Twenty-Five Things That Ruined My Life for the Better
In honor of my birthday, here are some of the most important lessons I’ve learned by 25.
I turn twenty-five this week, which is an exciting yet terrifying milestone. I mean, please…a quarter of a century? How is that even possible? I remember being a kid, meeting someone who was twenty-five and thinking they were so old. Even as a teenager, my mid-twenties felt like a millennium away.
The older you get, the more pressure there is to feel like you’ve accomplished enough. Learned enough. I’ve been handed plenty of life lessons, but still feel overwhelmed by how much there is to know. Still, I’ve managed to extract wisdom from key moments. I’ve noticed oftentimes the most important things we learn are also the most devastating (which is perhaps a lesson unto itself).
The learnings I’ve collected over the years only scratch the surface, but they’ve helped me clear out the proverbial path in front of me. When the overgrowth of weeds and branches starts to obstruct my view, I return to these truths.
Some come from books, some from the hard-earned lessons of other people, and some from good old-fashioned life experience.
So, in no particular order, here are twenty-five lessons that ruined my life for the better.
1. The Sunk Cost Fallacy
Interestingly enough, this one was inspired by a Better Call Saul episode. The sunk cost fallacy is the belief that “further investment is warranted on the fact that the resources already invested will be lost otherwise,” or in other words, “I’ve already done XYZ, I can’t quit now!” But the truth is, this is a fear-based motive. Your trajectory, what you want in the end is what matters most. The idea of changing paths after investing time, money, and resources might hurt, but if the possibility of a different future is better, it’s worth taking the L.
Note: This can be used as a manipulation tactic, so be careful. People will use this to try to convince you to keep doing something you don't want to do. Especially if your participation benefits them.
2. We Won’t Save Ourselves Through Self-Sufficiency and Accomplishment
As much as I love the Jockos’ and Goggins’ of the world, discipline and personal responsibility won’t save us from futility. They can be a means, but they are most certainly not the end. Often times “stoicism” is a mask for idolatry. Just my two cents.
3. Being Nice Is Not the Same as Being Good
4. The Gospel
“The gospel is this: ‘you are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe, but more accepted and loved than you ever dared hope.’” -Tim Keller
5. “You’re a Bad Boss, and a Worse Employee”
When it comes to self-mastery, being a tyrant will get you nowhere. Instead of beating yourself with a stick, try to negotiate once in a while.
6. You’ll Always Marry the Wrong Person
I promise this is a good thing, just read Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage, and you’ll pick up what I’m putting down.
7. If You Are an Ambitious Person, You’re Also a Tormented Person
“As soon as you posit an ideal you also specify a judge. The higher the ideal the more severe the judgment.” -JP
8. Take It Easy on Your Past Self
I had a nasty habit of being unfairly harsh toward my past self. That was until I read this passage from Laura Vanderkam’s, Off The Clock:
“Dwelling in the past requires a forgiving mindset. The emotional dramas that are long water under the bridge mattered to me once. They consumed my time once. I should try to understand the person who cared so deeply. She is a part of me. Whoever I am is because of what she learned.”
9. We Can’t Will Our Emotions to Vanish
My emotions, for the longest time, felt like an obstacle (angry criers unite).
I revisit this quote from Glennon Doyle whenever I need a reminder that my sensitivity is a strength:
“I understand now that I’m not a mess but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I cry so often I say, ‘For the same reason I laugh so often–because I’m paying attention.”
10. A Lot of the Female-Centered, Self-Care, and Self-Improvement Narrative Is Patronizing
This is an excerpt from Chris Williamson’s newsletter:
“‘My current belief is that male self-improvement sees the person as mutable and the world as immutable. So you need to be the best person possible while accepting the rules & environment you are in. This is in contrast with the female self improvement, which sees the person as immutable and the world as mutable. So women are taught to accept yourself and try to change the support structures and society you are in.’” -KH
11. The More You Talk About Your Goals, the Less Likely They Are to Come To Fruition
“Talking about the thing and doing the thing vie for the same resources. Allocate your energy appropriately.” -Ryan Holiday
12. Anything Good at Any Cost Is a Bargain
13. Escaping Work Is Not a Good Motive for Life
Work is suffering, sure—but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. In the right context, with the right boundaries, we can derive profound meaning from our work. Creativity is work. Helping others is work. Being the best us we can be is work.
I don’t care what anyone says, doing work you’re proud of beats sitting on a beach any day.
14. It Isn’t Humble to Put Yourself Down
15. Suffering Provides Context for Good
I don’t pretend to understand this in all of its depth, but I had this epiphany while reading the book Tensions. (Full disclosure, it’s a Christian hypothesis about suffering.)
HA Williams writes,
“Evil seems inescapably to play in the production of good–a terrifying fact from which much conventional Christian thinking hides by separating off redemption from creation though the Redeemer were not Himself the Creator.
That separation is a funk-hole which produces either deadness or that protest against deadness which is neurosis.
Yet, as a matter of formal theology and inherited belief, we do admit that evil is the instrument by means of which goodness is supremely revealed and supremely effective. Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus, but the Son of Man goes thereby to his destiny as it is written of him. And for St John the judicial murder of Jesus is his exaltation. The men who crucify Jesus provide the context by means of which he accomplishes his work and is glorified.”
16. Fanaticism Is Usually a Mask for Doubt
Another gem from Tensions,
“St Paul tells us that we walk by faith, not by sight. Sight stands for complete certainty, the absolute inability to doubt. People sometimes confuse faith with sight as though if faith were perfect it would be sight, as though perfect faith would consist of complete certainty.
…If so, we haven’t in fact grown more certain. We have only put to sleep the man within us who asks awkward questions.
But the man within us who asks awkward questions is not so easily disposed of. We may put him to sleep, but the sleeper can dream. Our uncertainty will still be with us, not openly and honestly, but in the sneaking underhand form of a repression.
Uncertainty or doubt in the unconscious does the maximum harm. Repressed doubt can make us into yelling zealots, fascists of the spirit who think the noise they make is designed to persuade others while it is really designed to persuade themselves…”
17. Everything Will Take Longer Than You Think
From 2018–2019 I lost 50 pounds. It took a little over nine months total, and the first three were completely isolating.
Every week I went to the gym and ate in a calorie deficit while seeing virtually no change on the outside. I was frustrated about not making headway “fast enough,” and it wasn’t until month four that I started noticing enough progress to feel validated. My goal took longer than I wanted it to, but looking back, I’m thankful for every part of me that endured.
I’ve found this phenomenon to be true for other things too. Whatever we’re working toward will take longer than we want, but if we’re willing to endure, the payoff compounds.
18. Telling the Truth (Even to a Fault) Gives Us a Tighter Grip on Our Sanity
I recommend checking out Sam Harris’s book on lying.
The cliff notes version? The cost of being in misalignment with what we say and what we do is our sanity.
19. Speaking of Sanity–Everything You Watch, Listen To, and Allow Into Your Mind Affects Your Psyche
I don’t know about you but I’ve had to learn this the hard way. Most recently, I started watching Netflix’s Dahmer and found myself mysteriously miserable a couple of days later. I mean really down in the dumps. I’m no psychologist, but life was going pretty good before that.
Devastation lingers. Even if we feel fine in the moment, it doesn’t mean our subconscious isn’t affected by it, and that we won’t carry it with us into other areas of our lives.
20. “We Suffer More in Our Imagination More Often Than in Reality” -Seneca
21. You Feel Ready After You Do It
22. “The Only Difference Between a Rut and a Grave Is the Depth and How Long You Intend to Stay There.”
23. Red-Winged-Black Birds Are Extremely Territorial
Take a note from me and avoid getting pecked in the head (I’m still recovering from my bird trauma). Don’t disturb their turf, don’t even walk by their turf if there’s something in the vicinity disturbing them.
24. “Show up as Who You Are and It Turns Out No One Will Be All That Surprised” -Paul Millerd
Most of us are afraid to be ourselves because we feel like we’re “revealing” something other people won’t accept. But odds are if we spend enough time around them they’ll figure it out anyway.
25. Proverbs 27:6 “Faithful Are the Wounds of a Friend”
Not only do real friends tell you things you don’t want to hear, but you are a better friend for sharing hard truths.
Do any of these lessons resonate? What wisdom has life imparted on you? Let me know in the comments!
