This weekend I got to do a lot of thinking- birthday was lovely, and I’m 32! I love it. I love getting older. Mainly because I think this thing called life becomes more clear year after year. I mean sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, and most of the time it’s excruciatingly messy and painful, but overall, in those moments you get to reflect- I’m like…. ok. I think some progress is being made. Yay!
On a side note, I think you’re getting older when you’re super excited to spend your 32nd birthday at a place like this:
#Humblebrag (This was a birthday gift from my father-in-law, we took a family trip there, it was great. I have a feeling I want to make this a tradition)
I think as you get older, at least for me, I want to make things simpler. So here are some values or principles that I want to try and live by:
- I would rather be happy than right: This is the biggest one for me. This also took me a long time, because even though you understand it on an intellectual level, I don’t think I really internalized this one until recently. This was true especially when it came to work for me. It was time to let things go. I always said that if my ideas on how to run a for-profit company didn’t work out, I would try to implement those ideas in a non profit. And after 9 years, that’s the decision we came to in the end. All the work we have done in water is going to become open sourced, and run as a non profit. Oh, and we aren’t relying on it to pay our bills. Which is super liberating, to be honest. At least for now. Like I said, I would rather be happy than right. My ideas were wrong, at least at the time. But timing is everything, and the time is not now. So now, I have a day job (which I’m actually pretty stoked about) and a weekend fun project. And although initially it was painful, it’s turning out to be super great for the day to day peace of mind and happiness. I’m more excited about life than ever before, and I’m seeing that I have so much life and opportunity ahead.
- People over everything, all the time: I think the more I go through life, the more I realize that most things are fake. This idea of work, is actually fake. This idea of “responsibility” is actually fake. This idea of “society” is actually fake. The only thing that’s real, is people. At the end of the day, everything can be broken down into a human interaction with another human. What is work? One or more humans working together to produce something valuable in the world. What is “responsibility”? A commitment you made to another human. What is “Society”? A social contract with other humans. So now, when I make any choice, whatever it may be, I try to put the people I care about in my life, first. The only thing that’s real is your interaction with other people. And the way you make them feel before, during, and after that interaction. I want to do a better job of checking myself- if I can really focus on each interaction I have with another human, and make those count, I think I’m doing pretty good in life.
- And the most important person is me: This one I’ve learned over the years but if I don’t put myself first, I can’t do anything else. You know, the whole oxygen mask thing. Put yours on before you can put on other people’s. I need to remember that. Sometimes that means saying no to a bunch of cool stuff because you know you need to sleep a bit more and exercise. Sometimes that means saying yes to something, and working in obscurity on it because it makes you feel good. Sometimes its just realizing the only person you have control over is yourself, your story, and how you react to the world. And nobody is going to care more about you, than you. (And I don’t think it should be any other way). I’ve found that when I can do these things, I’m just a kinder, more compassionate person all round.
I think if I can really follow these things over this next year, I’m on the way to a level up. I love leveling up. It’s the best.
So I Quit My Job and Moved to India 