28 things I’ve learned

a birthday post

Hello! It’s my birthday, and I’m currently 11 hours into a 13 hour flight to Shanghai. I’ll be traveling for the rest of October, so you’ll get the travelogue version of Bookbear Express. Since I don’t know if I’ll ever spend another birthday 30,000 feet in the air, I thought I’d take this opportunity to write a Substack post about some things I’ve learned in my brief time on earth. This post will likely be unaccompanied by a photo because my wifi is not great.

1. When friends give you feedback, take it. “I wish you were a better listener,” “I wish you asked me more questions,” “I wish you’d kept that secret.” It’ll hurt your pride because you’re thin-skinned, but incorporating their advice will help you in the long run.

2. Be honest with people in your life when they ask you what you think, but don’t expect that they’ll actually take your advice. When they do, be grateful!

3. Some people you expect will change won’t change. Some people you don’t expect to change will change significantly. Give yourself the gift of letting people surprise you.

4. Some friendships that you hope will last forever won’t last forever. Let yourself be sad about that but keep the door open for the future. Life is very long.

5. Most people are way less intimidating than you think they are. If you open up, they’ll open up too. Sometimes when you’re just feeling shy you can come across as closed off or unfriendly. Try extending yourself and see what happens.

6. It’s okay to know you have to make a big change but not feel ready to act on it yet. One day you’ll be ready.

7. Just go to bed when you want to go to bed. Being well-rested gives you the energy and fortitude to tackle the rest of your life. Don’t begrudge yourself that.

8. If something bothers you, communicate it. Request the exact haircut you want. Ask the person loudly listening to music in the plane seat next to you to turn it down. Don’t sit there fuming when you could just open your mouth and fix it in five seconds.

9. Ask for things! You’re scared to ask for things because you’re shy and hate being turned down. The only thing that will help you with that is repetition. Rejection is not always about how you’re personally doing something terribly wrong. A lot of the time it’s just the wrong fit. Pay attention, aim for self-awareness, take it lightly, and try again. It’s much better to try 100 times and have it fail 98 and work twice than to never try at all.

10. Write online! You will meet some of the most precious people in your life that way. It’s worth the fear and discomfort a hundred times over.

11. Not everyone’s gonna understand you or what you’re trying to do. Not everyone is going to like you. That’s completely okay. Don’t let your desire to please stop you from taking up space and being yourself.

12. Love is not this huge complicated puzzle you have to solve. The situation itself can be extremely complicated, but love tends to be very simple. You don’t have to pretzel yourself constantly.

13. Keep going to yoga. It will teach you how to breathe and it will make you stronger. P.S. did you know you hold your breath without realizing it like… all the time? You gotta stop doing that.

14. Surround yourself with people who genuinely believe in you. That way, when you’re feeling doubt you can say to yourself, At least my five favorite people in the world believe in me. Nothing feels better than knowing that.

15. People will be way more understanding than you expect if you just communicate what you feel in a simple, honest, kind way. “It’s not what you say, it’s how,” is way more true than most people realize.

16. Never be mean to anybody. Every single moment that will ever haunt you is a time you were mean or careless.

17. You are really flawed and you will make lots of mistakes. Don’t wallow in self-pity, just try to be better. Everyone is flawed and thinking of yourself as especially bad is just self-indulgent.

18. If someone wants to date you and you don’t want to date them, just say “I’m sorry, I don’t think this is the right relationship for me.” If you want to date someone and they don’t want to date you, just say, “That’s okay.” It’s really hard, but it can be that simple.

19. You are much more capable than you give yourself credit for. Keep going, even when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

20. Try a lot of things and see what you actually like. Don’t be wedded to a fixed idea of who you are. At the same time, just say no to things you know you don’t enjoy.

21. You don’t have to be insecure about all the things our culture encourages you to be insecure about. Your appearance and your weight and status markers and getting older—you’re actually just going to get less neurotic over time, and it’s gonna feel really awesome. Sometimes it’s tempting to cling to certain forms of neuroticism because you’ve incorporated it into your identity. Let it go. You’ll be happier.

22. You are so wrong about psychedelics. Psychedelics are going to change every aspect of your life for the better.

23. You love to work hard. Sometimes that’s a useful quality, and sometimes it’s just a way to cope with your anxiety. You need to learn to pause and not try to fix everything all the time. Sometimes gritting your teeth and forcing yourself through it is the easy way out, and doing what you actually want to is the scary thing.

24. There are so many people in the world and so many of them are incredibly talented and beautiful and nice in ways that make you feel insecure about yourself. Try to draw confidence from who you are instead of worrying about what you aren’t. You are a subject, not an object.

25. Treat the people around you with care and attentiveness. There’s nothing more important than paying attention to the people you care about.

26. You are a deeply obsessive person and love hits you like a train. Sometimes this feels purely alienating, but the extent to which you let your passions consume you is your best quality.

27. By the way, it’s okay that you’re so hung up on the topic of love. It’s actually a great subject to be preoccupied with. It’s going to be the bedrock for your work and your life.

28. When you’re having conflict with someone you care about, try to be the bigger person. It feels way better to be understanding and forgiving than it does to hold a grudge. Sometimes other people need your help to show up as their best self.