40 Things I’ve Learned by Age 40
Assorted bits of wisdom as I enter my fifth decade.
Today, I am forty. The 2012 spin-off comedy This Is 40 did not prepare me for anything. Maybe I’ll be ready if I’m in a room with Melissa McCarthy and she plays a character with clearly improvised dialogue, but beyond that, not a useful movie.
Instead, I’ve had to collect wisdom simply through living and holding on to what seems valuable. For younger readers, this may prove useful, and for older readers, it might get a good, healthy eye-roll. But I wanted to mark the decennial, so here we go.
1. “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” – Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
2. Intelligent people tend to be curious and eager to critically engage with new information rather than reject anything that doesn’t conform to their prior beliefs.
3. You don’t win an award by showing that you are “smarter” than the movie you just watched.
4. Youth carries with it a certain amount of arrogance, and the only way to grow past it is to be humbled by experience. Even when people told me in my teens and 20s that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was, I had to learn that lesson the hard way.
5. There’s no shame in growing out of things. If you no longer have strong opinions on movies or TV shows that meant the world to you twenty years ago, that’s okay.
6. There’s also no shame in being passionate about things as long as it’s not harmful to you or others.
7. I may still want to jump around at the trampoline park, but my body is not particularly jazzed about it.
8. You can love your work, but your work will never love you back.
9. When you’re feeling helpless or despairing about the state of the world, positive action—such as donating time or money to a charitable cause—will make you feel better and less like a bystander.
10. People on the Internet who you have never met and will likely never meet will be supremely confident about who you are despite working from a narrow sliver of information. You can ignore them, and there’s no shame in hitting the “block” or “mute” buttons (corollary: there’s no pride in being blocked by someone; they clicked a button to not deal with you).
11. Being single in my 20s was no fun, but finding love in my early 30s was a gift because I had a much better sense of who I was and the kind of person I wanted to spend my life with.
12. When possible, don’t make decisions out of fear.
13. Empathy is necessary, but it can also be incredibly difficult.
14. There’s no pride in carrying a grudge against individuals in your life. You are also allowed to harbor a grudge towards a corporation until the end of your days because corporations aren’t people.
15. Life will not turn out how you expect, and that’s okay. Trying to beat it into a shape you conceived of when you were younger won’t make you happier.
16. “It is possible to commit no mistakes, and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” – Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise, Star Trek: The Next Generation
17. The world would be a duller place if we all liked and disliked the same art.
18. “I don’t know,” is a perfectly valid answer to a wide variety of questions. Not knowing the answer to every question is normal.
19. I wish I didn’t still harbor such a fear of failure. Failure isn’t fun, but it’s also a good teacher. Overcoming frustration is something I still need to work on every day.
20. It’s good to look back at your old writing and cringe. That means you’ve grown as a writer and can now recognize weaknesses you couldn’t see back then.
21. Drink water and try to get enough sleep. This may seem obvious, but in my early 20s, I needlessly worked a night shift and drank copious amounts of non-diet sodas.
22. To care about the welfare of strangers isn’t shameful, and there’s no pride in cynicism.
23. One of my great joys is showing people a movie they’ve never heard of and they love it.
24. If you’re a college student or a recent college graduate, try to avoid credit cards until you’ve got a handle on responsible budgeting and spending. That was another lesson I learned the hard way.
25. One of the joys of getting older is you don’t have to concern yourself with the latest trends. You’ve aged out of the system.
26. Try to find the line between pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, and knowing when to say, “This is making me miserable, and I’ve had enough.”
27. You will make so many mistakes, and the best way to deal with that is to recognize the harm you’ve done, work to make it right, and endeavor not to do it again.
28. Work to have grace for yourself and others. Tough love can easily slip into cruelty.
29. Assuming there are no clear harms (like trying an addictive substance), say yes to new experiences.
30. If you see a friend struggling, reach out.
31. Sometimes, rather than give advice or try to solve a problem, the best thing you can do to help someone is simply to listen.
32. Good manners cost nothing. You’d be amazed how far you can get simply by being respectful and polite.
33. Be wary of bullies who agree with your political positions. They may like the fight more than the cause.
34. Movies are great, but they typically utilize neat narratives and well-defined characters. Life is often messy.
35. Depiction is not an endorsement, and the purpose of art is not to reinforce what you already believe. Some of the worst movies I’ve ever seen are documentaries that parrot my beliefs back at me.
36. People on social media doling out life tips and selling self-help books can safely be ignored.
37. Exercise and eat healthy foods because they make you feel better, not because you think it will get you to an idealized body.
38. A good cry can be cathartic. I don’t have them very often, but when I do, I feel better afterward.
39. There’s always credit to go around. No one accomplishes anything worthwhile all on their own.
40. I still have a lot to learn, and that’s exciting.
Happy birthday! And thank you for sharing these wise observations with us
Happy Birthday, sir! Still so young!!!