Before you ask, no this won’t be a reveal of my ancestry or journey of self-discovery based on my spit.
This is actually an informal welcome to my website and celebration of my twenty-third year of life! Everyone uses that blink-182 lyric “nobody likes you when you’re 23,” but since I believe that speaking things into existence is real, I went against that and chose to go with something less cliche.
Since I spend a lot of my free time (that time between getting into bed and actually falling asleep) on Buzzfeed, I was tempted to do a list of “22 things I’ve learned by 22” or “23 things I hope to do this year.” Something along those lines...but 20+ items just seems like a long list and I feel like it would lose substance after the 10th item. And since I’m all about quality over quantity, I’m sticking with my short list.
Living 22 years of life sounds so long until I look at my mom who has lived through 63 years, which included fleeing Viet Nam in ‘75, learning English, becoming an anesthesiologist, all while maintaining & dare I say increasing her zest for life -- but more on that later. After fulfilling 22 years of life, these are just a few things I’ve learned or come to realize:
Relationships take a lot of work, patience, and love. Whether it’s family or friends, romantic or even the relationship you have with yourself, if you really want it to work and thrive, you need to put in the effort. I’ll admit I’ve gone through rough patches with my close friends and even had some fall outs. It’s hard to stay in touch after graduating and entering the workforce. I need to make a conscious effort to reach out, keep in touch, and maintain the relationships I deem important. Nowadays social media makes it seem like everyone’s always ~connected~ but that’s not real... Now for the relationship with myself - the most important relationship. To me, I have to learn to love myself first before I can honestly love anyone else and create an honest relationship. Working on my relationship with myself encompasses the physical aspects of eating right and exercising as well as the psychological aspects that are harder to uncover, the mind. It’s an ongoing journey, which brings me to my next point.
Books are important. Okay, I know we’re in the digital age so by “books” I don’t necessarily mean the physical book, but I’m talking about knowledge and information. This includes podcasts, audiobooks, TEDtalks, and anything and everything that keeps your mind working and continues to inspire you to do better and be better. The content you consume is so important because that’s basically all anyone does -- we all consume content. But choosing the type of content to consume... THAT’S the challenge.
The traditional educational curriculum should educate us about personal finance. Personal finance. Everyone has to deal with it whether they like it or not - from the wealthy to the less wealthy - so why don’t they teach you the basics in school? I’ve been fortunate enough to find an organization that teaches about financial literacy and I’m so thankful because it’s such basic ideas that everyone should know. From how to save money, how to protect yourself (and your money), and even how to make your money work for you - I mean everyone wants that.
Think about the future NOW & stop procrastinating. There are 24 hours in a day and everyone experiences it, but how is it that some people accomplish the sun and the moon and others barely check off once task in a day? It’s all about prioritization and perspective. A lot of people, including myself, may get sucked into just looking at the short-term -- like where I get to go this weekend or what I need to get done when I get home tonight -- because it’s easy and not as scary as thinking “where do I want to be in 5 years.” But looking at the long-term is important! Because what you do now, in the short-term, will lead you to that 5-year future goal!! It’s crazy how simple that sounds but it’s also scary. It feels like a lot of pressure to think and prepare that far in advance, but that’s just the way the world works. I don’t want to ignore that future thought and come to realize 5 years later that I wish I would have done something, or I wish I was somewhere else with my life. So, I’m going to take it in bite-sized portions, not crumb-bites like just 1 week in advance, but I’m making the time to really plan out my future so that my future self would be proud of what I accomplished in the present. (and wow look at that segue into my last point)
Be present. If nothing on this list gets accomplished but this one, then that’s enough for me. Being present is more than just “living in the moment” or “living in the now.” I mean, it’s more than just those thoughts or superficial motivations (not that those aren’t good). But there’s so much more depth to being present. I’ll dive into it more in future posts, but for now I’ll leave this book recommendation because it encompasses all the depth and explanation of how to truly be in the now: “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle.
Now remember, this is my short list. And I’m not saying I’ve perfected any of this, but I’m working on it. And I’ll continue to work on it this year, and all the following years... Let me know what you’ve learned in your years of life! Stay tuned for the formal “about me” post, coming soon!
Cheers,
EmTruong
Kommentare