I went through an incredible amount of change in 2023:
- I had a 5-year relationship turn sour, become exceptionally damaging, and finally end.
- At the same time, I was hiring my replacement at work and slowly stepping aside.
- I sold my home privately, including almost all of my remaining possessions within it.
- I moved away from my hometown and province for the first time ever, to a small mountain town, by myself.
- I left the agency I founded and ran for the last 15 years, with no current work plans.
- I met someone and started a new relationship.
And through all that change, I learned a lot. Some of the learnings are direct and personal; others have come to me from places like stoicism, and so forth. Regardless of how they came to be, here are 14 lessons I learned in 2023:
- “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. This line from Hamlet rings true when you really understand it. Within reason, the events that happen in your life are just that – happenings, neither objectively good or bad. How you think about each event determines how you feel about it.
- You can’t expect people to change. It is unfair to them, and doing so is a precursor to your own dissatisfaction.
- Meditation and mindfulness trains your mind. An untrained mind is a mind that you are not aware of or in control of. Sidebar: the Introductory Course from Waking Up was what finally turned the meditation lightbulb on for me, and actually made meditation stick. That link will give you 30 free days.
- You need to truly accept people for who they are. If you can’t, you must change the nature of your relationship with them.
- Someone doing something for themselves doesn’t mean they’re doing something to you. It might not feel good, but it might not be about you either. Don’t conflate the two.
- Your time with every person in your life is guaranteed to end. We don’t know when or how. Act appropriately.
- Sometimes it takes a healthy situation to realize how unhealthy other ones were. Comparison is only the thief of joy if you’re comparing outside of your own context and life; within that context, it’s a valuable tool.
- Beware of having your identity tied to your work. That will end, of your own accord or not. Besides, the people you want to be friends with don’t give a shit about your work stature anyways. Be more than your job.
- Your gut is a sixth sense. Don’t just listen to it – act.
- What kind of person do I want to be? Often, when you’re faced with a tough moment or scenario, asking yourself this question gives you the answer on how to act.
- Some things you control; some things you do not. It’s imperative, and deceptively difficult, to consistently recognize the difference between the two. Direct focus and effort to the important things you control, and accept those things you do not. Let the latter go.
- It is easy to lie to ourselves in order to avoid hard decisions. Sometimes, the hard thing is the right thing, and doing the right thing in those times are the instances where our character is forged.
- You cannot engineer challenging situations, stress, and pain out of your life. We will always face them. The best we can do is accept that, and continue to become more and more adaptable and resilient.
- The most important things in life are the quality and depth of the relationships you have. Foster the positive ones; they make the enjoyable moments better, and the hard moments more manageable.
You’ve probably already learned some of these points; others might seem obvious. What jumps out to me, the older I get, is that nothing is simple. Every single point above could be (and maybe should be) its own post, complex in its own right, so it’s worthwhile to think deeply for a moment about them. Better yet, revisit them from time to time.
Finally, grasping and applying any number of the learnings above in combination has exponential impact. Imagine the power that comes from understanding that a) your gut is a sixth sense, b) it’s easy to lie to yourself to avoid hard decisions, c) you can’t expect people to change, and d) asking yourself: What kind of person do I want to be?
2023, for me, was a rollercoaster. To bring it back to the first point: how I choose to think about it determines my perspective of it. And in the end, it was a year I’ll always remember as one of immense positive growth and determination. I’m thankful for that.