Life Lessons

It’s been almost a year since I lost my previous office job, spent a month in the wilderness of unemployment, and found a much better position working at a used book store. In that time I have come to know some important lessons about life and writing that I’d like to share. I did something similar at the end of last year, but this list is a more thorough compilation. In the interest of keeping the list manageable, I’ve attempted to keep it as pithy as possible. And if any of you out there have your own lessons to add, feel free to do so in the comments. Thanks for reading!

1. Whatever occupies your day must be worthwhile. Do not ever waste eight hours of your day working a job that you know is not contributing anything to your life.
2. Along these lines: don’t ever waste your life. Don’t make the same mistake I did of looking back on the last seven years of employment and realizing what a giant pointless excursion it was. Yes, I got a great story out of it (more on that later) but accessing that part of my brain to tell it means I have to keep remembering these decisions that I made and what came of them. Better to just not waste the time in the first place.
3. Read a lot. One year prior I would have said this should include a healthy dose of non-fiction and regular news, as an informed citizen should, but now I’m not so sure. A year of reading nothing but fiction each night has brought some much needed clarity to my life. I still make time for about an hour of non-fiction reading each day, but that’s it.
4. If you feel you’ve taken on too much in your life, learn to let go. It will make things immeasurably less frustrating. In the past year I’ve quit one neighborhood board, almost completely stopped writing journalism, and taken some other steps toward simplification. And I feel my life has been better for it.
5. Take care of debt, before it gets out of control.
6. This goes for emotional baggage, too. If you’ve hit your third decade and aren’t constantly examining your life and what you’re doing, then why not? Change is essential.
7. Get enough sleep. A day spent wired on caffeine is not the same as eight hours of restful slumber.
8. Enjoy what you do. If this is true, you’ll be able to work for long periods of time without realizing it.
9. Don’t be afraid to disconnect: from social media, your smart phone, and the online news-o-sphere. I obsessed over that stuff for years during my day job, and since I have much enjoyed spending time away from it. You probably can never fully disconnect (not with Trump running around), but try to do as little as possible.
10. Discovering yourself as a writer will take a lifetime. Make sure you’ve given yourself the space to do so.
11. Work every day on having a Zen-like mood about your life. It will help you enjoy life much more. Enjoy the pleasantry of every moment, because each one of them contains everything you need around you. Try to recall this as much a possible.
12. Find love. I cannot stress this enough. If you can find somebody who loves you for the person you are, you’ve accomplished a lot. I know I have.
13. Along those lines: don’t be afraid of the person you are, or the person you have become. Change is the nature of our lives, and if we resist we are doomed to failure.
14. There isn’t much else to life outside of relationships, where you choose to put down roots, and what you do with your life. Everything else is going to be largely outside of your control, but you can learn to accept this, even graciously. Just be mindful of it every day, and it will start to become inured in your consciousness.
15. Life is not about making money. Anyone who tells you isn’t giving you a full shake. Life is about the experience, and maybe making deeper connections with your fellow humans once in a while. Don’t ever forget this.​