40 favorite life lessons on my 40th birthday
Turning 40 isn’t what it used to be, praise the Lord. I remember at my mom’s surprise 40th birthday party, there were speeches that included the phrase “Over the hill” and jokes about grey hair and canes. Can someone please just explain why this proverbial hill even has a downward slope? Why can’t we just keep going up?
Luckily our language has, for the most part, changed about turning 40, and elder Millenials like myself are clinging to our youth as long as possible. But we still expect so much from a milestone birthday, which of course is just another day to do dishes and walk our dogs. I will say I’ve felt a shift over the past year. I feel a bit wiser, a bit less rattled. I certainly know myself more. After years (9) of supporting my husband through medical school and residency, he has the capacity to contribute more time and energy toward parenting and household tasks, so that has certainly helped. But moving so much as an adult has been hard. Making new friends, pivoting careers multiple times, and feeling isolated during Covid was difficult. And I still struggle with expectations around success and “enoughness.” I’ve chosen to build my business on social media, which means a computer is comparing and ranking my work every day against other people’s. I’m trying to manage my feelings and expectations about this, but it’s hard. I’m also constantly seeking ways to understand myself more and the people around me. Here are 40 pieces of advice I’ve either come to know myself or picked up from people I admire along the way.
1) What we value may not be what other people value. Understanding what value or priority is guiding someone’s decision will help you develop more empathy towards their position.
2) For a guaranteed endorphin hit: when you have a compliment to share with someone, don’t keep it to yourself. Say it out loud or send a text or a note in the mail. Do it immediately so you don’t forget. A friend I lived with during a college internship always complimented people in public, and it was always authentic. I still remember their faces when she did it, and I try to remind myself to be more like Isa when I move through the world.
3) You are your biggest advocate: in a doctor’s office, in a meeting with your boss, in an argument with a friend. Don’t let someone else speak for you. Come to the table prepared to fight for yourself.
4) When you feel lost, go back to your beginning. Try to unknow your current self a bit. Who were you before the world told you who you are?
5) Listening is a skill that must be practiced. Try to really understand what someone is saying. Ask questions and then stay quiet so they can answer.
6) Processing my feelings through writing is one of the only ways I know how to make sense of life’s hardships. When I’m able to verbalize what my heart feels in word form, I feel like my story has a better chance of being understood by someone else. It’s healing.
7) When I don’t know what to say to someone “I’m so sorry” and “that sounds really hard” usually works.
8) Sure, low lighting is flattering during sex. But it’s also therapeutic because it intimately eases the body into and out of the day. Think of the sun rising and setting and replicate that inside your home with lamps, dimmers and candles. You’ll feel the difference.
9) My mind gets in my own way on a regular basis. The best cure I’ve found for overthinking is to get out of my mind and into my body with physical movement. I like quick workouts, but this year I’m manifesting a loud, booty bumping adult hip-hop class near me. If you are local and this exists, do tell.
10) You will learn most in the situations you did not choose.
11) Deep down inside, I almost always know the answer to a problem in my life, and so do you.
12) You’re never the only person experiencing a feeling in this world. Remind your ego of this. And if you can, find someone who can truly empathize in person. The support group I joined for women experiencing infertility helped save me, mentally and emotionally, for two solid years.
13) Curiosity is a superpower. It helps in interviews and in awkward new friend dates. Try to ask more questions than you answer. People generally love to talk about themselves.
14) Take pictures and videos for the purpose of remembering moments. Life is so fleeting and memory fades.
15) Don’t trust people (or marry them, if you’re me) who aren’t willing to dance when they hear a good song.
16) Intergenerational friends are the secret to living both younger and wiser. One of my closest friends in the last year is more than a decade younger than me and can identify things that are cringe or cheugy. And my older sisters and friends remind me it’s not too late and the road is longer (and generally less bumpy) ahead.
17) From a person who’s failed out loud a few times, I can tell you this: every sea ends in a shore.
18) It’s impossible to envision the full arc of a professional life. Follow your passions so the work comes naturally and it won’t feel like work. I’ve never chased money in my career, and I’ve never dreaded going to work. But with money, you have more freedom and time, so work extra jobs if you need to and spend what you have wisely.
19) A therapist friend who works with aging clients said the one thing most of them regret in life: not exercising creativity enough. Incorporate creativity in your daily life, even in the simplest ways, and your soul will thank you.
20) Most decisions are reversible. Weigh your options, listen to how your body feels, make the best decision possible, and then if you need to, figure out a way to reverse course. It might take time, but it’s likely possible.
21) Someone once told me: Parenting is a wagon wheel. If you don’t get it right the first time, don’t worry, the issue will come around again. I can’t describe the relief that gave me as a new parent constantly scrambling to get it right. Still am but with more acceptance of the scramble.
22) There’s a difference between nice and kind. Be both, but if you can only be one, be kind.
23) Poet Khalil Gibran’s poem “A Parenting Poem.”
24) Also, Julia Fehrenbacher’s “The Cure for It All.”
24) It’s probably not about you. Most people have their own issues to deal with to spend much time thinking about yours.
25) Vulnerability is the acceptance of imperfection.
26) I tend to live with an unguarded heart—easy to laugh, easy to cry, easy to apologize, easy to confront—which means I don’t harbor ill will towards anyone and I don’t let feelings of resentment to build over time. It’s a freeing feeling.
27) Zora Neale Hurston: “There are years that question, and there are years that answer.” I’m hoping this next year will be a bit more of an answer after several years of questions.
28) Your thoughts are not facts; you are not your body.
29) People will show you who they are. Let them.
30) Let other people help raise your children. Find or create a village of people you trust (family, chosen family, teachers, babysitters, etc) to teach and care for your kids. Your kids will benefit from other perspectives and you won’t be suffering as much trying to keep everything afloat. We were never meant to raise children alone.
31) When you say you’re going to do something—for yourself or more importantly for someone else—try really hard to do it. Being flaky won’t get you far.
32) Learn as much as you can about people different from you. The more you expand your understanding of other people’s life experiences, the more you will see yourself in them.
33) Communication is liberation. No one will ever be able to read your mind. And when you communicate, keep it simple and clear.
34) I’d rather be a late bloomer than an early one. Take your time to evolve and grow with patience and intention.
35) No one else has it figured out either.
36) I always know I’m not listening to myself when I start looking outside of myself for answers.
37) This Islamic quote: “My heart is at ease knowing that what was meant for me will never miss me, and that what misses me was never meant for me.”
38) Use up the special things. Drink the fancy wine, burn the beautiful candle, use the wedding china, let the kids live among breakables (unless they’re complete and total daredevils). You deserve to feel fancy even if no one is coming over.
39) Forgive yourself every day. Wake up and try again.
40) I love the analogy by poet Maggie Smith of our lives being like nesting dolls: we carry all of our earlier selves inside us as we grow. And even when we feel so full already, life is elastic and we keep expanding to the next version of ourselves. I can’t wait for my next layer.