32 Life Lessons For Turning 32
Plenty of smile lines and sunscreen stuck to my lips for my 32nd trip around the sun.
Another birthday, another list of lessons learned. You can check out last year’s lessons here.
1. You get to decide how you want to show up
While we’re in control of very little in life, the one thing we do control is how we show up. After the election and some exceptionally rough days at work, I decided to try harder not to arrive already frustrated and combative. I keep a little note card on my desk that reminds me: I get to decide how I’m showing up. I can choose to be curious and neutral—or scared, mean, and defensive.
Before every meeting, I read that notecard, take a deep breath, and remind myself that I don’t save lives or anything. Desk jobs are inherently very silly things with very little meaning.
I’m annoyed to report that all of my meetings have gotten easier since choosing to show up with less attachment to the outcome—and I actually enjoy my job more.
Dammit.
2. Animals are a wonderful salve for the soul
I adopted two baby bunnies this year who’ve grown into exceptional goobers. They live in a three-story bunny condo in the living room, and I could watch their little lives unfold all day (we call this Bun TV).
They don’t know about tariffs and have never once had to operate Microsoft Outlook, and for those reasons, I love them. They do know dinner is around 7:30 p.m., and that if they slowly inch toward the bowl as that time approaches, their chances of scoring an early meal increase.
Watching a little life unfold—and seeing all the particularities of your pet’s personality emerge—is a magical experience. I feel the same way about my horse, Tex, and his donkey friend, Mango (though large animals carry a different, more intense vibe).
3. Live where you want to live
Sure, you could always find a cheaper house somewhere else, a job that pays more, or some other financial perk. But if you don’t love where you live, that knowing will gnaw at you until you’re raw. And there’s no amount of money or cheap mortgages that can ever heal that wound.
4. Don’t wait for retirement to start living
After working with hospice patients who were dying in their early 60s, it became clear to me that waiting to enjoy life until retirement was just as risky as not saving for retirement. You are just as worthy RIGHT NOW of living your life as you are at 65. All choices come with risk. Even saving money isn’t a safe bet.
5. The best part about being alive is how much we don’t know
We don’t know how consciousness works. We don’t know why quantum physics doesn’t jive with standard physics. We’re not sure what’s inside black holes. We’re not even sure what’s in our own oceans.
We are surrounded by mystery every second of every day—and so help me God, if some Chad tries to convince me of the importance of crypto when dark matter and dark energy exists (which make up 95% of the universe and are completely misunderstood) HE. CAN. GET. FUCKED.
6. Get a library card
It will help you realize how little we know and how cool that is (For FREE! With no Chads!).
7. Enjoy a “small” life
After witnessing D.C. coworkers absolutely melt at the smell of sagebrush in Nevada last week on a staff retreat (some of them experiencing it for the first time!) as well as the beauty of Red Rock Canyon, I was reminded to love my home even more, where sagebrush and canyons pour out of my backyard readily. Sipping my morning cup of tea under the nest of a hummingbird before heading out on a bike ride from my garage where I can see the prickly pear and yucca blooming is absolutely magical. No planes or days of travel needed.
8. Throw more parties
See this post.
9. Get more obsessed with death and less obsessed with “health hacks”
I hate to break it to you, but we’re all going to die. And thank God—because man, this whole living thing would be boring if it lasted forever.
I know Tech Bro MAHA Kyle has longevity MLM hacks you can buy for $999 to lengthen your DNA or whatever, so long as you slap on his copper peptide patches and attend enough bio-charging sessions. But maybe it’s totally okay to just have the incredibly human experience of getting sick and dying?
Just throwing it out there.
Instead of obsessing over squeezing a few extra years out of this life, maybe pour your energy into enjoying the years you do have.
10. Don’t get hung up on individual action when the problem is systemic
Fight the systems or leave the tiny, insignificant actions of the average individual alone. We don’t need any more shame in this culture. (Unless it’s shame for billionaires. Then shame all you want.)
11. Witness emotions, don’t “fix” them
Old thought pattern: I am anxious > What is making me anxious? > Feeling like I don’t have enough money > How can we fix this? > Get a bunch of side hustles for extra money and stop doing all the things I love because they cost money > I am more anxious > What is making me more anxious? > Feeling like I have no time because I’m working 17 jobs and not doing anything I actually love > How can we fix this? > Change my entire career somehow magically overnight so I just make more money to begin with by going down a research rabbit hole, mapping out my debts, recalculating my finances 1 bajillion times, and Googling how to sell my eggs > I am even more anxious…. > …. > ….. > ….
New thought pattern: I am anxious > Wow it is so uncomfortable to be anxious > Glad that passed > I am not anxious anymore
12. Read one collection of poetry for every self help book you consume
Which is better: Just be yourself!
OR
Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
I MEAN C’MON!
13. Remember, your job is a tool to live the life you want to live
See this resiliency post.
14. Humor is the best medicine
Yeah, the world is full of awful things. But it’s also full of laughter.
15. Return the grocery cart
I mean this literally and metaphorically.
Karens: Finish the task and return the fucking grocery cart—don’t offload your chore onto some poor kid making minimum wage.
Anjas: Don’t leave the last bit of a task undone because you burned out 75% of the way through.
16. Take a break from therapy
Healing is not your purpose.
17. Balance wet snacks and dry snacks
This is a fine art my friends and I have been refining over our last few years of adventuring. Most traditional adventure snacks are dry snacks: bars, chips, gummies, candy, trail mix, etc. However, thanks to emerging scientific technology, we can now take wet snacks into the backcountry: pickle bags, olive bags, tuna packets, walking tamales, fruit pouches, bean pouches, etc.
Wet snacks satisfy a very specific craving that can make or break a backcountry adventure. When your mouth is all dry and sticky from hours of hard riding through the desert and you finally stop for a snack, you know what will literally send you to an early grave? Putting a dry-ass granola bar on your crusty tongue. You know what will revive you from said grave? A mother fucking pickle.
18. Print your photos and put them in an album
And don’t just buy one of those pre-printed photo books because you will never look at it. Print the photos and then add them to an actual photo album by hand. Then leave that photo album out on your coffee table for friends to admire.
19. Listen to whole albums
Look, I love a curated playlist as much as the next basic bitch, but every once in a while, listen to a full album, start to finish.
20. Send snail mail
Sometimes when I don’t know what else to write to my friends I just send them snippets of poems I like on a postcard so they know I’m thinking about them
21. Be responsive, not reactive and learn how to repair after reactivity
Take a beat before sending the email. Don’t respond in an argument with the first thing that comes to mind. And when you do accidentally snap, make sure to offer some level of repair with an apology or a moment to come back together calmly.
22. Jump in the cold body of water
It’s not going to kill you and you’re going to wish you had. Also, you’ll look cool as fuck.
23. Get cookbooks from the library
Free recipes! Plus you get to look at all the inspiring food photos.
24. Believe in at least one woo-woo thing
Life is WAY too short to be the boring douche-canoe “I’m just being rational” guy at the party. Do no harm, don’t force your beliefs on anyone else, but have at least ONE semi-crazy belief. Astrology. Crystal healing. Alien abduction. SOMETHING. Even Jane mother-fucking Goodall hasn’t ruled out the existence of Bigfoot. Are you seriously saying you’re better than Jane Goodall?
25. Remember that not everything is “for” you
You know what definitely isn’t helping make the world a better place? Your critical Instagram comment. An angry review. Your petty gripes. Not everything is for you and not everything is about you. Not everything calls for armchair activism. Don’t like something you see out there in the world (especially the internet world)? Scroll on by and move on with your life.
26. Similarly, just don’t engage with cancel culture
Girl, that was so 2020. Canceling is also so punitive justice-y. We’re better than that.
27. Watch more movies
Or really salient TV shows. Or really funny standup specials. But we’re done with 30 second snippets of scrollable “content” consumed for mindless hours on a tiny screen.
28. Read less (no) news
I say this as a person whose job it is to get people to know about and therefore care about things happening in remote locations but…consuming traditional news media will not make the world a better place. Knowing about stuff doesn’t help anyone and it almost certainly burns out your little noggin.
29. Hard things require a recovery plan
I’m learning this to be true for weightlifting and endurance training but I think it’s true for more esoteric aspects of life too. Make sure you create a recovery program for difficult feats.
30. A horse needs a leader
I want to be everyone’s best friend, including my horse. When he learned (real fast, by the way) that I wanted to be his buddy and not his leader, he pushed me around and created a really dangerous situation for the both of us. Now I’m his leader and he can trust me to keep us safe which means we both have a more fun and relaxed time together.
Not everyone needs another pal. Some people need you to be the leader.
31. Drink electrolytes
You don’t need water. You need salt.
