Lessons from my First 40 Years

It was my birthday the other day...

40 years on this rock spinning through space. I typically write an article with lessons for every year I've lived, but, honestly, there's too much filler in these lists. I end up finding lessons to fill the list rather than just focusing on the most important and most valuable.

So, we'll opt for impactful yet relatively concise over volume.

Here are a handful of the most impactful lessons I've learned in the last 40 years...

Simplify life as much as possible.

Simplification, first, means making a decisions between what you want long-term vs what you want right now (choose long term most often).

From that framework we can make correct choices that create compounding effects, like working out. We don't feel like doing it now, but after 30 years of consistent workouts, we'll be thankful we did.

You may say, but life has to be enjoyed in the moment, no? Of course! I still think this fits. In my 80's I don't want to regret not embarking on adventures when I was physically able, while balancing my desire to be able to take care of my family and my friends in the future.

Most of the choices we make are relatively simple. 

The more we can simplify the choices we have into good vs bad, the better we're able to make the correct choices, and a lifetime of correct choices is inevitably a life well-lived.

For those that aren't...

Work hard at acquiring knowledge, then decide quickly.

If you don't have an answer, find it, then act. Don't mull over difficult decisions - especially menu options, just choose, live with the choice, and learn from whatever positive or negative that comes.

"What should I do" shouldn't be a voice constantly replaying in our head. It shouldn't be words constantly spoken to others, either. Constantly asking for advice about every detail in our lives removes our role in making these decisions. Different perspectives can be great, but we often use these perspectives as a means to shift responsibility for any negative outcome.

If we can become great at making our own decisions and taking responsibility for them, we'll be better off.

For truly difficult and impactful decisions, too, all you can do is make the best choice, so gain all of the knowledge you can on the topic, and choose. 

Still, don't fall under the spell of purely acquiring knowledge without tinkering and acting. We learn a ton from non-catastrophic failure. These micro failures are great teachers. They should not be feared, but sought.

Everything compounds.

Poor decisions compound. Laziness, hard work, discipline, everything. It all snowballs. So, choose your snowball.

That is, be the man you want to be. It's not complicated. Holding yourself to a higher standard has wondrous impacts on your life.

Trust the compounding effect of daily good decisions. Have the courage to make these decisions daily, knowing that results from these decisions may take years to produce visible results.

It's timelines that impact our decisions. 'Bad decisions' may not have that big of a downside in the moment, but over time these compound producing a waste of a life - or at least a life that never comes close to the life that could have potentially been.

Have courage to do the right thing even though it may not matter that dramatically in the present.

Be careful with desires.

Our desires can get us in trouble. I'm not even talking about the bad ones, just desires in general. The desire to be successful, the desire to build your dream house, build your ideal body, all that stuff.

It brings us into the future. It makes us want what we don't have. It can even make us avoid doing the things that will get us the things we want. 

It's the wanting that's the problem.

It sounds crazy, but when we're always focused on what we don't have, we're often not in the moment doing the things that will improve our lives.

We stress. We fret. We worry. We procrastinate. 

As men, we're naturally ambitious to varying degrees. We don't have to try to be ambitious, we just have these innate desires to build, conquer, create, and most importantly, improve, which is great.

But, our society bombards us with images and lifestyles, things we think about and dream about, and man, it weighs on you.

Just focus on the now, on doing the work, on making the right decisions. Sure, have goals, tasks you want to complete by X date, that stuff's important. You're not 'wishing' to finish a task by a certain date, you're doing the task and completing it. You are wishing that this task will help you get x y z outcome. 

Have task-goals, not goals attached to what you think the task will get you.

I find this difficult, but it seems to be the best way to live.

Stress is fear.

Even understanding what things really are, helps. Stress is often worry, worry is fear, but what do we really have to fear?

Again, making clear decisions is paramount to living a good life. But we don't make good decisions in a fearful (stressed) frame of mind. We do too many things, or we do to few things, we become frantic, erratic, illogical.

Stress especially impacts men because we have so much on our shoulders.

I'm really trying to see this as only GOOD. It should be on our shoulders, not on our wives or kids or parents or friends or any other person. We want this because we can handle this.

But, 'bearing stress' isn't necessarily the answer, being free from it is. Amor Fati, loving fate, loving all that is because it is, and understanding that we're stressed because we're afraid something may happen, when in reality we can and will handle anything that can and will happen.

Being strong isn't just being able to withstand and opposing force, but understanding that the opposing force doesn't really exist, and moving through life thinking clearly rather than fearfully is how we can best live.

The Honor of My Life

Finally, my dad said this, as he has to do a bit more for my mom these days as she's in her 80's, namely in the kitchen which has never been his forte, It's the honor of my life.

I think that's the best marriage advice I could ever receive, even though he was talking to a buddy of mine. 

In relationships of every kind we delve weighing what we do vs what we get. In marriage, this is a horrendous way to view things. We're here to serve, to protect, to provide, and it's an honor to do so. Truly an honor. A gift. It gives the skills we've developed and are developing true meaning, outside of ourselves.

When we can become better not just for ourselves but for our family, this betterment has actual value. It becomes connected. And to enact that value in the service of others is truly something to hang your hat on, to be proud of at the end of the day, at the end of a life.

Question: what's the #1 lesson you've learned so far?