48 Years, 25 More Lessons

I wrote 40 Years, 25 Lessons eight years ago.

It was shared and plagarized and translated, by strangers, into loads of languages. Ev Williams, one of the founders of Twitter, even wrote to me about it. Tomorrow is my 48th birthday. The original 25 lessons remain true as ever. And, as you may have guessed, over the last seven years and 364 days, I picked up a few more along the way. Here they are…48 years of life lessons.

1. Assholes are assholes and good people are good people; and only on the very rare occasion does one become the other.
2. Your heart is right 50 to 75 percent of the time. Your gut is right 100 percent of the time.
3. Everything you own should be something you either love dearly or use yearly.
4. Karma is a bitch when you are. No exceptions.
5. Everyone is in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime, and 95 percent of people fall into the first two categories.
6. You will not know true love on the outside, until you know true love on the inside.
7. You will never regret working less and traveling more. You will likely regret working more and traveling less.
8. If it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right.
9. The universe gives you three choices: a) Change course when it taps you on the shoulder to tell you to go the other way; b) Change course when it is tired of tapping you on the shoulder, grabs you by both shoulders and shakes you, to tell you to go the other way; c) Change course when it is tired of shaking you, pulls out the baseball bat and starts pummeling you, leaving you with no choice but to go the other way.
10. What you know will never be as important as who you know.
11. ‘Someday’ is today.
12. Vote. No exceptions. Ever.
13. When you say you, “don’t know what to do,” the vast majority of time you actually do know what to do – you just don’t like the answer.
14. Silence is violence, yet words can kill. Be vigilant in both regards.
15. Floss, wear sunscreen. No exceptions.
16. Neither luck nor money have much to do with your ability to travel.
17. One day will be the last day for you and everyone you love. That day has snuck up on a lot of people. Act accordingly.
18. When you don’t know what to say, you must say something. Even if it is, “I don’t know to say.”
19. Any email in your outbox that could alter the course of your life by arriving in someone else’s inbox needs to sit in ‘drafts’ for five days before hitting send. No exceptions.
20. You do not own belongings which you purchased with a credit card; they own you.
21. Create your life story the way they write movies. Decide how you would like it to end and then create every scene that would lead up to it.
22. Revere doctors who practice health. Run from doctors who practice medicine.
23. Every person has a story that would blow your f’n mind. No exceptions.
24. Momentum is a universal force you can control. Every day you choose whether it will pull you further backwards or push you farther forwards.
25. You can’t out crazy, crazy, but hopefully you can out run it.
26. There are three types of people: those there for the good times; those there for the bad times; and friends.
27. Easy decisions, hard life. Hard decisions, easy life.
28. Main Street rarely has the main attraction.
29. Being a shit, feels like shit.
30. A big indication of your happiness is the five people closest to you. Choose wisely. The biggest indication of your happiness is THE closest person to you. Choose extremely wisely.
31. Your friends have a better read on who you are dating than you do. Listen to their opinions as if your happiness depends on it. Because it does.
32. Get acupuncture. For any reason. For all reasons.
33. If you want to know someone, live with them. If you really want to know someone, travel with them.
34. Sometimes your only two choices are a) have the hard conversation and probably lose the friend, or b) not have the hard conversation and keep the friend. Have the hard conversation.
35. If you want to hear the truth, be willing to listen to it.
36. If you don’t want to argue in your marriage, don’t marry someone who likes to fight.
37. Kindness is free and it pays enormous dividends.
38. Money doesn’t buy happiness but neither does poverty.
39. It is not always easy, but it should always be worth it. 
40. She who settles for douchebaggery gets what she deserves.
41. The overwhelming majority of people in this world are good, but there are very few you want to spend a week in a tent with.
42. The first is the worst.
43. Everyone, at one point, will be annoying. Everyone, at one point, will be disappointing. Don’t forget this ‘everyone’…includes you.
44. People react to you, the way you react to you.
45. In order of least difficult to most difficult: loving someone, liking someone, enjoying someone.
46. What is very likely between you and the life you want is your ability to endure a few minutes to a few hours of excruciating discomfort.
47. Listen.
48. Always kiss him goodnight.
49. Getting older is a fucking privilege.
50. Just. Keep. Going.