Today I am sharing 20 lessons from age 20, though I feel I must admit that some of these lessons were a long time coming.
20 Lessons from Age 20:
You do not have to fully endorse someone’s actions or beliefs to agree with them on something.
Give credit where credit is due, good ideas can come from bad people just as bad ideas can come from good people. Separate the idea from the person and make your decision there.
Speaking up can be hard.
Sitting in an office trying to figure out where to start and being paralyzed by fear isn’t fun by any stretch of the imagination. But speaking up helps more people in the long run, and sometimes you have to be that first voice to make the change.
If chronic illness has prepared me for anything in life, up to this point, it definitely prepared me for a global pandemic.
Staying safe at home did not (and does not) phase me at all. In fact, in the beginning, it was actually quite exciting. I was home, my entire family was home, and I had the energy to do things! I also was able to get the help I needed for the things I couldn’t do by myself (aka moving my furniture in my bedroom).
This was a magical time for me, that spending summers inside hiding from the heat and all school breaks trying to recover from overworking myself to the point of exhaustion definitely prepared me for. In all of those instances, I felt awful the majority of the time. What little energy I had went towards my doctor’s appointments and trying to just take care of myself and my dog. Being home right after a break that was just like that, once I recovered from moving home, it was so nice to do what I wanted and to catch up on everything I’d dreamt of doing when a time like that came around.
I still don’t understand how people run out of things to do or get bored. Maybe its the enneagram type 3 in me, but the concept of having the time (and energy) to dedicate to whatever my heart desires and not having outside obligations for weeks on end is thrilling. It is still thrilling, and I’ve already done it. Pandemic? Not, I repeat, not thrilling. But time to do all of the things I dreamt of doing while I’ve been housebound in the past is just too good.
The bottom line? That year I spent at home being non-functional in high school really prepared me for this!
A lot of people fundamentally do not understand economics.
They just… don’t. It makes me kind of sad, as someone who really values education and access to education, and studies economics. However, this lesson and the response people had around the way the economy changed and legislation that was created in the spring taught me a lot about what people do know, what they believe, and how to talk to people about economics.
People who don’t get excited about numbers and beautiful graphs may get upset if you exhibit excitement surrounding numbers that represent scary things.
When I look at data, I can separate the data itself from what it represents, and simply admire a nice data set or a good curve. Turns out, I have this in common with a childhood friend, whose family also found it a bit distressing when she was complimenting a curve and data sets that were not sharing happy news.
There is nothing childish about having (and liking) a colorful bedroom.
You should surround yourself with what makes you happy, and blank white walls do not make me happy! Blue makes me happy. Color makes me happy. Pictures and art and letters from friends make me happy. And there’s nothing wrong with that!
Life is my mood board.
I didn’t understand mood boards for the longest time. Why? Because my bedroom was my mood board! My bulletin boards were my mood boards, the colors and pens I used were my mood board. The set up of my desk was my mood board. The clothes I wore and purses I used were my mood board. Why relegate all of these things to one small space when you can surround yourself with it? I’ll never know.
Just do it.
Seriously. I have struggled with self-sabotage for years, a prime example would be how I had over 250 drafted blog posts at the start of stay-at-home orders this year and hadn’t posted in months. This was something I was aware
With the decision at the start of my time at home to stop self-sabotaging, one big help was the decision to just start doing things and not thinking about it too much. Or at least, not thinking about it as much as I did before. As a person with a lot of ideas, I don’t do everything, but just doing it and believing that done and enough is better than perfect has been a great lesson and a huge game-changer for me, both personally and professionally. Letting myself just do things and get them done has brought so many more opportunities my way, I am glad I made the change.
A podcast I listened to over the summer said “A draft never changed anybody’s life” and this only confirmed this for me.
Use what you have.
I had a big mindset shift this year. Stop saving things for “someday” or some unknown special occasion. Make today a special occasion.
I watched a video where a woman was talking about how she had saved these nice things for a special occasion and by the time the occasion came around, the things were no longer good. She had spent years moving things between apartments, had spent lots of money on them or received them as generous gifts, and never got to enjoy them because she was saving them.
As a result, I started to wear more clothes in my closet instead of thinking they should be for nicer occasions. I went through all of the sample or smaller cosmetic and skincare products I own and decided that they were either going to be used up, given to a family member, or tossed out. Honestly, I’m not a big shopper – at all. But I do save things. I hope that this era is coming to an end for me.
P.S. Using the things I’ve had sitting around collecting dust has also been a huge help in decluttering my space!
Sunk costs are irrelevant to decision making.
Ohhhhh this was a big one for me. Total game changer. It brought me so much clarity this summer and helped with everything from deciding to stay home (prior to my university announcing it would be fully virtual) to cleaning out my childhood bedroom as I built it into the most functional workplace possible.
This year, I learned that there is a big difference between knowing and understanding the sunk costs fallacy and applying that knowledge to my own life. It has been so freeing! Like receiving permission to change direction and not feel bad when something doesn’t work out. Who has time to dwell on sunk costs? Not me!
Compartmentalizing can mean you don’t remember how bad things truly were.
A lot can change in a year, and thanks to Snapchat memories I was reminded just how miserable work made me last fall. I adapted with some pretty good coping mechanisms but wow, while I knew things were bad I simply wouldn’t let myself realize how bad they got. Knowing where I am now and seeing where I was a year ago in this season shows me just how much better things can get in a year.
Sometimes it’s the ones you thought were down and out who show up when you need them.
This year brought along some disappoints when it came to friendships, but also some pleasant surprises that I am so grateful for. I may not have a lot of friends locally, that’s true. However, I cannot deny that I have phenomenal friends. And there’s something really fun about knowing you have friends all over!
Pay attention to who keeps showing up.
I reached a point this summer where I realized I was so busy trying to reach out to people who weren’t responding to my texts and hadn’t returned a call for a few months, I wasn’t noticing the people who were doing the same for me. I mean, how silly is that?! With this realization came a shift in focus that was needed.
It’s okay to have an idea and not do something about it.
Hi, my name is Peyton and I have tons of ideas. Research ideas. Business ideas. Crafting ideas. Blog post ideas. Collaboration ideas. So many ideas.
I love my ideas. Some are great, some are less than great, some are ludicrous (but those are always fun to come up with). It’s okay if those ideas just remain ideas.
Going to sleep early is the best.
10:00 pm is now considered really late, 9:00 pm is when I want to be in bed, 8:00 pm is an acceptable bedtime. Honestly, 8:00 pm is what I strive for. I feel so much better in general going to bed early and I really like it. Why stay up late when you can get up early? Going to sleep early (and not having to stay up for rounds or living in first-year housing) is the best.
Getting outside in the morning helps me to start things off on the right foot.
Once I established my morning routine, I felt like a new woman. I love getting to see the sky as it wakes up and to enjoy that quiet before the world is awake. I always knew I liked this time, I just didn’t know how to be a part of it consistently, until now. Shout out to the early and consistent bed times for making that happen.
Gardening is awesome.
I would go so far as to say I spent most of my energy over the summer blogging or gardening, and I regret none of it. Watching the garden grow was awesome. I recently realized that I was really the one tending to it, while my dad did the setup and break down and my mom helped with the planting, I did the maintenance and harvesting and all that jazz. I’m really freaking proud of my little garden full of vegetables and marigolds!
And yes, we’ve grown gardens before! But this one was mine. Well, mostly mine. I’m already excited for next year’s garden!
It’s okay if you don’t come up with 20 lessons for the sake of it.
So the 18th lesson is going to be that it’s okay not to hit 20. I spent a month after my birthday trying to come up with three more lessons to hit 20 and I just couldn’t think of anything. Now that we’re in November, I know I’ve put this off for long enough, so I’m publishing it now. I hope you’re okay with that. If not, that’s fine. Hopefully, you’ll stick around for another 11 months to see what lessons came about in the year I was 21.
20 was an interesting year. Time to see what 21 has in store!
