19 Pieces of Advice From 2019
What can I say about 2019?
I quit my job, put my life in two checked bags, and moved from New York City to Amsterdam with someone I love. I started a new job, re-learned how to ride a bike, and promptly got a concussion (and my first stitches)! There was loss, illness, and uncertainty. There were hard goodbyes, tearful reunions, and a lot of new “hellos.”
If you are new here: I’ve been doing this for a few years now. I start each January with a list of things I learned in the previous year. It all began—as many things do for me—on twitter, where I made a long thread of “bad advice” at the end of 2016. By the following year, my appetite for earnestness had grown and instead, I wrote a list of the best advice I could offer from 2017. I did the same in 2018. And here I am again.
I’m a nostalgic, sentimental person. But I’m also someone who makes sense of my feelings and life by writing things down. Plus, I get validation and a sense of community by sharing it — I might as well be honest about that, because that’s kind of the theme of this exercise. So, honestly, here’s what I learned in 2019.
1
“Send it” is a very effective personal motto.
2
Our memories are selective, and sometimes deceptive. This is good, because often the most rewarding experiences in our lives are hard and painful — getting your heart broken or, say, moving 3,000 miles away from a place you love and starting absolutely over. If we could remember these hard moments in perfect detail, we’d never try brave and worthy things again. I’ve heard the same is true of childbirth but cannot confirm. All of this to say: make the choices you are excited about and if it hurts later, thank your selective memory for tricking you into bravery.
3
Practice entertaining your flaws and mistakes with curiosity instead of defensiveness or self-loathing. Gentle self-interrogation is an art and practicing it will keep you from becoming the person you are most afraid of being. Admittedly, this one is ongoing.
4
If you unleash The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up onto your winter wardrobe in the middle of June, please be advised that winter will still arrive without warning or regard for your cold, unprepared ass.
5
It’s okay to give up. All that “never give up” rhetoric can be helpful and inspiring when you’re trying to finish a workout class, kick a bad habit, or stick it out on a tough project. But every motivational saying has its limits. There are many people, jobs, and situations in life that will take endlessly, give only conditionally (like, when something’s in it for them), and never change no matter how much you give or suffer to make the situation work. In fact, they will never change precisely because you are willing to give and suffer to make it work.
Most people will treat you a slightly darker shade of how you treat yourself. So: don’t let the cult of “the grind” gaslight you into a life of joyless toil. You are not a failure because you walk away from things that don’t work for you, but sticking around to suffer in the name of “never giving up,” is a failure of imagination.
6
If you are someone who is learning to establish boundaries, you will overprotect sometimes and it will be uncomfortable for you. If you are someone who is learning how to open up, you will overshare sometimes and it will be uncomfortable for you. These are two points on a broad spectrum, but the truth here is: we all do some overcorrecting in life. Remember that when you feel self-conscious, and when you see someone else facing the same challenge.
7
Drag your friends into the photo booths. Keep the postcards that come with the restaurant checks. Take pictures shamelessly. Keep thorough notes on the good stuff as it’s happening and it will carry you through the changing tide.
And another thing! We take pictures of the things we love, so categorically discount the opinions of people who would rather roll their eyes than get caught loving a moment, a meal, or the people they’re with.
8
Try everything.
9
Hurtful words are the hardest ones to let go of. The fighting words, the backhanded remarks at the bar, petty bullshit over brunch, and all manner of careless commentary. It’s easy, and feels self-protective, to hang on to this genre of memory. And sometimes, if we are honest, it feels perversely good to hit “shuffle all” on the playlist of past hurts (“Ouch! — Just The Hits”).
But if you hold on to hurtful words long enough, you may find that you can only hear them in your own voice. You’ve retold the story at the bar, or over brunch; replayed it privately, imagining things you could’ve said back. The tape has faded with use. Hurtful words last as long as we’ll give them voice. When it’s time, let them go.
10
It’s okay that you are not a morning person. Forgive yourself for this sin against the archetype of the optimized worker bee. Have a cup of coffee after 3pm (who cares), and when the morning people have fallen asleep, enjoy the sexy silence of back half of the clock
11
Your best friends are the people you can tell the truth to. That’s it!
12
The physical feeling of nervousness and the physical feeling of excitement — the solar plexus swirl — are nearly identical. The next time you feel that stir in the pit of your stomach, try to decide that it’s actually excitement. This trick works sometimes. H/T my therapist.
13
Just because something is really hard, doesn’t mean you’re bad at it. It means that what you’re trying to do is really hard. H/T Danny Marsh.
14
Eventually, you’re going to fall off your bike. But riding a bike is much easier if you’re not constantly thinking about that. Anyway, even falling off a bike is just like riding a bike.
15
If you can’t make something better (by apologizing, changing a behavior, replacing what you broke), all you can do is learn from it. Dwelling is the devil’s invention.
16
When you work in a competitive field, when your output (both quantity and quality) is your worth; when hobbies are increasingly valued based on their ability to earn you more social or literal currency; when your favorite clothing brand and gym is part of your personal brand and even political identity, and when every success or failure in any of these verticals feels visible to everyone you’ve ever met — it is time to consider what is truly important to you.
I’m not breaking any news to say that we live in an incredibly performative and competitive time. But the good news is: becoming an adult means you can arrange your life to your liking. A good way to start is by noticing which things you participate in with a vague sense of resentment — and then restructuring your relationship with those things, or eliminating them. For example, I have realized that my job does not have to be the most interesting thing about me. I have also taken a step back from oat milk.
17
Stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. While it’s true that life ebbs and flows, suffering is not distributed on a schedule or in proportion to joy. An accomplishment will not always be followed by a failure, and the good things in your life are not proof that you are overdue for hardship. Joy is not a finite resource, but it is precious. Please let yourself feel it.
18
When you tell people you love them, be as precise as you can. Who knows how long we have on this planet? Tell the truth. “I look up to you a lot, thank you for being that person for me” or, “I don’t know who or where I would be if I hadn’t met you.” Few things will fill you with more love, than giving it away like this.
19
A last word on Love, the capital L kind: people love to say, “when you know, you know.” In my experience of Love, what is more important than that blind, unsayable sense of knowing, is finding someone with whom you can say: “I don’t know, but you’re the only person I’d want to find out with.”
xx
