A Few Life Lessons
I’ve recently started jotting down ‘life lessons’ – important lessons that I’ve learned in my life so far. While many of these lessons were learned the hard way (doing the opposite for too long!), I’m grateful for all that God has taught me. Here are a few lessons from my much longer personal list:
Start right where you are. Don’t wait for something to change in the future, before you start living in the present. The future is not promised. You only have today and eternity. So live today like it’s worth living, not as a throw-away day just waiting for a future day. Put your roots down where you are, develop friendship and true community. Work hard, learn something useful, invest in others. Treat the present like it matters.
Discipline is a muscle. It can be exercised and increased, but it is also inherently limited. Learn to exercise and grow your discipline, but remember to treat it as a limited resource. You can’t be disciplined all the time. So, know yourself and use your discipline wisely. If you are drawing on it continually, it will fail you. Alternate between discipline-intensive tasks and tasks that allow you relax and refresh.
Slow down. The only appropriate times for you to be in a rush are when life or limb are on the line. If you are always in a rush, you are going to miss the most important parts of life. Do the hard work of reorienting your life to a baseline of calm. As Dallas Willard so aptly said, “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” I find that living an unrushed life pays rich dividends: less mental noise, less need to check my phone, more time and focus for others.
Take time for people. Stephen Covey (of Seven Habits fame) wisely noted that we can schedule projects, but people defy our calendars. Our goal with people cannot be to give them a set amount of time and then move on. Truly effective relationships happen as we take significant time for people and genuinely invest in them. Find ways to intentionally invest in people – such as planning an entire evening each week for a leisurely meal with a friend.
Balance solitude and society. It’s been said that ‘solitude is the school of genius,’ but it also makes you awkward and eccentric. Society, on the other hand, creates well-adjusted morons. Find the appropriate balance between the two.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” (Maya Angelou) Improvement is always a work in progress. If you are trying to improve, then the day will come when you will look back at this time and realize how dumb you were. That’s okay. It’s a sign of progress. Don’t be discouraged by this. Just do the best you can, and always look for ways to improve.
If it’s worth choosing, it’s worth doing well. For the most part, you are responsible for what your day contains. If you are doing it, then at some level, you chose to include it in your day. And if it was worth choosing, then it is certainly worth doing well. If you don’t see the value of doing it with quality, find a way to stop doing it.
Read way more than everyone else. Books are food for your mind, and a constant diet of high-quality content will grow a great mind. The thoughts that books provide are building material for your own thoughts. Life is complicated, and much of it exists in the subtle nuances. Read enough that you are aware of those nuances. Read about everything that you are interested in, and then expand your interests beyond those limits. Just make sure to choose high-quality books, and don’t let reading become an excuse to avoid action.
Automate decisions. Have an order and plan, a rhythm and flow to life, so that you don’t have to decide everything. Decision-making, like discipline, is a muscle. This means that you should practice it, but overuse will lead to failure. Aim to automate the little decisions of life – develop an ‘autopilot’ mode for what you eat, what you wear, how you start and end your day, etc. Make less decisions, so that you can focus on making the right choice in bigger decisions.
Gentleness is underrated. The harder, more severe, and more difficult the world is, the more we need gentleness. Even our firmness should be gentle. “Those who are hardest to love, need it the most” (Socrates). There is never a time when gentleness is inappropriate, even in the face of serious sin. “The power of gentleness is irresistible” (Henry Martyn).
Simplicity is the ultimate art. Every aspect of your life is a canvas, from the thoughts you think to the work you do to the friends you keep. Simplicity is the ultimate art form, ideal for this canvas. Do less, but do those things better. Have less, but focus on having better quality. Plan less, but focus on planning better.
Learn how to learn. By unlocking this single skill, you unlock the option for every other skill. Yes, it’s a skill that can be taught. Its components include reading, researching, practicing, applying, and critical thinking. Ability to Learn + Strong Work Ethic = Immense Opportunity.
Communication is a learned skill. I didn’t always know this, but everyone has a ‘communication toolbox’ filled with tools. Your effectiveness in life is directly related to the quantity and quality of those tools. The good news is that by study and practice, it’s possible for anyone to add tools to the toolbox. This should be a continual area of study for everyone.
Focus on the process rather than the goal. Truly effective people aren’t focused on reaching specific milestones, but on becoming a certain type of person. The milestones are just the result of being who they are. As the chess Grandmaster Alexander Shabalov pointed out, “In order to become a Grandmaster, you must already be one.” In other words, it is something you are before it is something you do. Rather than putting all your effort into reaching SMART goals and all that stuff, put yourself on the path of becoming a type of person.
Failures are only temporary setbacks. When you focus on the process rather than the goal, failures are only temporary setbacks rather than stunning defeats. I used to beat myself up when I ‘failed’ at anything. Now I try to take ‘failure’ in stride, carefully considering how I can avoid a failure, and viewing it as a learning opportunity. Rather than wasting mental energy on disappointment and frustration, I channel that energy into renewed effort to improve.
Get really good at something. Whatever your chosen profession is, become the best you can. “Be so good that they can’t ignore you” (Richa Chadha). Eventually, the opportunities will get better and better until you will have your pick of the best ones. If you can get really good at multiple things, the intersection of those things could make you the best in the world. And the best in the world can choose whatever they want to do.
