“We don’t have to waste our time learning how to make pastry when we can use grandma’s recipes.”― Orson De Witt, Earth Won’t Miss You
Some Of The People I’m Grateful For This Year
When we seek life hacks and thrifted wisdom, we often turn to the lofty role models we see on the glossy covers of Forbes, Vogue, and the like.
But this year, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, I wanted to take a big highlighter, and emphasize something really important: there is wisdom all around us.
There is wisdom in our family, wisdom in our closest friends.
I would even venture to say there is wisdom in little children and animals, and in the minds and hearts of every person who hasn’t been invited onto a famous podcast to share their Top 3 Life Hacks For Breaking Out Of The Matrix.
This year I’m spending Thanksgiving abroad in Japan, so I’m leaning more towards a “friendsgiving” year than “familysgiving”, but in reflecting on my life, I realized that some votes of thanks are in order!
When pondering exactly how to distribute the thanks, I decided to pick twelve wise people in my own life- one for each month of the year- and tell you something I learned from them.
12 Life Hacks From Some Of My Personal Wisdom Providers
#1: “Just go to sleep already.” – C.
Do you have that one friend who you can’t text past midnight without getting a message back that reads, “why are you still awake?!”
…Except ten times more aggressively, in all-caps, and with four too many exclamation points?
Well, I do.
The annoying thing is- she’s right.
Let’s face it, you’re up so late at night because your mind is catastrophizing about that one thing you said to Sally in the bathroom that afternoon without thinking.
If not that, you’re scrolling to avoid thinking about it, or you convinced yourself one additional email will only take “a few minutes” to answer.
Stop.
Put your phone down. Close your laptop. Go to sleep already. You will feel better in the morning (even Harvard agrees!).
#2: Don’t sacrifice your peace just to put everyone else at ease. – My mom
I was once the person who fetishized unnecessary sacrifice, so I will be the first to say I learned this one the hard way.
Over my short (but oh, so long) 20 years on our little blue dot, I have sacrificed my peace way too often to make other people comfortable, and to keep them content.
It was always along the lines of “keeping the peace” for others, but crumbling on the inside.
Anyway, long story short, my mom was right.
Now here’s the thing I didn’t realize before that prevented me from truly internalizing this: when you don’t advocate for yourself, you aren’t actually gaining respect and admiration.
Instead, you are training people to walk all over you.
So speak up. Stand up for yourself. Fight for your peace and do not compromise.
#3: Stop picking at your face. – my grandmother
If I had a dollar for every time my grandmother told me to stop picking at my face- a habit I sometimes do without even thinking – I would basically be a trust fund baby.
But even apart from picking at my face, this extends further.
When you’re stressed out because you feel like you failed, don’t sabotage yourself even further.
If you have acne, don’t pick at your face to release frustration, even though you will be tempted to.
If you’re like me, you have also had the late nights of low self-esteem-scrolling through other people’s social media because it facilitates the ever-deeper spiral into self-loathing.
The first step to getting out of a deep hole is to stop digging- or in this case, to stop picking.
What you feel will change by the morning.
The scab you get from popping the pimple will last a bit longer.
#4: Your perception of inadequacy comes from how hard you push yourself, not from the reality of your progress. – My 10-year-old sister
Watching a young child grow up is the crash course (and crucial life hacks) in perseverance and resilience you didn’t know you needed.
For me, I think a lot about my sister.
She is incredibly busy, plays several instruments, and always seems to have another extracurricular hobby that she is trying in school.
And yet…and yet.
From the inside of her own life, she doesn’t see her incredible progress and growth.
Why?
Because she is pushing hard and trying so many new things.
Honestly though, I feel the same way most days, and I am ten years ahead.
You think you’re not doing well because you are pushing yourself hard and your standards are getting higher.
In fact, the higher your standards get, the more you probably feel you are falling short.
What you don’t realize is how much progress you have already made, and the expectations you have already exceeded.
All you can see is how far you have left to go.
So remember- you are learning. You are growing. You might not feel it, but you’re doing great.
This growth is the whole point.
#5: Effort counts twice. – my brother
There is a special place in the world for all the women with little brothers who once shadow-boxed around them in public and now communicate exclusively through Michael Scott and Phil Dunphy references.
My brother, however, is not just an Office superfan or a shadow-boxing addict.
He is also ruthlessly stubborn and (unreasonably?) obsessive.
When he gets it in his head that he wants something, there is no ‘undo’ button.
In watching my brother grow up, I’ve had the opportunity to see him get into obsessions and pursue them with crazy intensity, whether it’s boxing, video editing and social media marketing, or business and finance.
He does the unglamorous work on the missions he cares about, and then he gets results.
It’s not so much a hack as a heuristic, but here it is: become obsessed.
Relentlessly pursue your vision for success.
Work harder, because effort counts twice.
#6: Not everyone is worth the effort. -Aunt T.
Some hacks turn out to not be hacks at all.
For example, when we are taught to measure success against how close we are to being married, having two kids and a dog, two matching BMWs, and an iPhone that doesn’t fit into the pockets of our jeans.
Here’s the truth: Being single doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you.
Losing friends doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
Getting ghosted by a mentor or a role model you really looked up to doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
Getting rejected from your dream college or the perfect internship doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
Oh, and here’s a controversial one: Maybe losing those particular people and life paths is a blessing in disguise
…Because sometimes the hacks that get us to where we want to be are the painful losses we didn’t want to endure.
So listen to my aunt and walk away.
Better people will find you, and what’s more is they will choose you.
#7: It’s never too late to start something new. – my grandfather
Apparently, you’re supposed to retire at 65.
Some people do that.
My grandfather isn’t one of them.
In fact, he decided to go one step further: get an additional job.
Now, my grandfather has worn lots of hats throughout his life, so I guess it wasn’t a surprise when in his 60s he decided to add another one to the list: being an ordained deacon in the Catholic church.
So far, he has been an anesthesiologist, a pilot, a boat captain, a boy scout leader, a dive master, a business owner, father/grandfather, and now, a deacon.
Some people might get dizzy just imagining this, but for me, getting to witness this has been a source of peace.
In a world that tells you to choose one thing for the rest of your life, my grandfather has been a shining example of what it looks like to reinvent yourself over and over again.
Throughout your life, there is actually lots more time than you realize.
No, you can’t have seven careers going at the same time, but over 70 years, you will have space to grow in many directions.
And guess what?
If you get to your 60s and realize you have blossoming career aspirations in a completely different space, it’s not too late.
Don’t get stressed about having to choose one thing and commit to it forever.
There is always time for that reinvention.
#8: You won’t realize how hard it is until it isn’t hard anymore. – my high school homeroom teacher
As a teenager, I thought life was supposed to be miserable.
High school was lonely, and it felt like every few weeks I found myself crying on the bathroom floor all over again- or in the office of my homeroom teacher, updating her on the most recent drama in my life.
If it wasn’t boy drama, it was feeling like I was going to fail all my classes and never get into college, or stressing because “I have no idea what I want to do with my life and everyone else does”.
Looking back, fifteen-year-old me deserves a lot of credit that she didn’t give herself.
She did some hard things back then- hard things that seemed impossible once- and she had the courage to invest in herself and create the life I get to enjoy now.
I wish I could tell my fifteen-year-old self that it gets way, way better, and that she is facing some inordinately hard years, so crying on the bathroom floor is normal.
However, I also know my fifteen-year-old self would have rolled her eyes hearing that.
In truth, she just had to be patient, get older, and come out the other end of the tunnel to see the bright light of her future.
How did I ever make it through that?
Now I know: turns out, being a teenager is just incredibly difficult, and you only realize just how difficult it is once you grow out of it, look back, and wonder how did I even survive that?
For me, one of the people who provided me incredible solace in the difficult stormy waters of high school was my homeroom teacher, with whom I have exchanged tears, laughter, heartbreak, and lots of small pep talks and reassurances.
You might not be a teenager, but you can still pose the question to yourself: What if what you’re experiencing right now is just difficult? In fact, what if it’s supposed to be difficult? What if you can’t make it out exclusively with skincare hacks and new piercings?
Could it be that you are growing and changing, and emotional growing pains are real?
Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, there is a beautiful future waiting for you on the other side?
#9: Don’t underestimate the social credit you get by being genuinely excited for other people. – N.
You know that feeling when you open up LinkedIn and the first thing you see is a post about yet another person who is excited to start their sparkly new internship?
Or how it feels when you’ve just broken up, but that girl who sits three cubicles away from you met the love of her life who just engaged to her at sunset, and by the way you can see the diamond on her finger from the moon?
Yes, I’m talking about that sticky green jealousy that makes you hate them but hate yourself more.
When you feel the lack of what you want, it’s natural to resent the abundance of others.
So, naturally, if I then told you to pick up those pom poms of support and love and genuine excitement, and wave them in the air as hard as you can, you would probably want to punch me in the throat.
Here’s why you shouldn’t: when you celebrate other people’s wins, you are giving yourself an important message.
You are signalling that you know your win is coming too.
And trust me, the wins are coming your way.
#10: Quit the boring books. – Aunt W.
The sunk cost fallacy is real, and if you have ever kept reading a boring book way past the event horizon at which you knew it would never get better, then you are a victim.
Of all my aunts, this one reads the most voraciously. It’s actually a little intimidating, between you and me.
But here’s what she won’t do: keep reading a bad book until the bitter end.
I learned to put down bad books too, but there was a time when I felt I simply didn’t have the authority to say a book was boring enough to be abandoned.
Now, I think about the sunk cost fallacy in other areas, and wonder to myself where I need to jump the ship and move onto something better.
You have the authority to make that call for yourself.
No, really. You do.
Yes, there is uncertainty, and yes, you might jump onto another boring book, but you will at least be able to handle it just like you did the last one.
Remember, it doesn’t matter how many pages in you are. If it’s not getting any better, it’s probably not worth the wait.
#11: It starts with deciding to be an artist. – L.
I used to carry the deep belief that I had to do hard things to prove I could do them. Then, I had to deprive myself of the things I loved to prove I had “discipline”.
One of the activities I deprived myself of was being an artist.
When I held this belief up to the light, I wondered where it came from, then promptly decided I didn’t want to carry it anymore.
Since then, I have embarked on the long, slow, acutely painful process of reclaiming the side of me that is, at heart, a writer-artist-explorer.
L. has been my writing buddy since we met in kindergarten, and she has been instrumental in showing me what it looks like to step into your creativity and live like an artist.
Really, it boils down to this: If you want to live a creative life, stop telling people you’re not an artist.
If you want to be a writer, start calling yourself one.
Call yourself a scientist.
Call yourself an entrepreneur.
Being exactly what you aspire to be is about actually making the choice to be that thing and see yourself as worthy of honoring your gifts.
#12: You might need to cry first, but you still have what it takes, and you will impress yourself later on. – my littlest sister.
Meet my youngest, yet most mature sibling- because, like I said, life hacks also come from kids.
She may be little, and she may be sweet, but make no mistake: she is a force to be reckoned with.
My sister has decided she will one day run the Natural History Museum in London, and that she would like to pursue paleontology. (She’s 4 by the way. Who told her what “paleontology” was??)
She is several grade levels ahead in math, and when it comes to reading and writing, it feels like she could be very well start composing Shakespearean sonnets.
However, like every superwoman, she has her kryptonite: Kumon.
The funny thing about Kumon and my sister is that she is actually amazing at it.
Like I said, she is incredibly precocious, and has no problem understanding what to do.
So the problem isn’t the math. It’s the act of sitting down and doing extra work.
Now, I don’t do Kumon, but I’ve sat down to do things before that give me that same feeling.
It’s the “this code cell will be the end of me” feeling, or “there’s so many applications to submit and they’ll mostly get rejected” feeling.
My sister cries about Kumon the same way I cry about Python error messages.
But guess what else?
After crying, she does the Kumon. And after the Kumon, she gets to play.
Sometimes, in order to sit down and get through long sheets of math, you need to cry first.
That’s okay. Just get it done.
Thought To Action
- Design a Tech Sabbath: Pick one day or evening a week to go screen-free and let your thoughts get noisy again. (Read why stillness fuels creativity).
- Build a ‘Slow Stack’: Keep one long, complex book by your bed and promise it five pages a day—no summaries, no speed. Just sustained attention.
- Use AI as a Mirror: Instead of asking an AI tool for answers, ask it for better questions. Collect your favorites in a “Thinking Prompts” doc.
- Join the 30-Minute Club: Set aside 30 minutes each day to learn something unmonetized—no career goals, no productivity—just intellectual play.
- Create a Digital Garden: Capture the best things you’re reading, writing, and noticing in one evolving document. Growth deserves a home.
Sources
No external sources were used for this post.
Leave a Reply