Advice To 31-Year-Old Self

About 4 years ago, I wrote my advice to my 27 year old self.  The other day, I was reviewing it to see if there was anything I disagreed with my 27 year old self and concluded with “No.” For fun, and because I recently turned 31, I wrote a piece on to 31 Year Old Self.

1. Girl, get real.  You cannot drink as much as you did compared to your early 20s, nor can you stay up too late too many nights in a row. Enjoy the routine life, enjoy getting up early in the morning and going to sleep before midnight or even 11 p.m., or maybe even 10 p.m.
2. There are assholes in this world. You really don’t need to be kind to them. What you do is take a brick and throw it at them. Ok, fine, be kind to them. Ugh.
3. You cannot control everything so relax, enjoy every moment, especially the present.
4. Life is way, way, way too short. Do you know exactly when you are going to die? Do you know exactly when your closed ones are going to die? No. So do what you want to do, go with your gut, and believe in yourself.
5. This one took me a while to accept: the only person you can always depend on is yourself. Not your parents, not your wife or husband, not your friends. No human being will be with you forever, at every moment, at every obstacle of your life. They can help you but it is up to you to power through the barriers.
6. This one also took me a while to accept. I am also having trouble executing it because I don’t want to. You can’t change other people, you can only change yourself. But what if I don’t want to change! Can’t you all change?
7. If you aren’t doing so already, start eating healthy and start regularly exercising. You are what you eat.  Your health will catch up to you and you will not be happy.
8. When in doubt just keep your mouth shut. If you really feel the urge to say something that you think you shouldn’t be saying, ask yourself, “is it nice?” “is it true?” If not, don’t say it. Except when the person is an asshole.
9. Does everything really happen for a reason? Like everything? I don’t know man. The supermarket not having sugar-free yogurt is there really a reason behind that, tied to my life? Currently, this is a real problem for me.
10. Try not to end your day by comparing yourself to other people: to how much money they are making, what house they live in, how great their family background is, to whom they are married to, how great their kids are, what their job title is. You do that at the beginning of the day. If you keep comparing yourself to other people, you will never finish. Compare yourself to yesterday’s self, to this morning’s self or to the little sperm and egg that made you.