22 things I experienced by the age of 22 — and what I learned from it

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Life has been a long and slow flow… until the end of high school.

Then, it all went kind of nuts.

From 17 onwards,

1. I moved to Paris on my own and got into one of the best “Classe Préparatoire” in France where I got slapped in the face with humility. My self-confidence went from 100 t0 none in a few weeks. It took a lot of time and effort to build it back up.

Lessons:

• There’s enough place in the world for smart people. When you meet someone smart(er than you), see it as an opportunity to learn from them, rather than feeling threatened and undermined.
• Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know something and ask your question — it’s a sign of strength, not weakness.

2. I met a guy I thought I’d end up with. Boy was I wrong!

Lessons:

• I realized that no matter how important someone is for you, it’s your responsibility to keep ownership of your own happiness and self-value.
• You can be as angry and resentful as you’d like, but ultimately you just need to reflect on what went wrong from both sides and move on.

3. I realized I had amazing parents and stopped taking everything they do for granted. I had always assumed parents are devoted to their children for ever, but it’s only when I moved away from home I realized that wasn’t the norm. A few examples:

• Always pushing me to do what I want to do, and stressing it’s okay to change paths if needed.
• Treating me as an adult since I’ve moved away.
• Support me financially whenever needed.
• Not doubt to jump in a plane to help me when I was sick.
• Insist that I should not always seek their approval, and that it’s okay for me to have different opinions from theirs.

4. I went to Iceland with my best friend. This was our first trip “as adults”, i.e. that we organized without our parents, and we chose the destination out of a joke.

Lessons:

• Sometimes things only seem out of reach until you look at how to get there — and it’s actually easy!
• Traveling on your own is not as easy-peasy as it is when your parents organize everything and pay for it. You’ll have to book the (right) hotels, organize tours and visits, manage your money and make sure you don’t get in trouble.
• You’ll need to adapt to your friends’ habits and travel expectations. Be clear beforehand on what you’re expecting from the trip — are you looking for exploration or for relaxation ? Do you like to wake up early or sleep in ? Are you on a budget or looking for luxury ? Clarifying the details will make it easier to compromise and keep the tensions to a minimum.

5. I got two herniated discs pressuring my sciatic nerve. I could not sit, stand or walk for nearly a year, missed 2 months of classes and went to the physiotherapist once a week for 9 months.

Lessons: some of the most challenging episodes of your life will also be the most important ones. This one let me:

• Realize doctors are not gods. And I say that even if my own dad is a doctor. My first physician wanted me to get surgery although the success rate is really low, with serious long-term side effects. He claimed it was the only option I had to hope for things to come back to normal. Had I not looked for more opinions, especially my physio’s, I would definitely not have healed this well.
• Re-evaluate priorities and practice resilience: you can get stressed out about exams all you want, but when your health is not there and you can’t even attend classes, you learn how to put things in perspective and appreciate the little things.
• Find out how I react to unexpected new challenges: I would have thought I’d spend the year feeling sorry for myself, but instead, I decided to make the most out of the experience from day 1. I used my time in bed to learn new things, read and reflect.
• Find out what I’m passionate about: I discovered entrepreneurship through trying to solve the day-to-day challenges I faced with the reduced mobility.

6. I shared a flat for the first time with a few friends from uni. It went both ways: I became extremely close to one of them, and moved away from the other. With the former, it worked really well because although we are different, we were respectful of what was important to the other. We also spent a lot of quality time together, while still having our own circle, which allowed us to become close without ever feeling out of personal space.

Lessons:

• You only really know someone when you live with them!
• The perfect recipe for a happy share house is to define beforehand the way it’s going to go, especially around cleaning.

7. I went to Sweden on the spur of the moment and thought the nordic air healed my back miraculously.

In reality, although the nordic air was a delight, what really let me fully heal was changing the position I sleep in, as I was sharing a single bed with my friend and was forced to sleep on my back without moving.

Lessons:

• Be as spontaneous as you can ! Life sometimes gives you the opportunity to embrace uncertainty, so take it when it does.
• The solution of a problem may lie in small tweaking of habits — identify all the moving parts of your issue to get the best outcome.

8. I enrolled in an exchange English class, went to South Carolina and made lifelong friendships through it. We spent six months bonding over Skype and social media. The topics we addressed were focused on discovering and sharing cultural similarities and differences.

Lessons:

• It was so interesting to see how on the surface, there were a fair amount of differences, whereas core values were ultimately the same — simply expressed in a different way.
• Meeting people from different cultures will always broaden your mind in one way or another. It’s not about understanding every culture, it’s about acknowledging there are different perspectives and accepting that you don’t have to understand it all for it to be valid.

9. I participated to an amazing entrepreneurship program that ended with a terrorist attack. We were all on the Promenade in Nice and lost three bright friends from the program.

Lesson: still trying to figure this one out.

10. I fought hard to find an internship in the Silicon Valley for my gap year, only to randomly end up in Australia.

Lesson: you need to push hard for what you want, and know when to let go to let life work its magic.

11. I started practicing yoga. Teachers often ask to set an intention for the practice at the beginning of classes. Mine is usually being both persistent and acceptant with myself. I love that the emphasis is always to set your focus inwards and not comparing yourself to what other people are doing — all that matters is what’s happening on your own mat.

Lesson: it’s quite impressive to see how much a (strong) physical practice can teach you about your inner self. Yoga showed me there is always room for improvement. Practicing consistently, patiently and being kind to yourself will get you where you want to be.

12. I worked for an early-stage start-up and learned heaps of things.

13. I went through the (stressful) process of applying to American universities. If that’s what you want to do, you will need to:

• Write a statement of purpose (SOP) to explain who you are, what you’ve done and why you want to get in this or that school, in less than 2 pages
• Take the TOEFL and the GRE
• Get recommendation letters

Each step is more time consuming that one would expect.

Lessons:

• Start putting together your application as soon as possible: it’s a no brainer, yet I didn’t do it. Most of the deadlines are in December-January of the year before you want to start. If you wait until November to take the tests, you won’t be able to pick your date as flexibly as you’d like, won’t get a chance to re-take it if you’re not satisfied with your score and will be swamped with your preparation.
• Ask more people that you’d need for the recommendation letters, in case some of them say no or don’t answer on time. It’s your responsibility to make sure everyone submit their recommendation before the deadline.
• Get a trusted English professor who knows you to review your SOP, as they know what kind of content and tone is expected.
• Be aware of deadlines for each program you’re applying to.

14. I went to see Coldplay impulsively on my own and it was incredible. It was the first concert that I’d been to, and I had a few doubts before going — the ticket was expensive and I was going on my own. The atmosphere was crazy, I completely let go and had heaps of fun!

Lessons:

• When pondering whether something’s worth the money, ask yourself if you’ll remember the price VS the experience in two years time.
• Even if it’s uncomfortable, learning how to enjoy life on your own is an incredible way to free yourself, enjoy experiences in a different perspective and meet new people.

15. I went to a yoga retreat in Bali with a cool person who became a great friend. We went to a beautiful ashram in the middle of rice-fields, before spending a week exploring the island.

Lessons:

• Traveling is a great way to create friendship, especially when facing challenges together.
• Traveling in a developing country is much more challenging than I’d imagined. To enjoy yourself, you have to be aware and accept you’ll be treated a certain way as a tourist, and that not everything is as comfortable as you’d expect it to be.

Oh, and make sure you don’t book a hotel room without walls, door or bathroom. Just saying.

16. I went diving in the Great Barrier Reef and saw a salt water crocodile on the way there.

17. I worked for a bigger tech consultancy and will develop my learnings there soon :)

18. I got accepted into UC Berkeley, yay ! I was on a train back to Bondi Junction when I found the email in a dark corner of my inbox — thank you Gmail for flagging something this important as advertisement.

Lesson: hard work pays off—eventually :)

19. And I unexpectedly flew over the Pacific to visit the campus thanks to UC Berkeley’s travel grant. Now I can truly say I went around the world :)

It was quite the adventure, as my flight got cancelled after spending 4 hours on the tarmac. It was for the best though, as it got me to extend my holiday from 5 to 10 days (virtually) for free!

20. I lived in Australia for a year, both in Melbourne and Sydney. I’ve been so surprised by how different some aspects of the lifestyle is down here, which deserves a blog post of its own.

For the record, I preferred Sydney **whoops**.

Lessons:

• Australia is an amazing place in terms of diversity. Everyone comes from some random part of the world, and I’ve met so many people who’d tell me they came as backpackers, fell in love with the country and never left.
• It’s hard to move to the other side of the world. Yes, it sounds dreamy, and it is amazing for a lot of reasons, but the feeling of disconnectedness from your family and friends can be suffocating. Make sure to keep in touch with your loved ones, and strive enough to meet people.
• It’s also going to be hard to leave — leaving people behind only gets more difficult.

21. I figured out what I don’t want to do with my life. I’m glad I got to play around with software development for a year in flexible environments — I know now I’d never apply for a role as solely a developer.

I tried everything from quick prototyping, front-end, back-end, data optimization to business development, and the times I’ve enjoyed myself the most were when I was given a high level problem, had the freedom to do something completely new and was not guided by best practices or a need for rigid structures.

22. I am getting ready for new adventures !

Life is good. Not easy, but good.

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Please checkout this article from @timdenning that inspired me to do my own version!