Four Things I’ve Learned at Thirty-Five

alexanderbasek
Aug 24, 2017 · 5 min read

Birthdays are like fantasy baseball or diet plans. They’re interesting to you, less so to friends, family members and anyone else within earshot. Nonetheless, to mark my birthday earlier this week, here are four things I’ve learned in my thirty-five years. In return, I promise not to talk about VORP or ketosis.

Know When to Keep Your Mouth Full

When I was applying to colleges, I went on a tour of Georgetown. In retrospect, most of my positive feelings about Georgetown centered around their bulldog mascot — the student I stayed with was in charge of walking him. To me, a high school junior from a small town, that seemed impossibly cool. After the dog portion of the day, part of my tour took me with some administrators to different parts of the university, including Georgetown’s Hall of Cardinals.

I’m not Catholic, but I do love baseball, so you can probably deduce what happened next. I said, “Hall of Cardinals? Where’s Stan Musial?”

To describe what happened in the room after I spoke as “silence” would be underselling it. You could hear Jesuits, somewhere, sighing. You could hear the bulldog, somewhere, panting. I likely upset Patrick Ewing. “You guys get that a lot, right?”

“No.”

And that’s the story of how I didn’t get into Georgetown.

I missed the proverbial finger roll layup, let’s say.

Three years later, I was at a talk at the Harvard Club in New York City for prospective students of Berkeley’s School of Journalism. I was a broke college student and I hoped that there might be snacks. After a presentation, I made a beeline for the food and beverage zone. I chatted with another person at the event, and lo and behold, they worked for Rolling Stone and needed an intern. I talked my way into the internship, though that’s not quite accurate. My talking was limited by the miniature chicken fingers I kept shoveling into my mouth. The food at this event won me a job, because it ensured I shut the fuck up long enough to get hired. Thank you, Harvard Club catering.

If putting chicken fingers in your gaping maw is what it takes to get hired, find some chicken fingers. And don’t even consider going to journalism school in a year that starts with a 2.

“It’s not like Almost Famous” — what they tell you on the first day of your Rolling Stone internship

Perspective Changes Fast

As a college sophomore, I took a Civil Liberties class at NYU. The class was set up with the Socratic method: sign in at the beginning of class and the professor would call on students and ask them to explain something from the reading. One class, I was called on, and I did a bad job with my answer, probably about the lemon test or torts. Torts, man. I remember my failure to answer well felt catastrophic, although reviewing my journal from that evening, I was most upset about how it distracted me from talking to the girl I had a crush on after class.

That class was on the night of September 10, 2001.

What feels huge and insurmountable one day can be rendered insignificant in about twelve hours. When you’re sweating something, remember that.

Oh, and that girl I wanted to talk to and didn’t? Nothing much happened, because I was nineteen, and a moron.

Look for the Helpers

People will tell you who they are, either by speaking or by doing. Don’t miss what they put out into the world. You’ll be much less disappointed by life when you do. The manager with a drinking problem isn’t ever going to sweat the details. The person that you’re dating, who is weird about your cat? It’s not going to work. For an object lesson in “see what people do, not what you wish they would do,” watch an episode of Millionaire Matchmaker, which is a masterclass in men saying they want an equal and then trying to grope a 22-year-old yoga instructor.

Evaluate how people speak and act, and then look for the people who are the helpers. They appear in many forms, from mentor to work spouse to dating consigliere. Stick with them. Support them when you have the means to do so. Bring them with you to new jobs. Stay in touch with them when they move out of town, or when you move to a different neighborhood. I have relationships I didn’t maintain with some of my helpers, and I regret it. Thank them, reinvest what they put into the world back into your relationship, and then thank them some more.

People Aren’t Thinking About You

This is one of the best pieces of advice I ever got, from my friend Erin. I don’t even remember why she said it, but it rolls around in my brain all the time. The sooner you realize that people aren’t thinking about you, the happier you’ll be. Here’s an incomplete list of ways in which people are not thinking about you:

  • They are not waiting for your email
  • That pointed remark was not about you
  • Any evaluation of your creative work likely has to do with their fear of failure or embarrassment, rather than a genuine evaluation of what you’ve done

See? It’s liberating. It doesn’t mean that what you do is immaterial; rather, it means that whatever you do is not as closely monitored as it feels. Think of most managers in your office as having the thousand-yard commuter stare when it comes to questions of whether you deserve a promotion or not. Some days, you have to be the person who starts ranting about fire and brimstone on the 5 train. Otherwise, the two of you are in for a long ride.

So: choose your own words with intelligence. Listen to the words of others with care. And do the reading before class.

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alexanderbasek

Written by

Freelance Creative Director and Copywriter

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