Life Lessons: 24th Birthday Edition

Hello Everyone,

I’m planning to set a custom to list down all the lessons I have learned over different years of my life on my birthday month. The link to my last year’s article is: https://readmedium.com/life-lessons-23rd-birthday-edition-5ebf5ac7be43

These lessons are based on my experiences, some of which you may feel are incorrect. Please chime-in in the comment section if you feel otherwise. This year, I’m open to all different thoughts and experiences.

1. Say no to any kind of addiction: Drinking and smoking are not cool, no matter how glamorised and normalised they are. Sometimes I hear people say that drinking is the only way to connect and socialise. If this is the case, then maybe you are trying to socialise with the wrong people.
2. Cleaning and organising are therapeutic: Not only does cleaning help keep your things sorted and tidy, but it also helps calm your mind. Whenever my mind is cluttered with a lot of thoughts and emotions, I start cleaning my home. In the process of cleaning, my emotions and thoughts also calmed down. Clean space = clean mind.
3. Slow speaking: The slower you speak, the more meaningful you speak. In my life, I have been a very fast speaker, eater, and walker, but now I’m trying to take my time. When you speak slowly, you have more time to articulate your sentence properly.
4. Don’t steal someone’s special moment: Don’t try to divert attention from someone if it’s their moment. Learn to celebrate others’ success and attention. If it’s their special day, keep them in the spotlight.
5. Acknowledging privilege and luck: Acknowledging the role of privilege and luck in your success does not demean your hard work. It makes you a more humble and kind human, which everyone can relate to.
6. No impulsive shopping: In a world where we can do shopping with just one finger click, we are tempted to buy things that we do not need or things that we find cute. Buy functional things over trendy ones. Think about how many times you are going to use it before buying it.
7. Invest in products that improve your health and lifestyle: Some of the investments I have made are getting a 2-litre water bottle to track my daily water consumption, skin care products, a dressing mirror, good-quality dresses, etc.
8. Do not subscribe to someone else’s idea of fun. I don’t enjoy watching movies or series, playing card games, going to nightclubs, etc., which made me feel that maybe something was not right with me since most people my age enjoyed these things, but over time I realised that my priorities in life are different from those. It’s okay to live a life that other people don’t understand.
9. When someone is giving a treat or party, always keep in mind the other person’s budget. Do not order expensive stuff.
10. Try to be more in the present moment: Don’t think about where you should have been; just try to enjoy where you are. All our lives go by chasing, and we rarely get time to enjoy and cherish the present.
11. Don’t feel shy about introducing yourself first. When you are in a new place, don’t wait for other people to come to you for an introduction; take charge and introduce yourself. This shows you as a more confident and humble person.
12. Avoid any important conversations over the phone or via text. When you talk on the phone or text, your gestures, body language, and expression are missing, and the other person can misinterpret your words. Have important conversations in person.
13. Consistency over intensity: If you are consistent, intensity automatically comes over time, not the other way around. No matter how small your effort is, if you are consistent over time, you will see results.
14. Don’t respond to any emails, texts, or messages immediately. Take your sweet time to process or think, and then reply back. When you take time to reply, you respond sensibly; if you reply immediately, you reply based on your quick judgement of the message.
15. Make your life as planned as possible: I know not everything can be planned, but try to always have a plan for things you want to get done. Have a schedule or plan for everything possible, be it sleeping time, working time, play time, etc. Having a plan reduces the randomness and gives you more control over the situation.
16. Make someone’s first experience special: If you get to know that someone is going through a certain thing for the first time, be it their first job, their first day in yoga or gym, etc., always try to comfort them and try to help them as much as possible so that they enjoy their experience and continue it.
17. Never ever touch someone’s personal phone, laptop, bag, or purse. You may encounter something that might be disturbing to you.
18. As an adult, you only make friends when you visit a place regularly. Making new friends in adulthood is a hell difficult task, and maintaining that friendship is even more difficult. I realised that you make new friends in adulthood when you go to the same place again and again. For example, it can be your yoga classes, gym, pottery classes, etc. Over time, you meet people with similar values and vibes as you, and you bond.
19. When you give money to someone, give it with good intentions. Whenever you give money, be it to a shopkeeper, a tip, or a donation, always give with good intentions and positivity because, at the end, I believe that with that money, someone’s family is running, and the energy with which you give affects them.
20. Women’s mood swings are real: As I grow older, the more I realise how emotional women become, even with little things. Even the slightest change can cause them to be emotional, especially around the time of the menstrual cycle.
21. Always give feedback: If you like someone’s service, be it a waiter, cab driver, delivery guy, customer service agent, etc., always give good feedback. For you, it may just take 5–10 minutes to give the feedback, but that one good piece of feedback can help the person a lot in terms of their reputation, increments, etc.
22. Female friendship is bliss: Growing up in school and college, I mostly had more male friends than female friends. As I’m getting older, I realize how important female friendships are to both females and males. Female friends teach you to be more empathic, kind, and understanding. They bring out the true feminine side of you.
23. Sometimes it’s good to experience difficulty to acknowledge and appreciate your present life.
24. Be a little careful: Don’t sleep with the electric switches on; don’t bathe while keeping the gyser on; don’t sleep while keeping the gas cycler on; wear a seat belt; don’t walk on potholes. Sometimes small carelessness can cause big damage.

I hope you can relate to and find some of these points useful. I’ll see you next year with more learning and maybe one more step closer to being a good human.

Thanks Shalini Negi