31 Lessons My 31st Year Taught Me

Episode 32: It’s episode 32 and I just turned 32! To reflect on my past 31 years of life, I’m sharing 31 lessons that my 31st year taught me. Some lessons are small, some are big, but all helped shape who I became this past year. 

As a gift for my 32nd birthday, I would be extremely grateful if you could please leave this podcast a 5 star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Want to connect? Find me on Instagram at @heykaylabowen

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to another episode of Where the Woo Meets the Work. I'm your host Kayla, also known as at Hey Kayla Bowen on the internet. And today I want to talk to you guys all about 31 lessons my 31st year taught me. This past weekend it was my birthday. I turned 32 on Saturday. So I thought it would be fun to kind of reflect on what this last year has taught me. First, before I do that, I just want to share with you guys about how my birthday went. It was awesome. It's funny because it wasn't special really in any way, but I still made it feel special. I feel like there's always this pressure around our birthdays for it to be the best thing ever, or that we're supposed to go out of town, take a trip, whatever. But I really believe that we can make our birthdays feel special by just making the day a little bit more intentional. So for this year, with my birthday being on a Saturday, I decided that I just wanted to do some low-key things that are my favorite things. So I started out by going to breakfast by myself intentionally. I know some people might think that that's sad, but I truly value my alone time. I love it. I don't think it's sad. I also don't have a problem eating alone at a restaurant or in a coffee shop. I used to, but I got over it. So on Saturday, I went to a favorite brunch spot. I brought my iPad with me and I journaled on what this last year was like, what it brought me, and what I'm hoping for for this next year. And I ate a healthy breakfast too. After that, I really wanted to go on a hike because I love getting out in nature. It is one of my favorite things to do. And I have not done it nearly enough so far this year. I went on a hike about an hour and 15 minutes away from my house. It's at a mountain that is a way cooler temperature than where I live because I live in Las Vegas. So because of the higher altitude, it's like 20 degrees cooler, which is amazing because it is already hot here. On my birthday, I think it was 90 degrees, which is insane. Unseasonably hot. But anyway, my husband and I went on this hike and it was pretty easy. It was only about an hour and a half long, which was pretty perfect because I haven't been working out that much lately. So it felt just right. And it was gorgeous. There were tons of trees and blue sky, and it was everything I could have hoped for. After that, I went to dinner at this Asian restaurant that I remember having really good beef chow fun. But unfortunately, on my birthday, they did not have good beef chow fun. It was really not exciting at all. But that's okay. Honestly, despite dinner not being very good, I still had the perfect day. And I ended it with watching some Mormon housewives. The next day on Sunday, I had a birthday brunch with some of my closest friends here in town, and I had a great time. Sometimes when I hang out with people, I feel kind of drained afterwards. I think it's just my introvert nature, but this day I did not feel drained at all. I felt super energized from seeing everyone that I love, and I felt like my cup was filled. That's just a little recap of what I did for my birthday this year. I guess it was nothing super special that I did, but I can honestly say that this is one of the best birthdays I've had in a really long time. I just felt like it went amazing and there's nothing more that I could have wished for. Now that I have caught you up on that, let's dive in to the 31 lessons I learned this year. Welcome to where the woo meets the work. I'm your host, Kayla. It's time to get out of your head, into your soul, and do the work that lights you up so you can align with your highest self and actually create the life you've been dreaming about. The first lesson that I learned this year is that things don't need to be perfect to still be amazing. So I was kind of thinking about this with how my actual birthday went. I was telling you guys how the beef chow fun was not good. So technically, my birthday was not perfect because the meal was not very good. Also, the restaurant, like the server, did not wish me happy birthday, did not mention my birthday, did not try to give me a free birthday dessert or anything like that. So you could say that my birthday dinner was not perfect. But even though it wasn't perfect, I literally didn't feel bothered by it. I don't know why. Maybe in the past I would have been, but I was just on cloud nine for my birthday. I felt so good about going on the hike. Oh, I also don't think I mentioned in the intro that I also went to a bookstore that I've been wanting to go to. So that was also really fun. But anyway, the point is that things don't need to be perfect to still be amazing. I did not have the perfect birthday day, but it felt perfect to me, even if it wasn't perfect on paper. And I feel like the same can be true for a lot of things in life. I am a recovering perfectionist, always hoping that things are going to be perfect, but I'm learning to realize that things can still be great even if they don't go as planned. Okay, going to move on to the next lesson. Also, just want to say that it was hard to come up with 31 lessons that I learned in this past year, but I did it. It just took me some time. And also, these lessons are not in any particular order. I just kind of wrote them down as I went. So lesson number two is to not save your gift cards for too long. I have the habit of saving gift cards and not using them, kind of forgetting about them, and I don't know, just wanting to save them for a future occasion, I guess. But now I have had two gift cards that I can no longer use because the businesses actually went out of business. So I'm learning that I need to stop saving them and just spend them. The third lesson is I don't need to monetize my hobbies. This is a big lesson for me because I have the predisposition to want to monetize anything that I enjoy. And maybe that's just because of the kind of capitalist culture we live in, I'm not sure, but I'm realizing that that is not necessary. I can have a hobby just to enjoy it. I don't need to make it mean anything more than just that. So now I am trying to intentionally take up hobbies that I have no plans of monetizing at all. The biggest one being pottery lately. I just finished a four-week pottery series. It was a lot of fun. I made a mochable and I made a mug, and I have no interest in starting an Etsy shop or a website or anything like that. It's just going to be for me and for maybe some friends who I gift my pottery creations to in the future. Lesson number four is that it is okay to go back to things. Just because you thought that something wasn't right for you then doesn't mean that it might not be right for you in the future. I have a big announcement coming that I'm gonna share with you guys on next week's podcast, but that is kind of an allusion to that. I am going back to some things that I am excited about, and just realizing that going back to something doesn't mean that you are a failure at your current thing. It is just learning and realizing that you are allowed to change your mind. Lesson number five is I won't die if I don't get enough sleep. This might sound weird to you, but I am someone who really prioritizes my sleep. I find it extremely important to get at least eight hours of sleep, but I usually give myself at least nine hours in bed because I need a lot of sleep. My Hashimoto's requires that of me, so that's something that I'm just leaning into. And I get really anxious and stressed out if I know that I am not going to get enough sleep. And that is probably because my sleep is tied to my stomach. I'm not sure why, but if I wake up and I do not get enough sleep, I have terrible stomach problems for the morning, which means that I usually have to go to the bathroom like four to five times and it's uncontrollable. I can't hold it in. It just has to happen. Because of that problem, I get really anxious if I know I'm not going to get enough sleep. But I am also realizing that I will not die if I don't get enough sleep. So I just need to be a little bit calmer about that. So, for instance, if I have something that I really need to get done in the past, I might just be like, well, it's not going to happen because I need my sleep. But occasionally I just need to power through and it's fine if I don't get enough sleep the next day. Lesson number six is healing is not linear. I am on a healing personal development journey, as are so many of you, and I feel like that's kind of life actually. But I've often thought that once I heal something, that I will be done with it, that it's something I can just check off the list, I'm done, I have overcome it, I can move on, but that is not the case. And this is true, at least for me, physically and emotionally. In the past, there was a point where I lost 20 pounds, I felt great about it, thought that I was over my emotional eating and weight problems, but that is not true. Since then, I have gained back the weight and I've really been struggling with emotional eating. So healing is not linear in that way. And I've also realized that some emotional things too, some things that I thought that I may have overcome in the past, but then I'm realizing that I'm still in either similar situations or similar conversations come up or similar thoughts. So I'm not totally over it. So I'm just realizing that healing is not a linear path. There are going to be ups and downs, and it'll probably keep coming up until you have fully worked through it. Lesson number seven is I have a tendency to overcommit and not have time for everything that I think I will. My husband makes fun of me for this all the time because I'm constantly overscheduling my calendar. It's not intentional, and when I make the plans, usually my calendar is pretty empty. So I think, okay, I will have time for this. It's going to be no problem. But then I just keep adding to it and adding to it. And part of this problem is probably the type of work that I'm in. As a photographer, specifically someone who's been doing interior design photography a lot recently. When a client finishes a project, they usually need it photographed pretty quickly afterwards, like within the next two weeks. So I am always booking these somewhat last minute shoots into my calendar. So then my calendar gets really full. But I also do the same thing with social things too. I'll be like, hmm, I have not seen this person in a while. I should really reach out to them. I also do this with all of my friends because I just get worn out socially so easily that I will not see friends for like one to two months, and then I feel bad and I miss them. So then I schedule hangouts with all of them or a lot of them back to back to back in one month. And then I don't want to see anyone again because I'm worn out from seeing too many people. So yeah, it's just this perpetual cycle. And I don't really know if I'm going to change this about me or if it's just something that I'm going to live with, but it's a lesson that I've learned is that this is a tendency I have. The next lesson I learned is I need a schedule and a routine to thrive. I would imagine that a lot of us are this way. But as someone who works for myself, it can be difficult maintaining a consistent schedule. And like I said, especially in my line of work, because with photo shoots, they are not at the same time every day. I don't show up to work at nine o'clock and get off by six. The days are always looking different. So it's kind of hard to have a schedule in that way. And I have also been photographing for other photographers, being a second shooter and an associate shooter for weddings. And weddings happen usually on the weekends. So I don't have weekends off, so I need to think of days in my week that would kind of be my weekend. So it's just been difficult. But I have realized that having a morning routine and an evening routine and waking up at the same time, going to bed around the same time every night really, really helps me. Lesson number nine is tied to lesson number eight, which is that even though I need a schedule and a routine, I also need at least one day per week to do absolutely nothing. I call these my house troll days, and it's a day that I always look forward to where I do not leave the house, hopefully. I don't put on makeup, I stay in my sweatpants all day, and I can just sit on the couch and rot and watch my shows and expect nothing of myself. It's a beautiful thing. If you don't do it, I really highly encourage you to. Which leads me into the next lesson, which is that rest is productive. As an ambitious girly, I have always found it hard to rest without feeling guilty. I love resting, I love doing my house troll days, but in the past, I have often felt like I'm being lazy or I could be getting so much more done. But I have realized that resting really is productive because if I don't rest, then I start to feel burnt out, I feel resentful, and then it makes me rebel and it makes me not want to do anything at all. I also think this is a huge reason why I developed Hashimoto's, is because I did not learn to rest, but now my body is forcing me to rest. So I'm listening to it. Lesson 11 is that we're not meant to live online. At the start of the year, I was posting every single day online as a part of this one-year experiment that I'm doing. And I have stopped. I have stopped posting online every day, and it has been amazing. It has been so great to not feel the pressure to post online every day, even though I gave myself that pressure, no one did it for me. But we're just not meant to be there all the time. We're meant to be in our real-world lives. We were never meant to consume all of these other people's lives who we never have met, will never meet at a rapid pace. And I think honestly, that social media being online is the reason why so many of us are not as happy as we could be, because we're comparing ourselves to other people who we were never meant to see. So I've really been enjoying not being online so much and only going on there when I feel like it. Lesson number 12 is that if God forbid my husband were to die early, I seriously don't think I would ever get married again. And it's not because of me not enjoying our marriage. It's actually because I love our marriage and I love him so much that I really don't think anyone else could compare. Maybe that sounds cheesy, but I seriously think if he died, I would just be single. Maybe I would have some booty calls. I don't know, probably, right? A girl's got needs. But I don't think I would marry someone again. I don't think I would live with someone again because I would just be comparing them to Jonathan. I'd be like, well, Jonathan did this and you're not as good as him. That's something that I've realized in the past year, that I just love him so much and I think he's the perfect fit for me. And I've known this for years, but I just feel like it's been really solidified this past year that he is just the best partner. I love him, and I really hope he doesn't die because then I'll just be a child-free cat lady without a husband. The next little lesson I learned was that I don't think I'm ever going to give up soda. I gave up regular soda for the first couple months of the year, but I have had regular Coke this past week for my birthday, but I don't think I'm going to give up diet soda ever. I just really love it. I thought at one point, okay, I'm gonna give up the regular soda, and then eventually I will transition into giving up diet soda too. But I love it, it's not going anywhere. So I'm accepting this about myself. Lesson number 14 is no one is coming to save you. What I mean by this is you can hire all of the coaches that you want, you can take all of the courses, read all of the self-development or finance books, but unless you actually put in the work, nothing is going to change. No one is going to come and save you and tell you what you have to do. And even if they did, if you're not willing to listen to them and put in the work, nothing's gonna change. I've made the mistake in the past of outsourcing my decision making by hiring coaches who I thought would have all of the answers. And I love coaches, obviously. I think coaching is great, but you have to be in the right mindset and position to benefit from it. I think until you are ready to say enough is enough and that you're going to make the changes necessary, you shouldn't waste your time or money on hiring anyone. Which leads me to the next lesson that I can't save anyone who doesn't want to be saved. Just like how no one is coming to save me, I can't save people who aren't ready for it. There are people in my life, really, actually, probably just one person I'm thinking of, who I wish that I could save. I wish that I could help them get their life together, point them in the right direction, figure out their finances for them. Just so many things that I wish I could help them with and that I've offered to help them with, but they are not receptive. I have to realize that it's not my job to save them. As much as I love them, as much as I want to save them, no one can save them until they are ready and they have to save themselves. Lesson 16 is I don't need to explain myself or my decisions to anyone. In the past, I feel like whenever I've made a life decision, I have to explain it to my husband, to my family, to my friends. And I'm not sure why I feel this need. Maybe it's because people are curious and they ask me why I'm doing something, so then I feel like I have to elaborately explain what I'm doing. But I'm realizing now, as I'm going through some significant life changes, that I don't need to explain this to anyone. With that, kind of also realizing that no is a complete sentence, I can just say no and not elaborate. I just don't need to elaborate on anything unless I feel like it. And if someone asks me a question that I'm not comfortable with, I can just say, um, I'm not really comfortable talking about that right now. Or this is my decision, and that's it. The next lesson I learned is that starting is really the hardest part. I just worked out yesterday for the first time in a few weeks, maybe a month. I don't know. It'd been a while, basically. I was dreading going back to the gym, mostly because I was scared of people being like, oh my gosh, where have you been? Did you die? But then when I got there, no one asked me those questions, which was kind of surprising because they have done it before when I had literally I hadn't gone to the gym for a week. And then the trainer was like, oh my gosh, girl, I haven't seen you in forever. I was like, girl, I was here last week. It's not that crazy. That's kind of why I had that fear. But most people are just living their own life. They're not worried about when you're going to the gym, when you're not, because they're worried about getting themselves to the gym. And that's true with anything. I also think that I make things a bigger deal in my mind than they really are. With the gym, for instance, I was thinking how, oh my gosh, it's gonna be hard. I've probably lost so much strength. I don't want to be the weak one in the gym. But thankfully, I don't think I lost any strength, surprisingly. I did my workout just fine yesterday. Of course, it was difficult because they always are, but it didn't feel any more difficult than a normal gym workout. I think the same is true with anything, whether you're starting a business or you're starting a relationship or a friendship or a new creative project or a hobby. I think just starting is the hardest part. And then when we're in it, the momentum carries us. I noticed that when I am working out, it is easy to keep working out because the momentum is carrying me. It's easier to keep doing something rather than doing something different. It's the law of inertia. So just remembering that that's the hardest part. And then once you've started, it's going to be much easier from there. The next lesson I learned is that it is time to start skincare. I am 32 years old now. I need to start taking care of my skin so that way I do not look like a raisin in a few years. Before, I was just using a moisturizer, which I would apply occasionally, you know, because my skin does get dry, so I did need to put that on. But besides that, I wasn't really using anything. So I decided to do a deep dive, and ChatGPT helped me find the perfect products for the things I was looking for. So now I use an array of items, but the most important one is sunscreen. That is going to help my skin the most with avoiding the sun rays and all of that. So that way the aging is not so intense. The only thing that kind of sucks about it is that it has added time to my routine. Now I have to wake up, wash my face, apply all this stuff, and then before I go to bed, wash my face, apply more stuff. So that is annoying, I'm not going to lie, and I am also not perfect at it. There are still some days where I skip it, or some days where I'm like, okay, I'm just going to put on the sunscreen for leaving the house because I do not have time to do the vitamin C and the peptides and the moisturizer. But I think in general, having this routine is great and doing something is better than nothing. Lesson number 19 was a big one for me. If you are a regular on this podcast, you know that I struggle with my eating. I struggle with my weight. I want to lose weight. That is my Biggest goal for this year. But I just seem to love food so much. And I really struggle around it. I struggle around having control. Sometimes I will have amazing control around food. It's like a switch, but then when the switch is turned off, it will be craziness where I have no control around food. So the lesson that I learned is that I do not have an eating problem, which is what I thought I had. I actually have an emotional regulation problem. I've known for quite some time that I struggle to regulate my emotions. I struggle with calming my nervous system, feeling safe in my body. And so I turn to food. I turn to food as a form of comfort when I'm bored, sad, stressed, or even happy, excited. It's just whenever I'm feeling something, I want to calm it with food. So really that is not an eating problem. It's an emotional regulation problem. So one thing that I really want to focus on in this next year of life is emotional and nervous system regulation. If you have any recommendations, if you know of any practitioners, books, courses, Instagram accounts that focus on emotional and nervous system regulation, please send me a message and let me know. Lesson number 20 is that aesthetics are more important to me than I thought. What I mean by this is my surroundings. I love a beautiful space. And I think I honestly feel better and perform better when I'm in a beautiful space. So this past year I have really been finding new coffee shops to work in, to hang out in, and it's been good for me. Piggybacking off of that, lesson number 21 is that I'm my best self when I am surrounded by nature, specifically trees. I love forest bathing. I love being among the green and the trees, and also if water is there, that's great. And I love being around mountains and colder temperatures. But I didn't quite realize when I first moved to Vegas that this was going to be so important to me. I can say that for the first two years living in Las Vegas, I really loved it. I didn't think that there were drawbacks. But I am approaching seven years living here, which is crazy. And I miss where I came from. I came from Portland, Oregon, where there are tons of trees, green, beauty, and I freaking miss it. And whenever I get the chance to be surrounded by trees, I'm just my best self. I am calmer, happier, and at peace, I feel like, when I'm in these kinds of environments. So environment is so important to me, and that's why one day I really hope that I can afford to buy a second home in Big Bear, California. I even like, and like, should I even say it because I don't want everyone else to go buy homes in Big Bear, California, and then the prices to be driven up so high that I can never buy one. But honestly, not that many people listen to this podcast, so I don't think that will happen. But that's the goal. My husband never wants to leave Las Vegas, so I'm trying to make peace with that. This will be our home, but I do need an escape. And until then, trips. Trips are my escape. Thankfully, Big Bear is only a three and a half hour drive, so I can drive there, be among the trees, and I also go home a good amount to be with my family in the Portland, Oregon area. And I'm actually going there next week. The next lesson is to slow down and enjoy my life. As someone who is ambitious and has many goals, I find it hard to slow down. I want to be achieving all of the time, and there are so many things that I want to do, and I'm always also thinking about my own mortality. I'm thinking, what if tomorrow isn't promised? What if I only have so much time in my life and I don't accomplish all of these things? But I am trying to remember that what is the point of accomplishing all of these things if you don't even enjoy your life and slow down enough to notice them? So that's really been my theme for the past month, I would say, is slowing down, taking notice of how amazing my life already is without accomplishing other things. And of course, I still want to accomplish so much. I have a big list of things I want to do, but I also want to enjoy myself along the way. Lesson number 23 is to be cringe, which means doing things that I think maybe other people would be embarrassed about. Whether that's taking up goofy hobbies or enjoying things that I did as a kid that maybe people would think that I'm childish for for doing now, don't really care, or taking photos or videos in public, posting about my life online, sharing on this podcast, even. Any of these things could be considered cringe, but I don't give a shit. Honestly, life is so much more fun this way when you embrace being cringe and you don't care what other people think. And honestly, most people don't really care what you're doing, anyways. Just like my example with going to the gym yesterday, no one noticed that I hadn't been there in almost a month or whatever. The same is true with you being cringe. Most people don't notice because they're worried about themselves. The next lesson I learned is that we try to overcomplicate things when most things are actually pretty simple. I've done this a lot with trying to lose weight, whether it's trying to find the perfect diet or the perfect exercise routine and making it super complicated, or like, oh, my morning routine needs to have 10 steps, all of these things. It's like we think that good things must be hard. When really I think a lot of these things are actually pretty simple. With losing weight, for instance, you just need to stop eating out so much when it comes to me. Or like eating calorie-loaded foods and drinking soda, things like that. Obviously, like I know in my mind that these are simple things I could stop doing, but for some reason, my little brain is like, no, we need to make this really complicated. We need to have a month of meal-prepped ideas before we can commit to being healthy. And I don't know why we do this, but it's something I've been guilty of that I've been realizing this past year is that I am just overcomplicating things, and I'm going to try to simplify things from now on. Lesson 25 is that it's not that serious. This applies to so many things in my life, but some of the main things I was thinking about with this are my expectations of other people and their communication with me. I have a family member who has not been amazing about staying in contact with me, reaching out to me. And for a while, because of this, I felt like they didn't even like me. I thought I must be bothering them or rubbing them the wrong way in some way because we used to have a close relationship. But I had to come to Jesus talk with them and I just told them exactly how I was feeling. And they didn't realize that they were giving me those kind of vibes or that they were making me feel that way. So just realizing that if someone is not giving you what you think they should be, sometimes it's just not that serious. That doesn't mean that they don't like you or that they don't care about you. It just means that they're busy, they have a life, or that they don't even know that you're feeling this way. And the same is true with friendships. I had a friend where I felt like she wasn't reaching out to me very often or making me a priority, but then I talked to her about it and she explained to me that she's not treating me any differently than any other friend, that she is truly super busy as a mom of two young boys and a business owner. And when she explained it, I was like, oh, okay, good. I thought it was just me that wasn't like that you weren't making plans with and stuff. I thought you were hanging out with other people and just not me. So again, it's just not that serious. I'm learning that people have their own lives and I should not take things so personally. And since learning that, I have just been so much more relaxed. I have not been getting upset at little things anymore. And I've also realized that people are living their life, so I get to live mine. So less of my happiness is dependent upon other people, and I'm just doing my own thing. Lesson 26 is that color is a good thing. This is a small lesson, but I have been playing around with my personal style and clothes that I wear. And I was someone who loved wearing neutrals for a long time, and I still love neutrals, never gonna stop, because I think that with neutrals you just can't go wrong. And sometimes when you're wearing all neutrals, you just look a little elevated, a little fancy, a little polished. But I will say that I have been putting more color into my wardrobe, and I'm really loving it. I feel like it's more whimsical, more fun, and is showcasing my personality better. But when it comes to color, I am still keeping a completely neutral home. And the reason for this is because I get sick of things pretty quickly. I'll have an idea for something in my home, and then maybe like six months or a year later, I'm sick of it and I want to do something else. But I've noticed this is less likely to happen if I just have more of a neutral color palette. Lesson 27 is that I am a multi-passionate person who does not like being put in a box. It is probably no surprise to you if you know anything about human design that I am a manifesting generator. I am not meant to do one thing forever. I am meant to do many things, and accepting that is really helping my life. I used to feel guilty about this. I felt like if I couldn't commit to one thing forever for the rest of my life, that I was flaky or wishy-washy or an airhead, but I am realizing over this past year that this is actually a good thing about me. I prefer to go through phases or eras of my life, different identities, maybe. It doesn't mean that I don't know what I'm doing. It just means that I evolve over time. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that, whether it's my interests or my career or even my personality. Some of the phases that I've gone through are there was a time where I was obsessed with tiny homes. I thought tiny homes were the coolest thing ever. I would watch tons of shows on HGTV about them. I even wanted to get a tiny home. My husband would buy me tiny home books on my birthday. It was kind of a short phase, but that was a little phase that I went through, which is funny because now I'm like, no, there's no way I could live in a tiny home. I would need a whole separate tiny home for my closet. But it was just one of the phases. There was also a vegetarian and animal rights phase that I went through for three and a half years. And I don't really view this totally as a phase in the sense that I do think animal rights are important to this day, even though I'm not a vegetarian. And sometimes I do still toy with the thought of going back to being a vegetarian, but it is a lot of work, and if I'm going to spend that much time and attention on my diet, it will honestly be for my health first and then for animals second. And because I have Hashimoto's where I am supposed to not be having gluten, dairy, and soy, it would be really hard to meet my protein requirements as a vegetarian. I've had other phases like my psychology slash therapist phase when I went to school for psychology, got my bachelor's in that, and wanted to be a therapist since high school, but then decided along the way that it wasn't for me anymore. Also had my philosophy phase, which was kind of at a similar time when I was going to college for psychology. I also took a ton of philosophy classes. But here's the thing: even though these are phases, I feel like a lot of these things are still little parts of me. They're not something that I've totally given up. I will always be interested in psychology and philosophy. Maybe not tiny homes, but that's okay. And now one of my phases is really entering a slow living and cozy hobby phase, just being offline more, being present in my real life and enjoying it. Lesson 28 is a tiny one, but I learned that the Notes app on your iPhone has a feature where you can check off items. It looks like a little bubble, and then you hit the bubble and it crosses off the item. My friend showed me this a few months ago, and I had no idea that this was a feature, and it's honestly really useful. Whenever I go grocery shopping, I use this and I love it. Lesson 29 is that I've gotten to a place where I have the best freaking friends. When I first moved to Vegas, I had on my vision board a photo of random girls that were hanging out together, like a friend group, because this is something that I really wanted to cultivate here. I moved here without having any friends. I literally had zero friends. The only people I knew were my husband's two aunts and two uncles who are way older than us. So they wouldn't really have people in the same kind of age friend group that I'm looking for. And over these past almost seven years, I have worked really hard at creating friendships. And it can be hard creating friendships as an adult because they don't just naturally come into your life all the time, especially as a self-employed person in a new city. And not sure if you know this, but Las Vegas is a very transient place. Even though I have an amazing group of friends now, I can count that I've had at least five friends who are like I made as friends move away. And I still have a good group despite those five people moving away. But I am just so thankful to have people in my life, women in my life who I can count on, who I can confide in, who I can hang out with. It is such a great feeling. Lesson 30 is that I am done living for the big moments or for the weekend, which is kind of funny saying for the weekend because when I photograph weddings, they're always on the weekend. So I'm not really ever living for the weekend. But it is a phrase, and you know what I mean. I don't want to be the person who doesn't notice how amazing my everyday life is and all of the privileges and joys and experiences that I have every single day because I'm just thinking about the big trip that I have in the summer, or when this podcast gets a certain number of downloads, or when I finally lose the weight that I want to lose. Those things are great. It's good to have bigger goals and big things to look forward to, but I don't want to live for that. I don't want that to be my sole focus because life is made up of the boring, everyday moments. That is life. That is most of your life, are these little moments. The big moments are barely any of your life. So how sad would it be to be looking back at your life and have totally just whizzed by all of those little moments without even noticing them? Okay, we have arrived at the last lesson, the 31st lesson I learned in my 31 years of living, which is that it is okay to not know what's next. It's okay to not know what you want, to not know what the future holds, and to figure it out as you go. When this year started, just three months ago, I did not think I would be where I am now, which is something I'm going to elaborate more on next week. But that's okay. You know, we can't predict what life holds for us and which direction we're going. But I trust that I am going exactly where I need to be going. I trust that the universe does have my back, that the universe is always conspiring in my favor, and that what is meant to happen is exactly what is going to happen. There you have it. Those are the 31 lessons I learned in my past 31 years of life. Some of them were kind of serious lessons, some of them were just tiny little lessons that I wanted to share. One thing that I want to say to end this episode is that I think our birthdays are such privileges. I'm someone who has never been scared of getting older, never scared of birthdays. I find them to be the biggest blessings because so many people won't get a next birthday. I remember when I was turning 30 two years ago that I was excited for it. I was, there was not one ounce of me that was sad to be leaving my 20s. I knew that I was going to be entering an even better decade, an even better timeline. And I think it is true for every decade that we go into and every year that we reach. But anyway, that's all that I have for you guys today. I would love, oh, so much. Okay, hold on. One request that I do have, and I forgot to mention this at the beginning of the episode. I would be so, so grateful if you could please leave this podcast a five-star rating or review wherever you're listening as my birthday gift. I would be so appreciative. Someone already did this, and I forgot to mention, thank you so much. I saw that someone left me a five-star review on Apple and on Spotify. I don't know if it was two people or the same person, but whoever it was, thank you so much. It really does make a difference. If you're wondering why I care about these reviews and ratings, it's because it pushes the show out to more people. So that way more people can listen to the show. And it also gives me confidence. I struggle with my confidence, you guys. And as much fun as I have chatting on here, I don't actually hear back. You know what I mean? It's a one way conversation. So having these reviews and ratings lets me know that you are enjoying this podcast and that you want it to keep going. So thank you so much, and I will see you all next week.