Twenty-Eight Lessons for Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight Lessons for Twenty-Eight
My friend and editor recently compared life to a train traveling through an underground tunnel. I’m twenty-eight this week, and that analogy has never felt more apt. Years are passing by on the express track as I busy myself with life-building, looking up to note the station only when the doors rattle open every twenty-five blocks or so.
This is a dreadful thought. I don’t want life to happen while I’m looking down. I want to be the butterfly that gets off at 59th to buy a hat at Bloomingdales.
I post twenty eight lessons from this year as reminders to myself. As a stamp in this picture passport. As a moment to stop the train and surface. As notes from above ground. I hope they are edifying to you in some way.
If you have been blessed with good parents, spend copious amounts of time with them. Ask them all the questions you can think of.
Magic happens when you ask people to coffee.
Embrace femininity unapologetically. It is a privilege and a superpower. Be a girl’s girl. Wear a bow in your hair. (But never ballet flats because they’re terrible.)
Almost all important truths can be learned by reading Charlie Brown.
Servanthood and martyrdom look and feel decidedly different. One is from an overflowing cup. The other is from the dregs. Knowing the difference will save you time and resentment.
Don’t mumble.
The friend who tolerates less than your best does not care about your formation. Real friends are not “nice.” But they are so kind.
If you’re feeling self-conscious in conversation, you’re thinking too much of yourself. Observe the person in front of you. What are they telling you with their words, hands, eyes?
Waiting (however painful) is an active pursuit, an invitation to grow. Wait like a watchman for the morning.
Choose discomfort from time to time.
Originality is impossible. If it is your end goal, it will choke your art.
Much of what happens to you is not your fault, but the way you carry what happens to you is your responsibility.
On that note, spiritual warfare and consequences of your actions are not the same thing.
Debt of any kind robs you of peace.
A cliche for a reason: if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong damn room. Don’t waste your time in there. It will cause spiritual, emotional and intellectual atrophy.
Dating in your late 20’s is weird and hard. People are broken. Learn kintsugi.
Love the Tanakh as deeply as the New Testament. Understanding the immensity and omnipotence of God makes His grace all the more humbling.
The more you host people in your home, the easier it gets. It helps the nerves to cook as little as possible at these gatherings. Order out. No one cares.
Be like Nora Ephron: put things simply, in no uncertain terms: “I feel bad about my neck.” “I’m old.” “I’m putting up more twinkle lights.” “No, I do not want another bottle of Pellegrino.” And at the end of her life — “Here’s what I won’t miss.” “Here’s what I will.”
The Eldridge Library pilgrim’s memorial (Chatham, MA): “He who has no feelings of veneration for his predecessors should expect none from those who follow him.”
Rick Rubin: In the creative process, the audience should come last.
David Brooks: “In any group of people, there are diminishers and illuminators.” Be an illuminator - ask questions of others. Help bring out their most curious, honest, and best selves.
The late, great Charlie Munger: “Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.”
C.S. Lewis: “Have fun, even if it’s not the same kind of fun everyone else is having.”
Hillary Mantel: “The question is not who influences you, but which people give you courage.”
Elisabeth Elliot: God waits to bless your action. The virtue you’ve been praying for is waiting for you. But you have to go out and get it.
Jordan Peterson: “If you say the truth and nothing else, you will have an immense adventure as a consequence. You won’t know what’s going to happen to you, and you have to let go of clinging to the outcome. You have to let go. But the truth will reveal the world as it’s intended to be revealed, and the consequence for you is that you will have the adventure of your life.”
Makoto Fujimura: Buy the flowers. They feed the soul.