TEN THINGS I HAVE LEARNED IN LIFE UNTIL NOW.

So I have been thinking a lot about what I will do with myself after graduation recently. And when thinking about where to go next I have learnt it is always important to look back and see what I have come to understand in order to make better decisions from now.

While doing this I composed a list of the 10 realisations I had. Some may seem pretty obvious, but that does depend on the individual. However even if something is obvious or has been said time and time over it doesn’t matter jack all if you don’t work it out yourself.

Words like these are just a map. You can use them to guide you, you can keep the general way in the back of your mind or you can just ignore them completely because we all know how reliable GPS are sometimes, taking us up alleyways when we could have just went straight.

So these are my learnings. I'm writing them here so I don't forget them either.

1. Don’t try to plan your whole life before you know yourself.

Why? I dropped out of high school because I thought I wanted to be a graphic designer. I left school at 16 and went to a technical college to study design where once completed I planned to join a design studio which would also allow me to be a photographer.

It sounds like an excellent plan right?

The only problem was I didn’t enjoy graphic design. Actually I believe it was more I did not like my school.

Yet it was here I realised I didn’t want a profession where I spent so much time in a office designing logos or making layouts for companies I may not of particularly cared for.

So I was lost. What did I want to do? So I tried going to university in Australia, where I still didn’t know what to study and quit after a couple of months.

Then I tried technical college again. This time for retail tourism. Because I had always wanted to travel so I thought it was a great job.

I hated that too. I realised I didn’t want to sit behind a desk selling package deals to Disney Land in America. I was the one who wanted to go abroad. Yet at that time I was just afraid to do so I think.

I felt frustrated and lost for over two years because I ruined all my own plans by deciding my newly picked career wasn’t for me.

However I could have saved myself a lot of tears if at the time I had just acknowledged these perceived failures as experience that let me understand myself better.

To this day I would not take back that dark period because without trying I could never have understood what doesn’t work. It also gave me a wake up call that I was forgetting my dreams while trying to follow a conventional career path.

2) Take time to reflect on your original motivations and make sure your actions are still align with them.

I never thought I would become a university student. I honestly believed I was too dumb. Yet somehow, without the intention to ever study in a higher educational institute I became a university student. In Japan of all places.

And it was not easy. People around me seemed to understand things so quickly while I felt like I was constantly falling in quicksand. Struggling only made me more tired and I still seemed to go nowhere.

It was only recently that I looked back on why I ended up in university, and remembered that I wasn’t here to get perfect A's. I was simply in university so I could experience living in Japan again and learn outside the classroom as much as inside it.

I am never going to be book smart. Once I realised that and stopped struggling and started focusing on what I was actually good at, school life got a little easier.

It’s easy to get lost in details sometimes and forget the bigger picture - the original motivations.

3) If friends don’t make time for you, don’t make time for them.

You’ve probably heard it before, but sometimes people come into your life for a reason. They sometimes leave too.

There is nothing wrong with that but. People change and what they need changes too. Sometimes friendships just grow distant because you can’t give each other what you need any more.

When you realise this, perhaps you want to fight to keep a certain someone in your life by organising to meet up or talk on the phone etc. Yet if that other someone doesn’t try to do the same for you, or if plans are constantly being broken, perhaps it is time to move on.

New friendships can help you grow, so never be afraid of letting old ones go if they have stagnated.

4) Don’t try to make yourself a perfect all rounded human. Focus on your strong points and develop them.

Why? You will be happier believing it’s okay to suck at things.

It was actually a 60+ year old Japanese man who spoke, Korean, French, English, and some German who taught me this. He told me how he went to university but got terrible grades because he spent all his time studying French and English and ended up dropping out so he could go climb mountains around the world because he really liked mountains (I don’t think he ever actually ended up graduating either).

He ended up living outside of Japan for more than half of his life, doing translating work in Africa for large organisations where he claimed he got amazing $$. He also lived in France for quite some time, buying a home to share with his French wife and kids.

Currently he is still climbing mountains while supporting his life with freelance translation jobs and mountain guide positions.

This old man is a perfect example of how you can make a life doing the things you love.

In the end, rather than spreading your time across many areas and developing competencies, it is better to be highly competitive in a certain skill that you love.

Because you can then monetize on that, and make it your living.

So if you suck at maths, like me for example. It doesn’t matter. There is no point crying you are bad, because let’s be honest we cannot be good at everything.

Spend your time worrying about what you’re good at. Because when you do things you are good at and care about it feels a lot better.

5) If you’re lonely, find some friends first.

Why? Because I have seen too many people around me find themselves in unhealthy relationships because they said they were lonely and needed someone.

I think friends are sometimes underestimated on their capacity to cure loneliness, or perhaps this is more a personal matter and it is just me that can be satisfied with my close friends in life.

But if you feel alone, rather than going to a bar to try pick up, why not call a friend? You’d be surprised at how much better you will feel by just spending time with someone already close to you.

We are all lonely sometimes. So be there for your friends and let them be there for you.

6) Don’t stress about money, it has a way of finding its way back

(but obviously be smart with what you have and keep having an income source).

My first two years of university I was constantly worried about money, worried about spending too much and not having enough money for travelling in the summer or for when I graduated so I could go travelling and see my friends who are spread around the world.

I was so strict with myself and made myself feel so guilty for buying even the smallest of things for myself.

I got so much savings from those first two years. But it came to a point when I realised worrying so much made me unhappy, and I realized what was the point of saving so hard so I could just be happy when I was able to go travelling. Eating out with friends brings as much joy as going to a new country.

It helps now that I have a stable income to rely on. Also odd jobs seem to pop up from time to time to add to my pocket money. There are always ways to make spare cash if needed if you just look.

I still don’t spend a lot of money (unless travelling or buying camera gear) but that is because I know what things I prioritize in my life and I save up so I can have them. Saving for something always helps you not waste money on things that aren’t as important or you can live without.

7) Morning exercise is the best way to start the morning.

I have been exercising almost every morning for about 3 years now. I have reached about 3 months now without having a single morning off.

But since making morning exercise a habit as soon as I roll out of bed I have noticed I have so much more energy for that day. After exercise you also actually feel awake so there is no walking around like a zombie until the morning coffee kicks in. Also since you already woke up early enough to study before class, you might as well start on that assignment right?

Making morning exercise a habit makes it more difficult to make excuses compared to exercising in the evening when you are probably just dead after a long day.

Making this one simple good habit helps you then add another good habit to your routine.

8) If you don’t want to do school work, work on a craft or learn something you want to learn first and then do what you have to. (Action always generates motivation. Doing something is better than not doing anything at all and just procrastinating).

So these thoughts are actually based on a quote I once came across probably almost 8 years ago now.

“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”

- Frank Tibolt

I found these words incredibly true for creative works, yet for academic assignments especially those I had no interest in completing at all I found that it wasn’t until I actually started them that I found the motivation to finish them.

Yet starting is so damn hard. So to get the bandwagon rolling I would start by doing something I actually wanted to do for a set time and then swap over to the school work while telling myself I couldn’t do the fun stuff I actually wanted to learn until I finished.

Threatening yourself usually works quite well I found.

9) Seek experiences. Not things.

Don’t fall into capitalistic traps of buying things you ‘think’ you need. This relates to point 1 and 6 also (Don’t try to plan your whole life before you know yourself and, Don’t stress about money, it has a way of finding its way back).

Before buying something, really think about the value its existence will bring to your life.

I for one will spend quite a bit of money on camera gear, but the pleasure and creative outlet I receive in return make it valuable to me.

Trying new things is particularly important when you are younger and trying to figure out what you actually want. There is no way to know you dislike many things until you first try them.

For example, me and broccoli. We had a bad childhood relationship once. There was no way I was eating ‘tiny trees.’ Yet after living in Tokyo at one point as a poor working holiday maker and surviving off food that shouldn’t be survived off I hesitantly tried a friend’s fried broccoli.

I eat broccoli almost daily now. I love it that much. Compensating perhaps?

But when you start putting experiences as a priority in your life, not only will you be improving yourself by learning more about yourself, you’ll also learn a lot about the people around you that you share those experiences with.

You will also not want to waste as much money when you’re perhaps saving for that next backpacking trip, or realise the money that you spent buying that new flat screen could have gave you a month (or more) living expenses in Thailand.

10) Happiness comes from improving.

You will never be perfect. You should never be completely satisfied with something you have created. But that does not mean you should not be proud.

Aim for the best that current you can do, not worrying about those around you.

It doesn’t help you at all comparing yourself to others. So just work hard and look back on your past work and go,

“well, damn.” I’m sure we can all do that.

Seeing your own improvement in any area gives you confidence. And when you’re confident that you may not be the best but you don’t suck as much as you used to, you try harder to get better because you know you can.

We all like something tangible to believe in. We can have faith, yet proof of possibility just gives us that much more of a push.

So don’t let the fear of sucking stop you from trying something. Because when we suck we have all more confidence to gain when we preserve to get better.

But improving doesn’t have to be restricted to yourself alone. Helping someone else, seeing them improve also brings the same feeling that improving ourselves brings.

Being a positive influence to those around you, aiming to bring out the best in them gives you meaning for why you try to be better.

It’s for them. Why would we care if no one mattered?

Support them and they will support you.

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So that was a very long post. Some of these things I wish I learnt far earlier but I am glad I at least managed to figure them out now.

Friends come into our lives and sometimes they leave. But they never leave you the same.

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