I'm at whole foods eating half a plum the math just isn't adding up
Some more things my 16 year old self needs to hear
I recently turned 23, and this is the first age I literally did not ever picture myself being. At 14 I could see myself at 18 just entering college. At 18 I pictured myself at 21 getting lit. At 19 I pictured myself at 22 graduating college. But literally nothing in my life went according to that plan — at 17 I wasn’t even planning on going to college, at 19 I dropped out, at 21 I was super sober, and at 22 I’d worked in tech for 3 years.
Anyway, sometimes when people age, they think they know more now that they’re older. I have realized, as I’ve aged, that I know nothing at all. I had myself and the world figured out at 16 and it’s been downhill ever since.
So instead of the usual “23 things I’ve learned at 23”, here’s some things I’ve been thinking about recently that my past self would likely be better off knowing.
Literally no one knows what’s best for you
You think you know what’s best for you. You’re pretty sure mom and dad don’t but you still wish they did. You hope that your brother and cousin know what’s best for you, but the truth is it’s impossible to know because there’s no objective criteria to measure against.
This is terrifying and freeing. Terrifying because no decision you ever make is going to be correct in an objective sense. Freeing because no matter what decision you make, you can’t be wrong! People are going to get really upset with you for not listening to them, and you should probably listen to them more, because more input data is never a bad thing. But lots of times there’s going to be no decision that makes everyone happy, so you’ll have to learn to live with that. Democratic discussions, autocratic decisions.
In the end, you’re the one who has to live your life, and has to make most of your decisions. The more decisions you make, the better you get at making them, and it’s much easier to live with a decision you make than one that’s made for you.
Do what’s obvious
You’re going to spend years thinking there’s some silver bullet, some secrets in the universe you can unlock just by thinking hard enough, or searching for it by talking to the right people and just asking the right questions. There’s not.
The most obvious approach is usually correct. If you want to be better at something, work hard on it. If you want to figure out what you’re meant to do, try a bunch of things and do what you like. If you want to be happy, notice when you’re happy and do the things that got you there.
What makes this hard is that obvious doesn’t always mean easy. You’re going to have some really hard conversations along the way, and hurt some people you never meant to hurt. You’re going to feel stuck, lost, and alone. That’s inevitable, and it will suck so much. But the pain of inaction hurts more than the pain on action. The few regrets you have will be related to things you didn’t do, not what you do do. When in doubt, ask her out.
Damn dude give yourself some grace
You’re going to push yourself a lot, then try to relax, then get angry at yourself for not pushing yourself enough. You’re going to try lots of new things and get mad that you’re not as naturally talented at them as everyone else who’s spent 10 years practicing. You’re going to think you’re lazy. A lot, you’re going to think that a lot actually. It’s pretty much going to be your constant fear anytime you take some time off that you’ll slip into being lazy, poor, and disheveled.
Relax. Maybe one of the most important things along the way is learning to breathe. Wim Hof method, circular breathing, 30 seconds to take away all the pain, to center yourself. The ideal version of you in your head isn’t smacking himself with a baseball bat every day because he’s not enough, and if you want to become him, neither should you.
You’re going to think giving yourself grace is going to make you lazy. I promise you, your ambition is core. It doesn’t come from being mean to yourself, it comes from the pure goodness in your soul. Your heart is clear and you genuinely care so much about the people around you and the world, and want to improve yourself so that you can do more good. Plus, every time you do truly relax after becoming sick of everything, you get bored after a while, and realize it’s more fun to try doing and making things than not. Even when you think you need like 3 months, you’re usually back at it within 2 weeks tops.
Friends make life worth it
You’re going to go back and forth between desperately wanting to feel belonging with other people and thinking you don’t need anyone else around because you’re better off alone. You couldn’t be more wrong about the latter. And for the former, you’ll find belonging but only after you achieve a certain amount of self-acceptance. It’ll be offered to you a couple times, but you won’t be able to accept it at first, and you’ll push away lots of people that are just trying to be nice to you. It’s all good — see above section about giving yourself some grace.
You might have moments where you lose yourself trying to care for other people, and you’ll notice that, and withdraw thinking everyone’s better off without you. They’re not, and neither are you. A break is good, spending time alone is good, but reclusion sucks, you’re just not built like that, and you’re actively hurting your friends too because they’ll miss you like you miss them. You can’t find yourself in other people, but it’s almost necessary to find yourself with other people. A father is just a man without his daughter, a President is just a person without a population, a CEO without employees is just someone with a desk. People are nothing significant if not in relation to others.
You might think it’s unproductive to spend time with your friends. You’ll think you need to “work on yourself” to fix all your problems. Most of the progress I’ve made has come from phases when I interacted with the world more. There is no nobility in self-isolation, only stagnation. You’ll learn that solo travel is a cool idea, and that you’re pretty chill by yourself, but travelling with friends is 10x more fun, so it’s usually better trying to convince someone to come with you.
Take every moment to stay up until sunrise talking to someone. Show up early to help set up. Take the flight, rent the car, share a way too tiny scooter together. Give gifts that’ll become remind people of you everyday. Create lore that you’ll talk about in rocking chairs one day. Have people unrelated to you that your kids will call Uncle and Aunty one day.
Comfort is the enemy of learning
Remember how I said you’re going to fear getting lazy? It’s a really valid fear. There’s going to be lots of times where you’re going to be doing above average by most observable metrics, and you’ll envision this life where you’re settled down with a wife, dog, 2.2 kids, car, house, everything. And you’ll be on the path to getting it, everything should be right, and then suddenly you’ll be struck with this painful feeling in your chest. LISTEN TO THAT FEELING. DO SOMETHING ELSE.
You’re not built for traditional comfort. You feel most free in navigating ambiguity, and can handle chaos better than most people. That’s not an excuse to leave your room messy, in fact probably a reason to clean it because there still is an upper limit to your chaos so you might want to minimize all easily reducible chaos. For some reason, you believe you’re capable of a lot, and by the Thielian proverb “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right”, you are capable of a lot.
There’s a reason you read Zero to One when you were 14 — you’re a little insane. Lean into it. Do not confuse your comfort for what most other people think is comfortable. You love learning, and whenever you’re not, you get so uncomfortable. Spend your weeks being a different person at the end than you were at the start. An ideal life for you likely will include an atomic family, but if you conflate that with lounging around all day watching Netflix, you’re likely in for some uncomfy chest feelings. Because the truth is, that feeling comes from not living up to your own values. And whenever you try to shy away from working hard or trying new things, it’s lying to yourself about the type of person you are. And you hate lying.
Appearances matter
Okay, you are not going to care about your appearance for a long time. Nor should you care about it too too much, but it will definitely make your life better being 10% hotter rather than 10% smarter. Anecdotally, good looking people seem to matter more in this world.
It’s not just physical appearance. Design matters. You love well designed software, not just functional but beautiful. You feel noticeably better with soft lighting and floor to ceiling windows than you do in a fluorescent white box. Your appetite fades when the food doesn’t ‘look good’. Make things look good, and things that look good.
Please spend more money on clothes. The free tech swag and sweatpants look is a phase that’ll pass as you engage more with the world outside your bedroom. Don’t listen to other tech dudes they’re all just as clueless. Lululemon and Ultraboosts aren’t the peak of fashion and you’ll feel way more confident when you stop dressing like you’re ready for an 8 hour flight all the time.
Do stuff for no reason
Some of the best stuff in your life will come from writing about every random thought you have on the internet. People will want to be your friends, give you jobs, and even ask you out because of this thing you started doing because you were bored during the pandemic.
I’m not saying don’t have goals or be intentional about stuff. It is cool to try and try hard. But don’t tie yourself to desiring a certain outcome from it. Try with no expectation.
Start things often. No need to finish all of them, but be the type of person who gets struck with ideas and tries to make them happen. If you let ideas pass through your brain often without trying to bring them into the real world, one day they might stop coming. Don’t question the ideas, just be glad they came, and pay respect to the idea by acting on it as often as possible. You have no idea how or if the dots will connect, but having more dots makes prettier pictures possible.
Be curious not judgemental
Again, you’re going to think for the longest time that you have the world figured out. That everything is analyzable and people are like puzzles waiting to be solved, to be “gotten”. The world is complicated and it’s easier to put people and situations into boxes based on your first judgement because to dive deeper would take effort and it’s just easier not too.
Fight that urge. Don’t ask questions and listen with the intention to arrive at an answer, or even assume there is one. You can only ever really know 20% about a person, max. Humans are so complicated that you could spend 8 years with someone and not even remotely understand what goes on in their head, because you’ll never be in their head. You’ll only see them from your perspective, never knowing their intentions or feeling their brain chemicals, in maybe 1% of their overall interactions in the world.
Truly feeling this is incredibly exciting. You’ll write it in permanent marker on your desk just so you can try to internalize it everyday. If you have the energy to dive in, no one is boring anymore. The people around you will feel like you think they’re special and one of a kind. Because you do. Because how could they not be?
Act your age
You are going to be the youngest person in many rooms from here on out. You’re going to keep the beard to make yourself look older, and beam with pride whenever anyone guesses your age as mid-to-late 20s. You’re the youngest, so you’re going to spend all your time wanting to be older, to prove you can take care of yourself and be independent and be taken seriously.
Take yourself less seriously. If people wanted another adult in the room, they would’ve invited one. People like youthful energy, it’s a breath of fresh air. It’ll be hard because you’ll care more about your career and less about school than other people your age. But don’t let that mean you have to care less about enjoying yourself. Use the allowance of being young to make mistakes, to f**k around and find out. No need to put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect all the time. Even as an adult, everyone is winging it. You’re going to become good friends with someone 15 years older than you, who you’ll admire a lot, and even he’ll tell you about how as he’s gotten older, he’s realized he knows nothing at all.
Please do something reckless on purpose. I promise you’ll have enough money for retirement even if you don’t save 70% of your money each paycheque just go on that spontaneous boys trip to Fuji. I know you’re scared, but you’re young, which means you’re basically immortal.
The lack of responsibility and how easy it is to make friends are some of the great parts of being young. It all gets way more complicated later. Use it to try as much stuff as possible so that you may “find yourself”, because if you don’t do it now you will have to do it later. No one ever skips stages of development without having to revisit them at a later date, or having something ugly happen. Take advantage of the neuroplasticity and go learn how to make robots or anything else you’re interested in but scared you might not be good at or be able to turn into a career.
Also, it sucks being independent. It’s good to trust people and to rely on them, rather than just letting everyone rely on you and putting all that pressure on yourself. Realize that the same joy you get from giving to others, others get from giving to you.
TBH I hope my 16 year old self doesn’t just think about these lessons but actually tries to go do something differently. I also know that I wouldn’t’ve listened to me back then so maybe this helps someone else.
Anyway if you liked this one, you’ll like the one I did before, this is kind of a part 2.
And if you’re new here, pls email me at aadillpickle@gmail.com on how you found this. It’s been growing a little bit beyond my mom and 3 friends that read this so it’s kinda scary feeling like my little corner of the internet is a bit bigger now. Don’t be a stranger and help me make it a little smaller pls.
banger, like always
Wonderful. Jordan year!