Letters from a friend of a friend

26 Things I've Learned In 26 Years

Patrick Collier

1. The world is not ending

I have wasted too much of my own time worrying about things that are out of my control and quite frankly don't really matter that much. I have flunked tests, written crappy papers, missed deadlines, lost friends and a whole lot of other stuff that seemed really important at the time. The point is no matter what earth shattering thing happens, life still goes on and I am still pretty much happy. I figure the less you can stress out about it all the better your life will be.

2. Living somewhere is a totally different experience than visiting

The older I get and the more I move around and experience different places the more I learn that if you want a place to remain like the over romanticized image you have in your head don't live there. Tourists visit a place and pretty much only see the glossed over tourist image they want to see. They gorge themselves on overpriced food, visit the tourist traps, and leave paradise happy content that they just experienced utopia. When you live in a place you get a whole different image. You realize that people are people everywhere. They have the same problems, disappointments, hopes, and dreams that you do. When you live in a place you are exposed to it's problems and it's idiosyncrasies. I will not say which is better visiting or living but just because you had a perfect vacation somewhere does not mean it is a perfect place to live and just because you live someplace and hate it does not mean it's not a nice place to visit. 

3. People matter

This is just one of those truths people matter and the more time and attention you can give to the people in your life the better your life will be. I can honestly say I have never regretted stopping what I am doing, or putting off a project, in order to give my attention to someone who needed or wanted it. I have however greatly regretted not giving people my attention. For me nothing is more important than people, and even though I forget that sometimes that doesn't change the fact that it is true.

4. Remember to laugh

I think this is pretty self explanatory. Don't take yourself too seriously, honestly you aren't that important.

5. Thank people

Life is too short not to express gratitude to the people who help you out along the way. Thank people when you have the chance. The longer you wait the harder it is.

6. Be open

Certain cultures (American, Mormon... etc.) have a tendency to be a little closed off to other people who aren't a part of their cultures. I have learned the most in my life when I am willing to embrace people who are different from me and their cultures. Nothing makes me more upset than when I hear statements like this one "Why are we talking about Karl Marx? He is bad and communism is evil!" (real comment from a student in one of my college history classes). Ideas are neither bad nor good they are ideas and although you don't need to embrace everything you learn about it doesn't mean you shouldn't learn about it and look for the good in those ideas. How any Mormon who really understood Marx could call what he came up with evil is beyond me. He did the best with the light and truth he understood, just like The Buddha, Mohammed, and Martin Luther did the best with what they had. 

7. Make life an adventure

I love having adventures. The more you can plan or spontaneously have adventures in your life to break up the routine the better. Don't let yourself be complacent in your little routine. People locked in a routine are the ones who get old while they are young and on their deathbeds wonder what happened to all the time. I do not want to be that person.

8. Go for it

If you have a dream go for it. If you don't achieve it at least you tried and you won't have to regret that you never even attempted it. I would much rather have a failure to learn from than a missed opportunity for something great. Some of the most amazing experiences I have had in my life have come my way because I failed at something else. If you can dream it you can at least attempt it.

9. You aren't the smartest person out there

I know I am not the best at a lot of things. There are lots of people out there who know how to do a lot of things that I don't have a clue about. Knowing that allows me to be humble enough to surround myself with smart people who can help me with things that I don't understand or can't do myself. I will be the first to admit that math, science, and computers aren't my strong points but having friends who are good at those things has allowed me to collaborate with people who can help me when I have problems in those areas. We are stronger as a group than we are individually.

10. Build something

As a society we have lost a lot with all the outsourcing we do. Learn to make, build or do something with your hands. There is something about creating something physical. I don't care what it is, woodcarving, painting, rebuilding an old car, building a treefort for a kid, etc. Just do something with your hands. There is something about working with your hands to create something that is invaluable and helps you to appreciate all the crap you consume everyday a little more. It reminds you that somewhere at sometime it was, or used to be, made by a person working with their hands.

11. Slow down

Everyone misses so much in all of their rushing around. The world we are a part of is nothing less than amazing. If you stop for even a minute of your day and just ponder on what goes into making a tree and how gracefully it can sway in the breeze you will appreciate this world so much more. Put in more of a cliche, stop and smell the roses. There are things to appreciate all around us and we rarely take the time to actually do it.

12. Eating out is overrated

Everyone enjoys a good meal that they didn’t have to cook and it’s fun to go out sometimes but the best meals I have ever had are the ones I ate at my home or someone else’s. There is something about the time effort and love that goes into a home cooked meal that restaurants just can’t duplicate. There are very few moments eating out that are memorable to me but there are lots of eating in moments that are still very vivid memories.

13. Broken things can be fixed

We all get into to trap of thinking we are a lost cause sometimes. I have learned that is simply not true. All the things that are broken or dysfunctional about your life can be fixed eventually. Individually we are not lost causes and collectively as humankind we are not lost causes so don’t give into that line of thinking. Self pity doesn’t do anything for anyone.

14. Ignorance is not an excuse

Just because you don’t know something doesn’t give an excuse to be stupid. If you don’t know something learn it. Don’t be the guy who screws everything up for everyone else because “you didn’t know”. Ignorance has only one solution and that is dedicated learning. There are so many things for all of us to learn that there is never a reason you shouldn’t be learning something new.

15. Money and possessions don’t make you happy

It is nice to have a little change in the bank and a bunch of nice toys but money and toys don’t make you content (Charlie Sheen, need I say more?). Don’t make money and stuff the object of your life. I have found that there are thousands of other more meaningful and more rewarding things to focus your life and your attention on. 

16. Telling your story is important

Find a way to put down in some sort of lasting way the story of who you are and what you did with your life. As a historian I know just how crucial it is that we leave some sort of record behind for others. If you don’t write your story someone else just might do it for you, and you may not like the story they end up telling. Plus you never know 12,000+ people may just stumble upon a part of your story.

17. Be civil

Very rarely is yelling an effective form of communication. Most of the time people who are being yelled at shut off and then become defiant. Keeping a cool head does wonders for working through problems.

18. Don’t be a know it all

No one likes a person who always has to be right and will defend their point at all costs. Like yelling this makes people not want to listen to you and it is a good way to find yourself without any friends.

19. Say no to fry fest

If your buddies show up with a deep fryer and want to fry everything that you can possibly imagine, say no. When you wake up the next morning you will feel like a horse kicked you in the chest and you will regret ever letting the deep fryer through your front door.

20. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

I don’t care how you grew up or what you have been taught, recycling is important. We have been given an amazing gift to be able to call earth home. You don’t have to be a hard core environmentalist or a democrat to recycle and believe in reducing the amount of crap we bury in the ground each year. Economically, practically, and intellectually, reusing and recycling just makes sense. There are only so many raw materials we can use to make stuff when that runs out we are pretty much screwed. The more of it we reuse the better off we are. The more of it we bury the more we set ourselves up for failure later on. Don’t worry if you are a hard core republican, recycling is not considered selling out to the environmentalists, I promise.

21. Learn to like yourself

The one person you will spend more time with than anybody else is you. So you better learn to like the person you are. If you find that you don’t like yourself very much then become a person you do like. You have the power to be whatever type of person you want to be. 

22. Do things that scare you

It is a good practice to do things that scare you a little. I find that you grow a lot in those experiences where you are strapped and at the edge of what you think you can handle. When that adrenaline kicks in and your heart is pounding out of your chest you learn what you are really made of. A healthy dose of confronting your fears and working through them is good for the soul. It worked for Batman right?

23. Travel

It doesn’t matter how far you go just as long as you are going to places you have never been. I find visiting new places is one of the quickest and most rewarding ways to expand your world and add spice to your life. Every community is unique and has something interesting if you look hard enough. You will never know what you could be missing until you get out and explore. Anyone who believes the age of exploration is over is dead wrong. Everyone can be an explorer anytime they are somewhere they have never been. Oh and when you travel, get out of your car and don’t be afraid to talk to people.

24. Don’t be too cool for school

If there is one thing I have learned from working with kids at different camps it is this: being grown up is overrated. I love spending time with kids because it gives me an excuse to be silly and forget my grown up sensibilities. I wish more people would be just a bit more childish. By this I mean that I wish people would let their imaginations get carried away and that people wouldn’t take themselves so seriously all the time. Why can’t life still be the big game it was when we were kids. No one is holding a gun to our heads saying you can’t be a little more like you were when you were six years old.

25. Keep your promises

I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect at this. I have broken my share of promises. I have learned from those experiences that keeping the promises you make to people is important. That is part of how you build trust and without trust this world doesn’t run so smoothly. The more you can build a life of integrity the better off you are.

26. Don’t eat the yellow snow

Use your common sense. We all have momentary lapses in judgement but the more we can minimize this the better this world will be. Another one of my pet peeves is when people do things they now are not good ideas. Common sense it should be self explanatory.