Lessons Learned in Our 20s: Life's Fragility & Not Taking Things Personally

Officially 30!!! (Well, I actually have been since last July, but my hubby just turned 30 so I thought it might be fun to do an episode on our top lessons learned in our 20s).

In our 20s, our top two takeaways were:
1) life is short
2) don't take anything personally

Listen in for more on these perspectives! Hopefully this episode encourages you to go after your dreams (because life is short y'all!!) and to give way fewer f*cks about what others are thinking and just live your life for YOU & YOURSELF! (respectfully, of course)

Love you, thank you!

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Transcript

Speaker 2 0:00

Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. I totally missed an opportunity last Monday. So last Monday... I always record the podcast in advance. I usually do them Saturday, and then I either edit them Sunday night or Saturday night, and they go up every Monday morning at 6:00 AM Central Time. And last Monday, I recorded it in advance like normal, but I didn't realize that the episode would actually be coming out on the day of my husband's 30th birthday, so totally missed the opportunity to give him a shout-out, but shout-out to my husband, Jared. Happy late birthday. I appreciate how much he's willing to talk about the ideas with me that I discuss on the podcast, because a lot of the time they're born from our conversations that we have on our walks, or conversations that I have with him about conversations that I had with other people, or whatever. He's the main person that I externally process things with besides just here on the podcast, because I really do genuinely feel like each week that I come on the podcast and I'm here with you, whoever you are, across the screen or across the AirPods or across the shower, if your phone's sitting on the counter right now and you're showering and you're listening to the podcast, whatever. I always think about it like we're just having a conversation. We're kind of externally processing together, and I'm talking about, "Oh, this is something that I realized this week," or, "This is something that I was thinking about this week." Just a thought to have during the week, and little things that I feel like help make life better and make life more fun and just help make life something that you're obsessed with, and that I'm obsessed with in return. So the good thing about that is that it feels very conversational when I come on here, and it feels like I am just having a really good chat with a girlfriend, and we're getting real into the juicy whatnot. But then also, a lot of these conversations are ones that I've kind of thought out loud about to my husband and so I just appreciate all of the support and listening that he does, and things that he offers in pieces of advice or Bringing a different perspective into things, because I think sometimes when we're with girlfriends, or I know me and my sisters, we have a lot of similar interests and hobbies, and we hang out a lot, and we're all obsessed with our niece slash my sister's daughter. And I... Sometimes you get into these situations where you're just having a really good conversation, but it's kind of... It can become an echo chamber where other... Really you're just recycling each other's perspectives because you're already so similar. And so sometimes having my husband, who is a man and has had a totally different life than me, and wasn't raised by the same parents that I was raised by, and just had completely different circumstances, sometimes... And has a totally different personality. I will say me and my sisters, we have different personalities, but I would say that they're more similar than my personality is to my husband's. If you've ever taken, like, the Enneagram quiz, Jared actually hasn't taken it, but I suspect that he's probably an Enneagram 8, and I'm an Enneagram 2. And so even just starting from there and having very different personalities, whether I'm a 2 and he's an 8, or whatever numbers we are, regardless, it does help having other personalities and other perspectives when you're talking about things like personal growth and personal development and achieving your goals and living a life that you're obsessed with, it's really helpful to have other perspectives. So all that to say that shout out Happy Late Birthday to my husband, Jared, Who I completely adore and am excited to go through our 30s together. We have officially been together half of his life because I think that he was 15 when we officially, like, legitimately started dating, he was 15, so now he's 30, and so we've officially been together half his life. That is crazy. But today I wanted to talk about, because it came up this week, we were on one of our walks, and I asked him, "What is the biggest lesson that you've learned in your 20s? What would you say going into your 30s is something, an idea or a lesson or message that you've received in your 20s that kind of paints the picture or will influence the way you go into your 30s? The biggest, maybe b- just biggest thing that you've learned in your 20s." And I talked about mine as well. And so I wanted to share those two things. And I'm not speaking for him. I'll tell you the message or lesson that he told me, but then I'll probably just speak to it from my own perspective since he's not here To speak on it himself. But what he said was uh, I'm paraphrasing in my own words, but I think the concept of fragility of life. He just said that he realized that we aren't here forever. We don't know how long we're here, and I know I say this on the podcast all the time, but we are here for a certain amount of days, and we don't know how many days that is. So I really, really liked that he mentioned that, 'cause that's something that I feel like I learned a lot in my 20s as well, or was faced with in my 20s. And it's just kind of that realization that you're not invincible, and you're not gonna live forever, and you're not immortal. And so that was something that he said he feels like he learned in his 20s and is shaping the way he goes into his 30s, or just the biggest lesson. My question to him was the biggest lesson you learned in your 20s. So that was what he said. And for me, I totally wholeheartedly agree with that, But I also thought on my own that the biggest thing I learned in my 20s was just not to take anything personally. Now, hey, execution of this is different. These are the things that we both learned, the lessons that we learned, and the messages that we received in our 20s. That doesn't mean that we execute them perfectly or we act on them perfectly, okay? So not to say that you're gonna do this perfectly after listening to this episode, but maybe these thoughts are things that you're also experiencing or you've experienced before and lessons that you learned before and you needed a reminder, or you just hadn't really thought about it that way before, and it might help shape your actions going forward. So mine was just to never take anything personally and I guess the way that I would sum this up is personal accountability or just the fact that you can only control yourself. You can't control other people's thoughts, feelings, actions, behaviors. All you can do is control your own and respond accordingly. So I wanna dive into each of those a little bit more and, again, talk about my perspective on them and how I feel like they can help you, whether you're going into your 30s or not. They could help you if you're going into your 50s or if you're going into your 10s. What would that be if you're a teenager? There's probably not a lot of teenagers listening to this right now. But it could help you at any state of your life. So I think that these are really good concepts to think on and maybe postulate a little bit about what this might mean in your life, and hopefully you think so too. So the first one, just the fragility of life. This is something that- I hope feels kind of, I don't... Sometimes I feel like when I talk about the fragility of life, it's just like a boost. It's a pep talk because it is sad, it is morbid. You are being faced with the fact that everybody's going to die someday. We are all are going to, and we have no idea when that will happen. So I know for me and Jared, something that has probably brought this to our attention more is the loss of some younger people in our lives in the last 10 years, in the last, in our 20s. That is something that we had to face that was unexpected, was losing some people younger than we would've expected. I know I've talked many times on the podcast about how I lost my brother when he was 33, and that really shaped a lot of the ways that I saw the world, and just kinda gave me a little bit of the spunk that I have of just try things out. You know? Like try out a podcast, try out a workout program, try out posting on social media. Just kinda gave me the, I won't say confidence, but it has given me the oomph that I needed or the kick in the booty that I needed to say, "You know what? You don't even know if you'll wake up tomorrow." I know that's morbid, I really do. But there are so many times that I am faced with the reality that we have no idea if we'll wake up tomorrow. So that thing that you've been saying that you were gonna do, or that thing that you've been saying that you wanna do, or the thing that you've been saying, "Oh, I'd really like to get good at that," or, "I'd really like to talk to this person about this," or, "I'd really like to try this different method of career," or, "I really wanna... I, I aspire to be a YouTuber," which is not what I aspire to be, but I do love doing the podcast. But I aspire to be a YouTuber. Whatever the thing is that you've been saying that you wanna do and you've been fearful to act on, I think that fragility of life, realizing truly how little time we have here, and really specifically the uncertain amount of time that we have here should be something that kinda kicks you in the pants and tells you, "Just go for it. Just go for it." It's your life. You are only gonna get out of it what you put into it, And some people don't make it this far. Genuinely, every birthday I think that, and people... Like, I said that to someone. I realized that I should not say this to other people on their birthdays. Maybe only just say it to me on my birthday. But One of my coworkers had turned, I think, 50, and they were like, "Yeah, it's the big 50." Or, "The big five-oh." And they were feeling really insecure about it and really embarrassed about it, and just kinda making one of those faces like, "Oh, God, I'm so sad I'm turning 50. I can't believe I'm turning 50. It sucks." And I can't say because I haven't turned 50 yet, but I remember thinking, "That's amazing." And I said to her, I said, "That's awesome. That's so exciting. Congratulations. Not everybody makes it that far." And the way she took it was like, "Oh, you're on, you're teetering on the edge of death. That's how old you are." And that is not what I meant, but I was just thinking that none of us know. We could make it to 30, we could make it to 50, we could make it to 70, or we could not. And so every birthday truly is a blessing and truly is a gift, and I just believe that wholeheartedly. But also on top of that, you can use that message or that lesson to springboard you into action on the things that you want. Because you don't wanna be at the end of your life, whether that's at 50 or 70 or 90 or 30, God forbid, you don't wanna be at the end of your life and have regrets. You don't wanna be at the end of your however many amount of days and s- laying on your deathbed and thinking, "Wow, I just really didn't do a lot of the things that I thought that I would do." And obviously, there are unforeseen circumstances that sometimes I'm not blaming you if you do end up at the end of your life and you're like, "Oh, I didn't." But in a sense, I am hoping that this will empower you to take action and to call your shot and do the things that you have been wanting to do. And I'm not saying that it's gonna be easy. I'm not saying that y- you're just gonna call your shot and say, "Oh, I wanna do this. I wanna try this new career," or, "It's really important to me to become a homeowner," or, I want to be married," or, "I want to live in another country for a year," or... I, I'm not saying that any of those things are gonna be easy, but I am saying that once you call your shot and you take little actions toward that thing, things are gonna start to happen for you. There's something that I heard a long time ago that I love and I want to give full credit to. I believe it was Keisha Getmary that said it, but she, she always says that if you have a dream or an desire or something on your heart... If you have the ability to dream that thing up, you also have the ability to figure out the how to get there. So I know at first it might seem like you don't, you don't know how to get there, and sometimes you get really caught up in the how and the steps and the disparity of where you are now to where you wanna go, and the fact that there's just so much to get there. And sometimes that keeps you in this analysis paralysis phase where you don't ever start, you don't ever call your shot because you don't know how to get there. But when you realize that you are limited on the number of days that you have here, and you actually say, "You know what? I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna try this new thing that I wanna do," or, "I'm gonna finally... I'm drawing a line in the sand and I'm gonna get my health on track," or I've been thinking for a long time that I'm unhappy in my career, or I'm unhappy in my marriage, or I'm unhappy in the neighborhood that I'm living in, Or I'm unhappy with, with the way that I feel in my body. Look, we are only unhappy as long as we let ourselves be unhappy. Life is too short to be unhappy and not obsessed with it. And that's not to say that there aren't gonna be negative things that you can't control, but there are things that you can control, and if you are unhappy in your job or your marriage or your body or your neighborhood or whatever it is, You can take steps to make that change. So to me, the fragility of life, that's what it helps me remember. That's what it helps remind me, is that I am only as stuck as I let myself be, and at the end of my life, whatever I have or haven't done is completely on me. So it, it springs, springboards me. So it's not really like a morbid thing for me. It's not a negative or doomsday thing for me to think about the fact that we're not immortal or think about the fragility of life. It's actually like- Whoa, we're limited here, right? We've got a deadline. We just don't know what it is. So we've gotta race toward it. And then the other lesson that I mentioned that I feel has been something that I've had to learn as a, I'll say recovering people pleaser or someone with people-pleasing tendencies, is just that you can't take anything personally. I've realized so much. I still to this day remember going to this event in college, and I was a part of a campus ministry, and so we didn't do things like big parties, ragers with alcohol and stuff. I mean, maybe some people in the campus ministry did, but I wasn't going to those kinds of parties. So we had, like theme parties that were really silly, and we had one, and the theme was thrift store. It was that, that song that was out, the Thrift Shop song, It was the one that was like, "I'm gonna pop some tags, only got $20 in my pocket." I don't know how you create a whole party based off of that song, but we did, and everyone was in outfits that they wore that they got at the thrift store. I'm pretty sure that's what the theme was. I don't know. At least I know what I was wearing because I was thinking about myself all night. And I remember someone else, like a year later, talking about that night and how they had something on, or something of theirs got ripped. I genuinely can't even remember now what it was. But I just remember thinking, "I did not even notice what they were talking about." They were probably just as focused on themselves as I was on myself of how I looked and how I sounded and how I danced or how I whatever. And they were way more focused on themselves, and they probably couldn't even remember what I was wearing. But we go through life, and we think, "Oh, everybody's looking at us, and everybody's paying attention to me." And most of the time they aren't. And even if they are, that's on them. And this is something that I, again, I don't put into practice perfectly, and I don't Execute it perfectly. But I do feel like that's a big thing in my 20s that I learned, and I had so many aha moments, was just that everybody's going through life for the first time. Everybody is paying probably more attention to themselves than they are to you, and everybody is going through things that you don't see. And I know I said I have people-pleasing tendencies, but I also have this tendency to try to control people too. And it's just something that I d- I don't even know where I adopted it, but somewhere I learned this behavior of, if I can control everything in the en- in my environment, then no one will be mad at me. It comes with like the people-pleasing thing. And I had an epiphany one time that this is actually a very prideful thing because I basically am saying that I have the power to control how other people feel, which is just not true. And it has become a more freeing thing to realize that I can't control other people's feelings, and I can't control their behavior and their thoughts. And so trying to control the environment so that basically I'm manipulating the environment or the scenario or whatever it is to make sure that other people are happy or happy with me, at the very least, that is not something that is ever going to be conducive. And I had read something, it was in the Mel Robbins book, Let Them Theory, Which I know I've mentioned on the podcast before because I've been on a big Mel Robbins kick, and I just finished three of her books. But one thing that she said in it was, "I spent most of my life believing that if I didn't step in, or didn't manage the situation, that things would fall apart, and that this urge to control things comes from a place of fear." And I don't wanna live my life from a place of fear. I wanna live my life from a place of love and abundance and excitement and so this need to control people and situations, it doesn't reduce that fear. It just amplifies it. It just makes it bigger. And so what I've learned in my 20s of having these realizations that, one, people are paying way more attention to themselves than they are to you, and two, me attempting to control situations or other people, and part of that people-pleasing, that is not only coming from a place of pride. I have to remind myself that because otherwise, I can turn myself into this like, "Oh, I'm just a martyr. I'm making sure everybody's happy." No, no, no. It, it's a prideful thing, like you think that you're God and you can control everybody. So two, it's coming from a place of pride, and then three, it's just not good for me or those people because it's coming from a place of fear and not love. Fear and pride, I guess. Fear and not love, and so it's hurting more than it is helping that's why this concept of reminding myself not to take things personally and not to try to unpack things that people say to me or do to me or whatever, and just accept what they say on the forefront because you can spend all day going through your thoughts, cycling through your thoughts, and telling yourself like, "Oh, maybe th- they meant this. Maybe they meant this. Maybe they were mad about this. Did they, did they seem okay? Did they seem like..." All you can do is accept what they give you from the forefront. You cannot know someone's hidden motivations if they don't tell them to you, and you don't know what people are thinking about you, and most of the time they aren't thinking about you. And if they are thinking about you and they're thinking weird thoughts, like, that's on them. That's weird, okay? That's just no. Okay? So those are the two things that I wanted to share today. I hope that they're helpful. I hope they're good reminders to you that your time here is limited, and also that we're all just here doing this for the first time. None of us have done this before that I know of, and we're all just doing the best we can with the tools that we have, and hopefully this helps you get a little boost to do the thing that you keep saying you're gonna do, and then also maybe help you in any sticky or weird relationships that you have. Or just go about your days and feel way more empowered and excited and yeah. I love you. Thank you.