So, here are 34 things I've learned in the last 34 years:
1) To be happy seek acceptance, not approval. No one is going to agree with everything you think, need, and feel, but if they love you they will accept that you have a right to all three.
1) To be happy seek acceptance, not approval. No one is going to agree with everything you think, need, and feel, but if they love you they will accept that you have a right to all three.
2) If you go to an event alone no one will notice and think you're a pathetic loser with no friends. This is because you are NOT the focus of everyone else's life movie.
3) If you are dating someone non-exclusively and are not getting the attention you need, it is NOT jealousy or over-controlling to ask for it (I learned this in kindergarten, believe it or not.)
4) If you do not like one of your partner's friends but their relationship never impacts yours...shut the hell up.
5) Bros before hos is misogynistic, insulting, and ignores the entire point of life.
6) You do not have to know everything, as long as you're willing to bow to superior knowledge.
7) If you are not willing to give up control, you had better know what the hell you're talking about.
8) Anyone who has not experienced great loss will never be able to understand that pain and loss really do fade over time, even though they never go away completely.
9) Your pain is NOTHING like anyone else's...no one else's pain is ANYTHING like yours.
10) Always sit with your back to the wall and face the door.
11) If you are going to be with someone for the extent of your adult life you must agree on how to handle money, children, and sex. Everything else can be satisfied by compromise.
12) Cat people are weirdly insistent that they don't like dogs. Dog people think cats are kinda boring.
13) Growing up has nothing to do with age, maturity, career or family. It only starts when you notice yourself forming opinions that you don't mind having challenged.
14) Try every (non-allergenic) food at least once because oh, my god, lamb and eggplant are delicious.
15) It's okay to cry, it's okay not to cry.
16) If a coworker physically assaults you, take pictures of bruises, press charges, and demand to go home.
17) If it doesn't hurt anyone else, whatever you like during sex is totally and absolutely just fine.
18) If you need a drink to get over nervousness with a new partner that's just fine. If you need to get drunk in order to be interested in having sex with a recurrent partner that's not fine.
19) There can only be one of you, so make sure you're really you and not a repetition of your heroes.
20) Other people have opinions of you, and those are often wrong (see 2).
21) You will fail. You will always remember these moments.
22) You will prevail. You will never remember these moments.
23) Your taste in music, movies, and television does not define you nor anyone else.
24) If you don't get the appreciation you expect from doing someone a favour, don't do that person any more favours.
25) If you don't get the appreciation you expect from volunteering a favour, get over yourself that's not how it works.
26) Every time you think you're as mature as you'll ever be it's proof that you have a long way to go.
27) Regrets are fine, they're reason not to ever do that again.
28) There is a time for honesty and there is a time for silence, there is a time for truth and a time for obfuscation and prevarication.
29) If you're lying because you're ashamed of something--don't do it.
30) There is never enough money. There is never enough love. There is never enough silence.
31) Think before you speak.
32) Take a critical thinking course. God DAMMIT take a critical thinking course!
33) Accept faults in others. Work towards removing your own.
34) You can love other people without loving yourself. But it's really unlikely that they'll be able to love you back.
