5 Lessons Learned At 25
A bit of reflection at the quarter-century mark
1. Life is a marathon, not a sprint
Growing up, it was so easy to get lost doing the things I knew other people would approve of. This is human nature. I’ve realized that the hardest things to do in life are the ones that are best for you in the long run rather than the ones that are easily accepted in the short run. It’s too easy to get caught up in doing what society wants from you — it’s a lot harder to overcome this and accomplish what you want for you. If you can truly accept this and put it fully into practice, you can accomplish anything.
2. Success = sacrifice
There are so many things I want to do in life — but there’s such a short amount of time to do them. This is sad and beautiful at the same time because it makes me prioritize the things in life that really matter to me. If you really want to accomplish something big, you have to sacrifice a lot of the things you want just a little. This is a reality of life. The quicker we’re able to accept the realities of life, the quicker we’re able to navigate them and begin to use them to our advantage. It’s not easy to put aside things like entertainment, sports, leisure. I work hard to sacrifice these things because I know they won’t help me achieve my goals. Sometimes the smallest sacrifices have the biggest impact.
3. Never chase the money
I’ve learned over the last few years that chasing the money always leads me away from happiness. I always thought that money would make me happy because that’s what society led me to believe. As you get closer to having the money you want, you realize that you’re often farther away from accomplishing your real goals (which for me is impacting a lot of people). Accomplishing our real goals is what leads us to true happiness. The most financially successful people I know have one consistent thing in common — none of them ever chased the money. They chased what they loved and the money they earned was the side effect of being really great at that one thing. I think everyone begins to understand this more as they age. I’m working to understand this the best I can now so I have more time to be happy and enjoy my life.
4. You are who you hang out with
I heard this quote years ago and it stuck:
“If you’re the smartest one in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”
I never thought I was the smartest one in the room but this made me realize I need to make an effort to surround myself with people who are much smarter than me. I slowly started gravitating towards the people and situations I knew I can learn from. It was really hard to accept that I was mostly powerless in these situations, acting as a sponge rather than a firehose. But slowly I realized how much this helped me grow. To this day I strive to surround myself with only the people I can learn from — even if it’s one little thing. This is the only way I know how to grow.
5. Focus less on accomplishments, focus more on you
After lots of resistance and hesitation I had a revelation. The only common denominator across all of life’s situations is me — myself. I am the one thing that every event in my life will have in common. Therefore, I need to work on bettering myself in order to better the outcome of future events. I’ve always been goal oriented and accomplishments focused, but the realization here is that by working on myself and making myself a better person each day, I will accomplish much more in the end.
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