I am now forty something years old, I have won more than I have lost, and I hope that I have given more than I have taken. I am not a believer in regrets, but if you don’t have any, I believe you really have not lived enough. I have tried to learn from every mistake and I think my life today is pretty awesome.
Lately I have been spending a lot of time in a online neighborhood known as Brazen Careerist. This community is geared toward Gen-Y, but there are a few Gen-X and even some Boomers poking about this social-network. My tour of Brazen and my interaction recently with these twenty something’s has left me wondering about what things I would have loved to have known twenty years ago, when I was just starting out.
Having known these things would I have changed things?
Really I am not so sure.
I might not have gotten into debt, but then I wouldn’t have learned the amazing satisfaction of getting out of it. I might not have gotten married, but then I wouldn’t have my daughter.
“Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” – Mark Twain
However, looking back there are some lessons that I would have loved to tell myself at twenty something. I don’t think I would have listened though, because back then I thought I knew everything.
- All that stuff that’s stressing you out — it won’t matter in five years, let alone twenty. When things are happening, they mean all the world. I had deadlines and projects and people breathing down my neck, and my stress levels went through the roof. I don’t regret the hard work but I think I would have been less stressed if I could have just realized that it wouldn’t matter one bit in a few weeks let alone months and years down the road. Perspective is a good thing to learn.
- The people you make friends with are so much more important than your job or the things you buy. I’ve had a few jobs, I’ve bought a lot of things, and I’ve made a few friends over these last two decades. Of those things the only thing I have today that still matter to me are my friends. I wish I could have spent more time with them than on the other things.
- All that time you spend watching TV is a huge, huge waste of time. I don’t know how much TV I’ve watched over the years, but these hours, days and weeks I’ll never have back. Who cares what is happening on reality TV when reality is slipping by outside?
- Your children are going to grow up way faster than you think. Don’t waste a minute. My daughter, is going to be 17 in a few short weeks (May 21st). In just over 1 year she becomes an adult. My time with my daughter as a child has gone by much too fast.
- Focus on being happy. There have been many things that have happened to me, professionally and personally, that seem like the end of the world. While these things were bad, they did get blown out of proportion in my head so that they became major drama. They caused me to be depressed. If I had realized that it was all in my head, and that I could be happy, if I just focused on the positive, focused on what I still had and what I could be doing … I could have skipped allot of unhappy, unproductive mopping around.
“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ~ “WOO HOO, what a ride!” — Author Unknown
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