Twenty-three was not the year I expected.
I expected something cinematic — clarity arriving like a sunrise, ambitions locking into place, the feeling of knowing exactly who I was and where I was going. Instead I got something quieter, stranger, and more useful: a year of small lessons that didn’t announce themselves as lessons until much later.
Here are the ones worth keeping.
1. Most urgency is manufactured.
Almost nothing is as urgent as it feels. I spent so much energy responding to things that could have waited a day, a week, forever. The things that were actually urgent were almost never the things that felt urgent in the moment.
2. People who listen more than they talk are not being mysterious. They’re just paying attention.
I want to be that kind of person. I’m working on it.
3. The quality of your mornings determines the quality of your years.
Not the productivity-hack version of this. Just: mornings when you wake up without dread feel different from mornings when you don’t. Build more of the first kind.
4. Money is not the goal. It’s a tool. The goal is time you control.
This took embarrassingly long to understand.
5. You become the people you spend the most time with. Choose carefully.
Not because people are bad, but because we’re all porous. We absorb each other’s habits, worries, ambitions. This is not a reason to be cold — it’s a reason to be intentional.
6. Boredom is a symptom, not a problem.
When I’m bored, I’m usually avoiding something. Figuring out what I’m avoiding is more useful than finding something to fill the boredom with.
7. Reading slowly is not the same as reading less.
Better to read one book carefully than five books in a fog.
8. Your intuition is smarter than you give it credit for.
Not always. But more often than I used to believe.
9. Saying “I don’t know” is a complete sentence.
You don’t need to follow it with a theory or a guess or an apology. “I don’t know” is honest and it leaves room for the truth to arrive.
10. Nobody is thinking about you as much as you think they are.
This is both humbling and incredibly freeing.
11. A strong opinion that you’re willing to change is more valuable than a strong opinion that you’re not.
12. Your parents were young once and they were probably confused.
I mean this with love. It makes them easier to talk to.
13. Sleep is the most underrated performance enhancer in existence.
14. The things you’re most afraid to say out loud are usually the things most worth saying.
15. Comparison is only useful if you’re comparing yourself to who you were last year.
16. Learning to cook one thing really well is worth more than knowing how to cook twenty things adequately.
Also true for skills in general.
17. Discomfort and danger are not the same thing.
I spent a long time avoiding discomfort because I confused it with danger. Growth usually requires discomfort. Danger is different. Learn to tell them apart.
18. Most advice is autobiographical.
People give you the advice that would have helped them. Sometimes it applies. Often it doesn’t. Filter accordingly.
19. A walk is better than a scroll.
Every single time.
20. The friends who show up when things are bad are the ones that matter.
You find out who they are eventually. Be one of those people for someone else.
21. You don’t need permission to start.
Whatever it is. Blog, project, conversation, change. You’re waiting for something that isn’t coming.
22. Gratitude is not a feeling. It’s a practice.
The feeling follows the practice, not the other way around.
23. Twenty-three is not that late. Neither is whatever age you are now.
We are collectively terrible at this — the feeling that we’ve missed the window, that everyone else has figured it out, that we’re already behind. I’m working on not believing this. It helps to remember that most of the people who seem to have it figured out are doing the same thing.
Here’s to twenty-four. I’ll report back.