring.

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