Birthday Musings: 5 Lessons I Learned This Past Year

As I’m hitting Publish on this post, I’ve just finished polishing off a luscious piece of my birthday Lemon Meringue cake. “Let them eat cake!” Marie Antoinette (allegedly) proclaimed. Well, today I totally agree with her! Because if you can’t have cake for breakfast on your birthday, then what even is the point of this whole getting older thing?

And as I am getting older and (just a little bit) wiser, I wanted to share some things I’ve learned since my last birthday with you! Hoping that, I don’t know, maybe they’ll help you out? Maybe there will be some brand new information that will be totally life changing and uplifting? (hahah, unlikely- but still, I’m doing my part here).

Without further ado, here are 5 lessons I learned this past year:

1. Patience is key.

If you truly want to build something in your life, and you give it your time, efforts and energy, you will eventually get there. But it’s important to remember that this time spent learning, struggling, grinding and hustling for your goal is just as important as the accomplishment itself. Know that this is actually the time when you get polished and moulded as a human being. So don’t try to skip any steps in a desperate race towards reaching your goal. Be assured that your time will come.

2. Peace and happiness will only ever come from inside you.

It may seem like your job, your money, material possessions or even the people in your life are at the root of your happiness. But the truth is jobs get lost, disasters strike and you can lose everything you own. Even friends or loved ones can disappoint and hurt you. So the key then is to look within you, and muster the will to carry on and to realize that nothing in this world is definitive or irreversible. And in your core you need to believe that at the end of it all, you will be alright.

3. Your time and your health are the two single hottest commodities you are sitting on, period.

Trade them wisely.

4. Nothing stays the same.

Life will keep coming at you with the good and the bad, that is a fact. Throughout it, you will learn that change becomes a constant in itself. There is nothing you can do to stop it, and you actually shouldn’t even try, because all change means growth. And if you can learn to see it as such, and teach yourself to find the good in even the worst situation, you will lend yourself and your mental health a big helping hand.

5. Everybody evolves at a different pace.

And what is right for you may not necessarily be right for someone else. This was especially glaring to me in the past years, as my friends and I are now at an age where we define our future. And we all choose to do it differently!

We are getting married and maybe start having children- or maybe swear these things aren’t for us. We are buying houses, or choosing to rent so we avoid feeling tied down by anything. We are investing our blood, sweat and tears in our jobs, or on the contrary, in our passions. Some of us choose to take a sabbatical year of travelling around the world, while others choose to move back to their home town. The point is: we are lucky enough to live in a world ripe with possibilities, and whatever each of us chooses needs to just be right for our own selves. No justifying and no judgement.

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