Six Things The First Year of My 20’s Taught Me

We spend so much time trying to grow up as kids that we solemnly forget to embrace every moment we get to live through. As a child, (at least for myself) I spent so much time wishing I could grow up to create my own rules and schedule so that I didn’t have to abide by my parents rules anymore. 10 years later, here I am abiding by my non-existent rules and late night study grinds and early morning coffee kick-starters. The funny thing about being a kid is thinking that the routine your parents had was so strict such as eating dinner exactly at five, going to bed by no later then eight, and doing your homework every night. Now here I am, wishing I had a routine of being told to get ten hours of sleep over five, making sure you at least eat three meals a day in your busy schedule, and knowing that it’s okay if you don’t get all your homework done.

Driving along the back routes of lower-base line, I see the sunset over the escarpment every evening. Each time I pull over and watch the sunset disappear below the horizon, no matter how busy I am – something always draws me in. So, I made myself a promise and started to remind myself of some things that we tend to forget as we grow up. Although I’m only on the verge of turning 21, it is important to remind yourself to hit pause on your life and grasp all aspects it has to offer over isolating some.

1. Take care of yourself:

At some point or another we have all experienced the busyness that follows us in our lives. You have to work and go to school, find time to do homework, manage to make enough to pay bills, stay up late to get work done, skip out on meals to get your work done, over indulge in coffee over water, and the list goes on.

This year, I learned how important my own health was. After battling a sickness for two months, I realized that I allowed myself to become overwhelmed and overworked in ways I could have avoided if I had just taken those few extra seconds, minutes, hours or day to rest. The excuse of saying you don’t have time is wrong – you have time for everything you want to make time for. So make time to care for yourself, after-all you succeed better if you’re at your fullest potential (being sick takes away from that).

2. Keep in Touch:

There’s a statement when you graduate highschool that states, you were only friends with certain people back then because you saw them everyday at school. For whoever has graduated highscool – we can all relate to this. Of course, we have all had friends who have only been friends based on that statement above. Although, the fact that you don’t see someone everyday shouldn’t deter you from maintaining friendships.

In a digital savy era, we are consumed by our technology. We can snapchat someone instantaneously, whether it be you cooking a bomb-ass dinner, out at the bar taking tequila shots or at a sports game chirping the fans next to you. Whatever it may be, we have this capability of being able to reach our friends or strangers with a click of a button.

As busy as life gets, we seem to always be able to make a designated amount of time towards our devices. Ensure you keep in touch with your friends too. I have always grown up where I haven’t had to message my friends on a daily basis, where I’ve gone months without seeing them and then when I do, it is as if we just hung out yesterday. We all know those friendships are the best, they require minimal effort. Although, it is important to remember that a few small text messages or calls here and there can go a lot further in maintaining friendships then going without them. Make time for friends and family in your life because they will always be there, your job may not be – don’t lose focus of the balance.

3. It’s okay not to be okay all the time: 

Nobody ever told me that life was going to be full of roses. Life is rarely full of roses, what makes your life full of them is designating the right time and effort into the things that make them grow and sprout into the beautiful flowers they are.

I always remind myself that you are what you surround yourself with, so try and keep that in mind when you have a tough day. By all means, I believe we all need to have our own days to cry in bed, sit in the shower and contemplate life, and mourn and engulf ourselves in some of the sadness life provides us. But there is a major difference in experiencing the sadness and reflecting on it, in comparison to experiencing the sadness and allowing it to engulf you. Make sure you dedicate the appropriate time to feel the emotional rollercoasters life throws at you, but to learn from them rather then become them.

4. Be adaptable to change:

Change is sometimes (most of the time) the best blessing in disguise you can receive. Change is like a curve ball, it can go in any direction, hit you in any way it wants, but how you stand afterwards is what matters.

When I define change as the best blessing in disguise, in my experience some changes I have had to adapt to have truly fucking sucked. However, here I am in one piece, stronger then ever because of these life changing events (no matter how big or small they may have been). Don’t let fear hold you back from change, if you chose not to adapt to change when life provides you with it you are only closing yourself off of opportunities, growth, and improvement. At the time of change, it may be the thing you dread or hate the most but in the end every adaptation or choice in life is a reflection of how you want to handle it and how you want it to change you. So, my advice is to embrace all change, even if it may be the worst in that moment.  After-all, my motto is I would have rather taken the chance and experienced the failure or success, then to have not done it and always wondered what could or would have been different.

5. Take advice that people give you with a grain of salt:

Take it from me, I can be so stubborn in hearing someone’s advice (because whether you want to admit it or not – we all think we know more then someone).

It’s like when you give your friends advice on not going back to deal with that same guy or girl that fucked them over the last time, meanwhile they still go and do it anyways. But then, when they offer you the same advice you don’t listen either – so neither of you come out the winner.

It’s important to take yourself out of the equation. Everybody has something to offer you in life and that’s how you have to see advice. People are going to have different perspectives, opinions, and experiences. But the best part about advice is that someone is giving it to you because they have lived through that part of their life.

Now, I’m telling you to hear and truly listen to people’s advice in life, but I’m not telling you that you need to apply it. Not all advice is going to be correct, not all of us are going to have similar agreements, but taking everything with a grain of salt adds to your experience, wisdom and reflection if you ever chose to use that piece of advice. However, don’t be to stubborn for your own good to ignore the advice that people can provide.

6. Embrace every aspect of life:

We are all familiar with the statement of appreciating all the little things life has to offer. I live by this saying, however I also think it is overgeneralized in the aspect of blocking out that sometimes the little and big things in life go together in embracing everything. The statement focuses so narrowly on embracing the little things that you tend to forget to embrace the big things, which in turn add up to embracing every part of your life.

Embrace everything as if it were never going to happen again. That sunset that disappears behind the escarpment, I watch every evening no matter how cold or hot that day might be. Sure, I may see the same sunset every night, but I’m embracing it in every aspect, differently each day without knowing it. Everyday I watch that sunset, it allows me to relax and reflect on my day – reflecting on what I accomplished, what I have left to do, and what I have forgotten to do that day (the sentimental things).

Overall, some individuals are going to embrace certain aspects of life in more dosages then others and thats okay. However, I believe that by embracing as much as you can in life you are only filling your cup of water rather then retaining it to be half full.

A Bad Lemon:

We have all heard the saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” But what if those lemons are sour? or they aren’t the right yellow? or they give off an outrageous oder? What if they aren’t even lemons?

Thats the unfortunate thing about the comparison of lemons to life, life doesn’t always give you the perfect lemon to make your lemonade. Sometimes life gives you the ugliest, smelliest, softest discoloured lemon you could have asked for. But you know what you do? You still try to make that perfect lemonade despite the poor lemon life handed you. You find other ways to work around the lemon, utilizing it to the best of it’s abilities despite your mentally behind it being the shittiest lemon you’ve ever seen.

So where am I going with this lemon?

Similar to the lemon, life is going to hand you many things on many different platters. There are going to be days where you love those platters, like those platters, and all around hate those platters. But the difference with life and lemons is that you can’t throw away an opportunity, lesson, or experience away as easily as you can replace a rotten lemon.

Instead of throwing it away, you completely squeeze that lemon dry of anything and everything it has to offer to your lemonade. Because you will always get something out of nothing if you intend on never wasting the possibilities any lemon, platter, or situation life offers to you. And we all know that some lemonade is better then no lemonade.

 

Discovery

The trees whistle as the soft dusk air slides through them with a brush of a finger. The ocean retreats the beaches sand with each wave, tenderly taking pieces with it. The bird’s float below the tranquility of the sunrise, climbing with the sun as it begins to bloom. The archway leading towards the ocean captures the sun directly in the middle, as if it were the missing piece to an unsolved puzzle.

Travelling, the best teacher that life can offer you. I sat two stories high, breathing in the air the ocean wind kept pushing towards me and I had never felt so refreshed, so revitalized. There are no words that could ever describe what traveling does for you, whether it be a resort, backpacking, visiting family across the world – it plucks at a part within yourself you couldn’t reach otherwise.

Life throws some heavy obstacles at you, it tests your patience, how much physical and emotional pain you can endure, how lucky and happy you can feel but how quickly it can take it away – it tests it all. The best thing yet though, is that you are responsible for it – when we say “I’ve had a bad day,” we tend to reflect more towards the negatives within the day in comparison to the few positives you still encountered. We say, “I just have bad luck,” meanwhile you’re choosing to perceive what is occurring as bad luck when it could easily be turned around all based upon what you choose to recognize. We say were tired, or exhausted because we didn’t get the 8 hours of sleep we wanted that night – but you’re not appreciating the fact that you actually got to sleep that night. To sleep feeling safe, loved, fortunate.

So, you have a bad day – that doesn’t mean you have a bad life. So you got 5 hours of sleep, at least you slept safe and well fed. You say you have bad luck? Then start doing something to turn that luck around for you. Every time I travel, I recognize more and more how fortunate I am. I realize how petty it is to be bitter, upset, or emotional about something so insignificant in life – when there are real life problems much bigger then us all. You broke your cellphone, but you have a phone. Gas prices went up, yet you have a car to drive. You don’t have any money left in your bank account for coffee in the morning, yet you have the option to put your money into that.

For anyone who has travelled, you understand the empty feeling that engulfs you when you return home. No, I’m not talking about the annual “vacation depression,” I’m referring to the concept that you reformed while you went away. There is such an emptiness that lives inside it is impossible to pinpoint, almost near impossible to resolve without travelling again – in fact you can’t get rid of it until you venture out even further then your previous experience. The hunger that lives within fuels the craving for a constant taste in a different culture, people, country, and environment.

The question that has left me unable to answer is whether when you travel -are you leaving pieces of yourself behind or are you creating and discovering new pieces within yourself? This remains to be a discovery of its own. Some people will understand it, others will think you’re crazy, unrealistic, too much of a dreamer – but they’ll never understand it in the way you do. With each travel experience, you come closer and closer to finding the answer within that puzzle, but the best part is – only you can solve it.

Life Has Its Own Agenda:

Life never tells you when you’re going to face a good day or a bad day. Life never prepares you for the heartache or happiness it can bring into your life or take away so easily. One day you’re floating on cloud nine and the next you’re struggling to bring yourself to leave your bed and face the reality awaiting you outside.

Life is a battle between yourself and the challenges it jabs at every single emotion you could possibly feel. Life is dealing with your first heartbreak to discover you’ll face many more. Life is losing someone you love, but having to accept it was their time to go. Life is accepting that you made a mistake, but learning from it. Life is cruel but it is also what allows you to grow. Life is what makes us all feel alive.

In understanding life, you must come to understand that there is a reason and purpose behind everything that happens. You’ll never understand the reason behind it; we all just learn to come to terms with it. In each challenge you face, life is there to teach you a lesson you needed to learn – sooner rather than later. It is unavoidable, so instead of running away from the problem you face it head on.

One of the hardest lessons life has recently taught me is that not every one who stumbles into your life is there to stay. You have two different categories, the ones who come to learn and the ones who come to teach. There is always a reason behind life’s selections.

Life is like a season, it will provide you with four different seasons (people) and you won’t always enjoy all of them. You may like summer more than you like winter, but summer may be more concerned about there own needs than winters. When you figure out the why between the two then you find the solution to what you exactly need to do to revolutionize yourself as an individual – to figure out the benefit or the downfall of both those separate relationships in your life.

Life doesn’t hand you the people you want in life. Life gives you the people you need at that point in your life. Life will know who is going to hurt you, love you, leave you, help you, inspire you, strengthen and weaken you – without you knowing it yourself. And there is a particular reason behind it all – to create the person you are meant to be in your own lifetime.

Through each hardship and success you face you complete a chapter in your life. What I’ve learned recently, is that not everybody is on the same chapter. Life will hand you somebody who needs your help to complete certain chapters in their life, just as they will help you complete your own. But then you will reach a point where you will begin to reach chapters on your own, and you no longer complete chapters together – but separate.

You’ll realize that some people can no longer be in your life because they simply do not have the power to help you improve it anymore, in the way you need most. This can be difficult to accept, and so as emotional human beings we hold onto anything left of it – but you have to learn to let go. Life taught me that despite no longer helping each other does not mean we cannot help one another once again further down the road. Life taught me that sometimes it just means that you’re on chapter ten of your life, while they are only on chapter five.