10 Things I Was Probably Told and Should Have Listened To

Here are a couple of things, 10 things - to be exact, in a couple of categories, spanning from what I was probably told to what I have learned in the last few years. Hey, I'm an 8 year old and I'm still blaming my blonde hair color on the life lessons that have escaped me, but I did connect a wireless printer to my lap top, on my own, a few days ago and for me, it was prit-ty exciting. What I'm trying to say here is that I'm making progress in life...andddd in Electronicsland! In any case, here's what I've got so far:

10 Things I Was Probably Told and Should Have Listened To

1. Be mindful. Do one thing at a time and be present in that one action.

2. Life requires moderation. Everything in moderation.

3. Everyone has their own story - we all have our own stuff going on. If you take a second to look around, you might discover someone else is going through the same stuff as you. Or, almost more seriously, there might be someone who needs your help.

4. Help people. Your job, as a friend, is to build your friends up. We are competitive people by nature, but learning to be a good friend means overcoming our competitive selves to love and support one another.

5. Go to the Daft Punk 2007 "Alive" Tour!!!!! If you don't go see Daft Punk at Red Rocks in 2007, you will regret it. I passed it up to go see MOE instead, and while MOE was great, the 2007 Alive album is earth shattering! As a result, I have been waiting for Daft Punk to announce another tour, since 2007, and I'm still waiting. They had to go make the Tron soundtrack and now they are just chilling or something...something other than touring. You don't know how much I am kicking myself over this one! Last thing - there were the rumor that they would be surprise guests at Coachella in 2009. False. This was a tasteless prank and I'm dying! Go on tour Daft Punk, go on tour!

6. Do what feels right - for you. Not for anybody else. So much of my life I've been caught up in the rat race and the expectations that were projected on me. However, it is indisputable that a life lived for anyone but yourself, is a life unfulfilled.

7. To follow this - Don't be so hard on yourself.

8. Life Learning. Even if someone is only one year older than you, listen to them, that's one year longer than you've been alive and they might have something to teach you.

9. Volunteer. Take jobs for the experience, not just for the dolla dolla billz.

10. Your life will be really cool when you are 23. Just wait and see. If ten years ago, someone would have told me that this was going to be my life, I would not have believed them. I guess that's pretty rad.

10 Things I Know I Was Told, But Didn't Listen To

1. Be vulnerable. It's okay to ask for help. Is it some kind of unwritten rule that asking for help is supposed to be hard? From seeking help while falling behind in class to needing emotional support - asking for help has got to be one of the most challenging things for me.

2. In order to love someone else, you must first love yourself.

 

3. You are in control of your emotions. People can only make you feel a certain way if you let them. On the other side, though, we are not responsible for the emotional health of anyone else, to the extent that if someone is struggling with, for example, self-esteem issues, staying in a destructive relationship with that person is not your obligation. We can't 'fix' people. We can offer our love and support, but at the end of the day, if your relationship with someone is producing mutual damage, you are not doing them any favors by sticking it out for longer than you intended to.

4. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Life is full circle; think about how you treat people.

5. Play the game. Sometimes you just have to play the game, especially when it comes to school. (In high school, I would fight the system relentlessly. Now that I'm a teacher, I'm scoping out the other side of the playing field and I wish I could have talked some sense into my 16 year old self, but then again, I probably wouldn't have listened.)

6. On that note, Listen. Be a good listener. Hear people and what they have to say. Feigning interest doesn't go ignored.

7. If you can dream it, you can do it. My friend used to have this as her voice mail message, so every time you would reach her voice mail, it was like getting a pep talk from an inspirational speaker. I used to lump this in the box of silly self-help titles - Discovering Your Road to Self Discovery - and the likes, but I still remember that cheese ball quotation and I am starting to live out its message.

8. References are important. Don't burn bridges. Hah! Working at Los Alamos County Golf Course comes to mind. I definitely should not have been behind the wheel of a golf cart, nor should I have been hired at any kind of job as a 15 year old.

9. Be Honest. In all senses.

10. Save. Money. Manage. Money. My wake up call came when I was in Europe. I was broke, backpacking, and had one more night in France before making it to London and flying home. It was pouring with rain and I had just taken the train from Paris to Lille, in hopes that they would let me bump my prepaid ticket to London, set for the following morning, to that night. That way, I could make it to my friends in England and would have a place to sleep for the night. Unfortunately, I had no such luck. The last train to London had departed by the time I turned up in Lille and I was left with less that 5 euros in my pocket, outside of the locked train station, wondering where I was going to spend the night. As I sat on my backpack and weighed the importance of water versus food versus a bathroom (p.s. screw bathrooms that you have to pay for), a couple of squatters from Venice rounded the corner and prepared to lay out sleeping bags for the night. I grabbed my stuff, made my way to them, introduced myself, and the 3 of us enjoyed the last of my Nutella, great conversation, and a night at the train station - my backpack carabiner-ed to my body. Moral of the story: water fountains are a developed world luxury and money is bullshit, but it can be handy.

10 Things That I Was Told and Changed My Life

1. "It's stupid to not go to class. I have a 4.0 'cause I just go."

2. "That's not something you work on making into a reality, you just make it happen..." (On saving for travels back home).

3. Secret to workplace satisfaction: "People seem to like me at work, because I just work hard and do a good job." I am only starting to understand what it means to strive for something...anything...in a working environment - besides the ability to slide by and still get paid. I don't know why it has taken me so long to start understanding the emotional fulfillment that comes with laboring for the sake of success. Perhaps it's because I've just never really been trying to work all that hard in the first place. Yet, despite being in Thailand and definitely not moving here to work hard, by any means, I'm starting to catch on to the real world implications of my position. I am inspired by my students and I'm recognizing the importance of exerting myself for their benefit. Hey, and it turns out, there are good feelings associated with doing a good job - besides getting a paycheck! Hell, it's never really been about the paycheck here.

4. "It's okay to breakup. There is something beautiful about breakups - you usually learn a lot about yourself in the process."

5. "You haven't ever really been on your own. Think about it." Learning to be okay on my own has been one of the most valuable things that I have ever done. It did take a friend calling me out though.

6. "I don't have to drink to have a good time." Whaaaaat? I guess I hadn't ever thought about it.

7. "Education is the one thing that can never be taken away from you."

8. "I'd rather spend money on experiences than things."

9. "It's not your fault." 

10. "I love you." In different contexts - no one being more important than the other.

Finally, 

10 Things I Live By

1. Twenty to thirty years old is our mother fucking decade! This is the best time of our lives. Sure, I know that when I turn the big 3-0 I'll be saying, "thirty to forty is our mother fucking decade" and so on, but for now, twenty to thirty is our mother fucking decade!

2. Life is too short not to surround yourself with people who bring out the best in you.

3. The meaning of life is learning how to love.

4. The people we are in relationships with should grab hold of our world views, on either side, and expand them.

5. Living like an 8 year old.

6. "Twenty years from now you will be more concerned by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines...sail away from the safe harbor..catch the trade winds in your sail...explore, dream, discover." - Mark Twain

7. Every relationship prepares us for the next.

8. "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." - I had this tremendously powerful poem, Invictus, by William Ernest Henley, stenciled on my bedroom walls back home. The message of perseverance and strength will always remind me of where I've come from and what I'm capable of.
 

9. Gratitude and Love. Remind people in your life that you love them...often.

10. "The 'perfect' time never arrives. You're always too young or old or busy or broke or something else. If you constantly fret about timing things perfectly, they'll never happen." - Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson



I'm sure there are a lot of other things that I could have included here (like I'd rather date a 'someone' with a subaru than a hottie with a Hummer - haha), but there's the quick and dirty version.These are the things that have shaped my life and I hope that from reading these, you start to think about what has enriched your life too or what has been the reality check/truth bomb that you might have needed as an angsty teen, a mother-fucking-decade-twenty-something, or beyond.