30 Life Lessons From 30 Years

30 Life Lessons From 30 Years
by Joshua Millburn
Turning 30
Last month I turned 30. And during the journey to 30, I learned so much. Below are 30
of the most important life lessons from those 30 years.
30 Lessons I’ve Learned In 30 Years
1. We must love. You know the saying, “tis better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all,” right? I know, such statements sound so banal and vapid on the
surface that we often dismiss them with a wave of the hand. But it’s the cold truth, a
truth so profound that perhaps we can only discuss it with little clichéd statements. But
we must love, even if it breaks our hearts. Because unless we love, our lives will flash by.
2. Love isn’t enough. Although we must love, love is not enough to survive. We must
take action to show others that we care, to show them that we love them.
3. Happiness is not for sale in any store. We can’t buy happiness. Hell, it sounds
cliché to even say that, and yet we search the aisles and shelves and pages on eBay in
search of something more, something to fill the void. But we can’t fill the void with stuff.
It doesn’t work that way, no matter how hard we try or how much stuff we buy, because
that stuff won’t make us happy. At best it will pacify us momentarily. At worst it will
ruin our lives, leaving us empty and depressed and even more alone, alone among a sea
of material items—sometimes a crowded room can feel the most alone. The truth is that
we are all going to die, and heaping our tombs with treasure will not save us from this
fate.
4. Success is perspectival. I used to think I was successful because I had a six-figure
job that my friends and family could be proud of. I thought the house with too many
bedrooms would make me look even more successful, and so would the luxury car and
the tailored suits and the nice watch and the big screen TV and all of the trappings of the
material world. But I got all of that and I sure as hell didn’t feel successful. Instead, I felt
depressed. So what did I do? I bought more stuff. And when that didn’t work I figured
out that I had to do something else with my life, that I had to stop living a lie and start
living my dreams.
5. You must make change a must. I knew that I wanted to change my life for the
longest time. I knew I was unhappy, unsatisfied, and unfulfilled. I knew I didn’t have
freedom. Not real freedom. The problem was that I knew these things intellectually but
not emotionally. I didn’t have the feeling in my gut that things must change. I knew
they should change, but the change wasn’t a must for me, and thus it didn’t happen. But
once you understand these things on an emotional level you are able to turn
your shoulds into musts. I believe that that is the pivotal point, that is when you get
leverage, that is when you are compelled to take action. Thus, a decision is not a real
decision until it is a must for you, until you feel it on your nerve-endings, until you are
compelled to take action. Once your shoulds have turned into musts, then you
have made a real decision.
6. Growth & contribution is the meaning of life. Giving is living, I’ve said that
before. I believe the best way to live a meaningful life is simple: continuously grow as an
individual and contribute to other people in a meaningful way. Growth
and contribution. That’s all. That’s the meaning of my life.
7. Health is more important than most of us treat it. Without health, nothing
else matters. It took me over a year and a half to lose 70 pounds—70 pounds of
disgusting fat—but that was seven years ago and I’ve kept the weight off. I’m not turning
back. I’m 30 years old now, but I’m in the best shape of my life, by far. And it’s only
going to get better from here.
8. Sentimental items are not as important as we think. My mother died in
2009. It was an incredibly difficult time in my life, but it also helped me realize a lot
about the unnecessary meaning we give to stuff. I realized that I could hold on to her
memories without her stuff, that I don’t need Mom’s stuff to remind me of her. There
are traces of her everywhere: In the way I act, in the way I treat others, even in my smile.
She’s still there, and she was never part of her stuff.
9. Your job is not your mission. At least it wasn’t for me, though I thought it was for
the longest time, I gave it so much meaning and worked so much that the rest of my life
suffered. Then I discovered it wasn’t my mission. So I made a drastic change in my life.
10. Finding your passion is important. My passion is writing. Maybe you already
know what your passion is, maybe you don’t have a clue. Do yourself a favor and figure it
out, it will change everything for you.
11. Relationships matter. Not every relationship matters all that much, but there are
a few that really, really matter. There are a few relationships we should focus on (for
most of us there are a handful of relationships that truly matter, probably no more than
twenty total relationships). I’ve found that minimalism has helped me focus on these
relationships and establish deeper connections with people.
12. You don’t need everyone to like you. We all want to be loved, it’s
a mammalian instinct, but you can’t value every relationship the same, and thus you
can’t expect everyone to love you the same. Life doesn’t work that way. Julien Smith
articulates this sentiment very well in his essay The Complete Guide to Not Giving a
Fuck: “When people don’t like you, nothing actually happens. The world does not end.
You don’t feel them breathing down your neck. In fact, the more you ignore them and
just go about your business, the better off you are.”
13. Status is a misnomer. Similar to “success,” our culture seems to place a lot
of emphasis on material wealth as a sign of true wealth, and yet I know too many people
of “status,” too many “rich” people—hell, I’ve been to some of their dinner parties—who
are miserable, who are not wealthy at all. They are only ostensibly “rich,” but they are
bankrupt inside, emotionally drained and broke almost everywhere except in their
wallets. But perhaps Chuck Palahniuk said it best: “You’re not your job. You’re not how
much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents
of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis.”
14. Jealousy and envy are wasted emotions. This one might be easier for me than
it is for you. I’ve never been the jealous type. In fact, it has hurt some relationships for
me in the past, because I didn’t articulate this fact—that I’m not the jealous type—to the
other person. It’s strange but some people expect us to be jealous to show that we care.
Instead, I choose to show that I care about someone by showing that I trust them and
telling them that I trust them. Just be up front with people, tell them you don’t get
jealous because you love them and you trust them. It makes everything easier.
15. Everybody worships something. My favorite fiction writer, David Foster
Wallace, said it best: “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such
thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The
only choice we get is what to worship.” Many of us choose to worship our stuff. That’s
what led me to minimalism.
16. I am not the center of the universe. It’s incredibly difficult to think about the
world from a perspective other than our own. We are always worried about what’s going
on in our lives. What does my schedule look like today? What if I lose my job during the
next round of layoffs? Why can’t I stop smoking? Why am I overweight? Why am I not
happy with my life? Suffice it to say that we are acutely aware of everything connected to
our own lives. But I am not the center of it all. It’s important to be cognizant of this.
17. Awareness is the most precious kind of freedom. This is yet another reason
why minimalism is so appealing to so many people. It removes many of the obstructions
and allows us to focus on what’s important. Minimalism is a tool to rid ourselves of
superfluous excess in favor of a meaningful life, it is a tool to take a seemingly intricate
and convoluted world, cluttered with its endless embellishments, and make it simpler,
easier, realer. It is unimaginably hard to remain conscious and attentive and aware. It is
difficult not to fall back into a trance-like state, surrounded by the trappings and
obstructions of the tiring world around us. But it is important to do so, for this is real
freedom.
18. Be On The Mountain. This is the term I use for “living in the moment.”
19. We are often scared for no reason. Just ask yourself, “What am I afraid of?”
We are usually scared of things that don’t have a real impact on our lives (or that we
can’t control, so we’re worrying for no reason).
20. It’s OK to change; change is growth. We all want a different outcome, and yet
most of us don’t want any change in our lives. Change equals uncertainty, and
uncertainty equals discomfort, and discomfort isn’t much fun. But when we learn to
enjoy the process of change—when we choose to look at the uncertain as variety instead
of uncertainty—then we get to reap all of the rewards of change. And that’s how we grow
as people.
22. The past does not equal the future. My words are my words and I can’t take
them back. You can’t change the past, so it’s important to focus on the present. If the
past equaled the future, then your windshield would be of no use to you; you would
simply drive your car with your eyes glued to the rearview mirror. But driving this way—
only looking behind you—is a surefire way to crash.
23. Pain can be useful; but suffering—there is absolutely nothing useful
about suffering. Pain lets us know that something is wrong. It is an indicator that we
need to change what we’re doing. But suffering is a choice—one that we all choose from
time to time—and we can choose to stop suffering, to learn a lesson from the pain and
move on with our lives.
24. Doubt kills. The person who stops you from doing everything you want to do, who
stops you from being completely free, who stops you from being healthy or happy or
passionate or living a meaningful life is you. We can doubt ourselves to death.
25. It’s OK to wait. Blogger Leo Babauta always reminds his readers to slow down,
that we don’t need to hurry. Sometimes it’s OK to wait a little longer for something. Why
rush if you don’t have to? Why not enjoy the journey? Example: These days, when I’m
walking the streets of Dayton or Portland or Oakland or wherever, I don’t rush across
the crosswalk when I see the flashing red hand warning me that I need to hurry up and
cross the damn street! Instead, I wait. I let red hand turn solid, warning me to halt! and
I let the traffic light change color from green to yellow and then red, and I wait. I look
around, I breathe, I think, and I wait. It’s OK to wait.
26. Honesty is profoundly important. Honesty, at the most simple level, is telling
the truth, not lying. It’s incredibly important to be honest, and it’s hurtful when you’re
not, but…
27. Openness is just as important as honesty. Openness is more complicated than
honesty. Openness involves being honest, while painting an accurate picture, shooting
straight, not misleading other people, and being real. Openness is far more subjective,
and you have to be honest with yourself before you can be open with others. This doesn’t
mean that you must put your entire life on display. Some things are private, and that’s
OK too.
28. Adding value to other people is the only way to get their buy-in. We
recently wrote an essay about adding value to other people. It’s something I’ve lived by
for a long time. When I managed a large team of people I constantly asked them
questions like, “how did you add value this week?” I also asked that same question of
myself, and I would share with my team how I added value that week. That’s how I got
their buy-in.
29. Hype is cancerous. While eating lunch with Leo Babauta in San Francisco he said
something that stuck with me: “I’m allergic to hype.” That sentence touched my nerveendings
and resonated in a special way. So often we fall for the hype (e.g., “Buy More,
Save More” and “Three-Day Sale!”), and we are suckered into rash buying decisions
because of scarcity and a false sense of urgency. But we can train ourselves to not only
resist such hype, but to have a vitriolic reaction to the hype, to elicit a response so offputting
that we avoid anything that’s hyped. This goes back to being aware, which is, as I
mentioned above, the most precious kind of freedom.
30. I’m still trying to figure it all out. I don’t intend to promulgate my views and
opinions as some sort of life maxims or absolute lessons by which you should live your
life. What works for me might not work for you (hell, sometimes it doesn’t even work for
me). Hopefully some of it does work for you though.