26 Things I’ve Learned in 26 Years
Today, June 30th 2024, I turn 26 years old. It's been 26 years since my parents brought me into the world. So firstly, thank you, mum and dad! And to my brother for putting up with me for that long too haha
I am incredibly grateful for all that I’ve been able to experience so far and feel that the best is still to come. I appreciate all the amazing people I’ve been lucky to connect and share space with including my best friends and new friends I’ve made since moving to Tokyo. Friends from overseas. My peers and colleagues. Mentors. My partner (thank you for inspiring me every day).
As a little milestone, I wanted to share a list of 26 things I’ve learned in 26 years.
Life
It’s the line between chaos and order (yin and yang) where there is a sense of purpose and alignment. Sometimes I have to go off balance to find my balance. Fear holds me back in my comfort zone but sometimes I need that fear to steady me so that once I’m ready I can open myself up to more challenges.
The importance of breathwork. I’m learning and re-learning to build resilience and gain clarity of thought by regulating my nervous system through meditation and breathwork (trying to make this a daily habit!)
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
— Often attributed to Steven Covey or Viktor E. Frankl
Nature is the greatest teacher and contains many of life’s lessons. For example, attempting surfing has been a natural lesson in fear and resilience for me; the small waves break down on you one after the other and it’s scary, but if you stay there you will be repeatedly washed down. If you practice enough to gain confidence and move further into the deep, the waves are bigger but there’s also more calmness in between. This ebb and flow is like exposure therapy to life.
Maintain humility. Recognise if I have privilege, and let that give me perspective.
Like the wabi-sabi worldview, beauty exists in imperfection and transience. If ‘perfection’ doesn’t exist, then why strive for it? I’d rather be my imperfect self and strive for improvement.
Things that seem opposite can be true at the same time. The world is made up of many conflicts, paradoxes, and dualities. Approach the world from a place of curiosity rather than trying to make sense of it all (even though we'll still try to understand).
I believe that we are all connected and that spirit (or whatever you might want to call it) exists in all of us.
Myself
8. Understanding and embracing myself is an ongoing development. I am innately a people pleaser, afraid to let people down, and afraid of mistakes. But making mistakes is also a prerequisite for learning (we can’t give machines and AI the luxury of making millions of mistakes/ iterations and not allow humans, who biologically have to start from 0 to not make mistakes!) I have been working on this by allowing myself to make mistakes with less pressure on the outcome. For example, I’ll try something new with a friend or through volunteering rather than in a work setting. I try to approach everything as an experiment, even though I’ll still be afraid. The mental model 'String of Pearls' by Phil Stutz helps me visualize this. Every action leads to the next but every single one will have a small turd on it. Instead of dwelling on that imperfection, all you can do is move on to the next thing.
9. I overthink and am risk averse, but the risk of not taking any risks can be greater than the risk itself (if you see where I’m going with this). So I find that it’s important for me to spend time with people who are risk takers and movers, who help pull me out of my comfort zone a little bit.
10. Drop the ego. My introspective tendencies make me focus on improving myself but I can also simply be there for others without questioning myself in the process.
Learning
11. Books need to be read. There’s so much wisdom in books. Laws of the universe, mental models, and advice from others can help guide us. Always keep learning. If I’m “too busy” to learn, then I probably need to make some adjustments to how I’m using my time.
12. Financial health is important. Even though it would be nice if money were simply a nice-to-have, it’s also necessary in many cases. Money represents value - and since value comes in many forms - it can help fuel what you do, whatever that might be.
13. There are many ways “to be” in the world. I believe how you live is more important than what you do in life.
14. Life can feel and get more complicated. A lot of it has to do with simplifying life. I try to hold on to stuff (physical and sometimes emotional), including things that might weigh me down. Keep simplifying. It’ll lighten the load.
“The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life because everything is pulling you to be more and more complex.” — Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia
15. Your mind, body, and spirit and your greatest assets. When everything feels too complicated, bring it back to this.
16. Strive to be value-oriented instead of goal-oriented. There are enough times when I’ve felt like I’m not “going anywhere” or I’ve back-tracked my goals or changed them altogether. What are my goals again? What should I prioritize? At the end of the day, if I’ve lived according to my values, then however far my achievements may seem, I can be content with myself. (My therapist helped me with this!)
Work
17. I have to take responsibility for my actions. I’m the CEO and creative director of my life. When things do get complicated, I have a habit of procrastinating or downplaying my ambitions. I’m learning that taking responsibility doesn’t have to be doing everything at once. It can be focusing on building habits and systems that allow me to take responsibility better and build on that momentum. Those habits could be project and task management, time management, life skills etc. It’s a work in progress!
18. The people I’ve met who are most alive in their work are those who design their work lives around their core values e.g. freedom, duty, care, adventure/ play, etc. There’s no one-size-fits-all.
19. Work can feel consuming at times but if I find synergies with other things in my life, work doesn’t just feel like “work”. I’m learning to better incorporate playfulness too. It’s also okay to change my work environment if things aren’t working out.
20. Keep communicating. Even though it’s difficult, I know that I can have an impact by sharing my opinions and communicating properly with my team and with clients.
Relationships and Community
21. Love can be blissful but it can also cause my emotions to fluctuate. It’s okay to place boundaries so that I can be my best self in a relationship.
22. As psychotherapist Esther Perel says, “The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives”. From friendships, intimate relationships, and relationships at work and in the community, I want to be present in my relationships with others. It’s okay not to open up my circle so widely if I don’t have the capacity.
23. Never lose touch with my emotions - they are what make me most human. Yesterday while I was on a SUP tour along the river in Yokohama (for work), a little boy next to his preschool teachers screamed “Ganbatte!” (You can do it!) to me and it made me laugh and almost cry at the same time (it made me think of the purity of children and how all children deserve to be naive and protected).
24. Fill up your cup so that you can be there for others. This balance is tricky!
25. Respect those who have paved the path before me. Mentors might be some of the most important people to impact my life. If I can’t repay them now, I’ll repay them by making the sorts of changes that I can then pass on to others in the future.
26. Acts of kindness and reciprocity go a long way. I’m so lucky to have kind people in my life, and I want to work on spreading more kindness and joy too.
I’m ready to embrace this next chapter of my life with more resilience, creativity, and consistency than before, even though I’ll still be afraid to make mistakes and be my imperfect self.
Sending my love to you all.
これからもよろしくお願いします。
Emma
