We meet again. Coming right up – the second part of the 25 life lessons I’ve learned in the 25 years of my life. As before, these lessons aren’t ranked, so feel free to jump around. Hope something sticks, and if it doesn’t, I hope it at least amuses you for a moment.
Tattoos are painful and difficult to remove – think before inking
The story takes place on a fine August day in 2019. I had just gotten out of a long-term, semi-toxic relationship – my first ever relationship – and decided to celebrate my new-found freedom by getting a tattoo. Somehow, between a few drinks and banter with the tattoo artist – who was naturally covered with doodles and some finer body art – I ended up with three tattoos. One tattoo larger than originally intended. Another sillier than expected. Regret followed. I’ve had these tattoos for four years now and I am still in the process of removing them (granted, I only started the process last year), but the point remains – do not get tattoos on a whim.
Use your muscles while you still have them
Our souls will never age, but our bodies won’t be young forever. I am not afraid of old age, of thin skin that looks like a crumpled piece of paper, and of freckles and blemishes that prove that I have both literally and figuratively earned my place under the sun. But I am afraid of feeling stuck in a frail body, of not being able to be myself when I’m old and of the future where I can do nothing but sit around and wait for death to free me.
My fear of old age is functional – if I can’t move, I am no better than the dead. I approach this fear similarly in a functional manner – enjoying my body’s ability for as long as I can while realizing that movement is something that I “get” to do rather than “have” to do. I don’t have to go to the gym, but I get to do it, because I am alive and I am alive because I can move.
The logic may seem circular, but it makes sense when you take a look at our anatomy. A study published in The Physician and Sportsmedicine (Wroblewski et al., 2011, pp. 172-178) reveal that the more we move now, the more we will be able to move in the future. You may even be familiar with a figure from that study if you’ve been online on Reddit sometime in the past five years, but if not, here is the visual.
Above you can see the MRI scans of a 40-year-old triathlete, a 74-year-old sedentary man, and a 70-year-old triathlete. The picture speaks for itself – the difference in the muscle mass between the sportsmen is minimal despite the age gap, while the man with the sedentary lifestyle lost a significant chunk of his muscles. So, get up and stretch, go out and jog around the neighbourhood, and don’t forget to lift some weights, because controlled pain of exercise today means no debilitating pain in old age.
Replace consumption with reflection
The internet has generously presented humanity with an abundance of knowledge, but stole our capacity for reflection. Let me correct myself – the internet didn’t exactly steal our ability to reflect, as we are innately wired to contemplate our experiences, but rather put a heavy blanket over our instincts to ponder. By bombarding us with notifications, news, and other content, the internet – regardless of the device it is consumed on – transformed into a pacifier for our brains. Our surroundings became noisier due to the constant overfeeding of media, and the serenity that was once available on a bus ride home or an evening stroll disappeared.
It is exactly these moments that fostered deep thoughts and reflections on life. In essence, it would be fairer to say that we have exchanged the serenity of singular moments for easy stimulation, because it freed us from the daunting task of thinking, and thinking of nothing less than life itself. Faced with existential concepts, we were easily lured into the claws of a machine that spews content for profit, faster and faster. Creators and big media alike are constantly in the process of perfecting their algorithms to retain our attention, making it even more difficult to escape the grasp of the media behemoth. We become bloated with information and messages and experience mental fatigue, tricking ourselves into thinking that we have actually engaged in meaningful thought.
It is not all doom and gloom, however, because our propensity to make sense of our surroundings will always exist regardless of how deeply buried it is in our minds. We have a natural inclination to philosophize life, but most of us – especially the digital natives – have grown too accustomed to outsourcing the thinking and the reflecting. The only times we actually philosophize is when we are thrown into situations that force reflection such as a painful breakup or an otherwise unfortunate incident. The crux of the matter, as we see, isn’t our inability to think deeply, but rather our hesitancy to engage in the complex processes of self-exploration. I invite you to be brave, however, and to resist the urge to consume when you idle away time. Pick up a journal, listen to music, or better yet read Ripe Reflections, and find your own meaning of life.
Practice generosity
If we want to be happy, we should not be stingy. I am not talking about money per se (although we shouldn’t embrace a Scrooge McDuck mindset either) as there are worse things that we can skimp on such as time, energy, and feelings. We can think of this from a spiritual position – the universe seeks cosmic balance – the more we give, the more we receive. We act as vessels by allowing experiences and possessions pass through us to others. Alternatively, we can think of this logically – the feeling of happiness is manifested with the help of hormones, which are released when we feel love, exercise, listen to music, or simply laugh. Anything that is worth experiencing in life requires an investment from our side. So, if our goal is to be happy, we can’t afford to be stingy on life.
No such thing as “can’t”
People often say “I can’t” or “I couldn’t” when they just mean “I don’t want to.” It’s polite and seemingly innocent, but it largely works, because as society we are content with tiptoeing around the truth. We collectively accept “can’t” as some sort of invisible boundary that is not to be prodded, poked, or probed. I am not advocating to drop our manners and be completely blunt with people we care about, but I am inviting you to read between the lines. We can never be short on time, but we can be short on desire.
Bad decisions are better than indecision
I was paralyzed by the fear of making a bad decision, which usually meant that someone else would decide for me. When I reframed indecisiveness as something that is as destructive as a bad decision, however, I was freed. In reality, indecision is a decision – a decision not to act. We often view indecision as a 0 on the scale of good vs. bad decisions, with good decisions being a 1 and bad decisions being a -1, but this is a false premise. Involuntary indecision is a -1 in absolute terms. A bad decision, contrary to popular belief, is often a positive in absolute terms. Bad decisions promote growth by presenting valuable opportunities to learn through failure, while indecision keeps us back.
Your perfectionism is ruining your life – aim for completion not perfection
Perfectionism is a bigger threat to success than stupidity. For most people, perfectionism manifests in procrastination, but I want to focus on perfectionism that manifests itself in a Sisyphean struggle – the endless reworking of the past. I often find myself revisiting and re-editing the work that I have already published. This is a major roadblock to creation, but also to perfection itself as it dooms me to walk in circles, exploring the same ideas and regurgitating the same thoughts. It may seem that I am engaged in the process of creation, but in reality I am stuck in a loop of iteration. While seemingly more innocent than procrastination, this Sisyphean perfectionism is a thief that robs me of the feelings of achievement and success – nothing is ever complete or whole, everything is a work in perpetual progress.
Fighting the urge to perfect your work is incredibly difficult, even if you understand the futility of your effort. However, certain guardrails can keep you in check. First, define what constitutes completion – is it an idea neatly typed up, or one crossed out to draw the eye, à la Basquiat? Is it a symphony polished to its final note, or one left forever unfinished like Schurbert’s? Is it a statue chiseled to perfection, or one abandoned, like Michelangelo’s Prisoners, forever straining to emerge from stone? At the very core of our perfectionism lies uncertainty and the lack of vision. We like to dress up our actions as a pursuit of greatness when in reality we’re not much different from a headless chicken that is running around without a vision or a purpose. Define your final product before you execute to avoid revisions.
Next, understand the difference between revisions and updates. Defining your final product should not bind you to an idea forever – you should always be free to mold your creation and you will inevitably shift to reflect current thoughts, trends, and perspectives. However, your core idea should remain intact if the vision is true. Revision, as the name implies, is the re-doing of your final vision. An update, on the other hand, builds on top of the existing effort – it multiplies the past, doesn’t replace it. Look around and you’ll see it everywhere: the wheel has been reinvented a thousand times, but it still is just a wheel. Change what must evolve, but don’t confuse endless sanding with progress.
Other people will love you the same way you love yourself
The way we love ourselves sets an example of how we want to be treated and determines what behaviors we accept from others. If we don’t respect our own time, other people won’t either. If we don’t love our bodies, others won’t either. If we don’t believe in our own capabilities and talents, others won’t either.
This was the second part of 25 years of my life distilled into lessons. Remember that the third and final part will be posted next week. Read the first part of the mega-article if you haven’t already. Stay tuned for more insights and reflections.
References: Wroblewski, A. P., Amati, F., Smiley, M. A., Goodpaster, B. and Wright, V. (2011). “Chronic Exercise Preserves Lean Muscle Mass in Masters Athletes.” The Physician and Sportsmedicine, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 172-178. doi:10.3810/psm.2011.09.1933.