This week is a great week to talk about what I have learned over the past thirty years.  I am turning 30 on Thursday! This will be a very introspective week for me.  I plan to enjoy this week, but I know that I must take some time to reflect what has happened over the past thirty years.  This post will be a great start to that.

It hasn't just been the things that I have been through that I have learned from, but I have also learned from books and music. I have come across many an important passage in a book that has helped me to see more clearly things that were happening in my own life.  Music has done the same thing.  When I read or hear something that is so fitting to myself, I think, "Now why didn't I write that!?"  However, that is why there are author's and musicians:  They write from their own experiences in hopes to reach out to other's.  That is all I have ever wanted as a writer:  To reach out to other's so that they know they are not alone.

Over the past thirty years, I have learned many, many things.  Some good, some not so good, and some it took me a very long time to learn and realize.  Those challenges, those "A-HA!" moments, are what make people who they are.  Those moments are what made me, me.

I hope some of the things I have learned can help someone else. No two lives are the same, but maybe, just maybe, something will resonate with someone else and their enlightenment can begin.


1.  Be broken to be whole.-Lao Tzu  (There is beauty in the breakdown.  Light in the darkness.  If you want to become whole, let yourself break.  Let it all go.  Let it all out.  Then, begin again.)

2.  People change.  Sometimes they change for the better, sometimes it is for the worst.  You have to decide how you want to be treated.  If they don't treat you the way you want to be treated, it is time to move on.  That goes for everyone in your life.  EVERYONE.

3.  Be the kind of friend you need.

4.  What you put out into the world, comes back to you.  If you spend your time being hateful, guess what is going to come back to you?  We all have bad days.  When you are having a bad day, do something for someone else.  Watch and see what happens to you. 

5.  Letting go is hard.  Whatever the case may be, letting go is hard.  It is not meant to be easy.  Take your time, feel your pain, nurture yourself and slowly, very slowly,  you will begin to heal.  Remember:  letting go is a part of life, albeit a sucky part, but we all have to do it.

6.  It is a bad day, not a bad life. Do not take your bad day out on others.  It isn't their fault.  Besides, then you could be responsible for their bad day and who wants to have that on their shoulders?  No one.

7.  Do not buy a car based on a television commercial.  EVER.  Seriously, don't do it.

8.  Be comfortable with yourself before trying to enter into a relationship with someone else.  This one is so hard.  I have found that it is acceptable to not like certain things about yourself sometimes, but try not to harp on it every day, all day.  Do not become obsessed with what you think are flaws in yourself.  Learn to appreciate YOU.

9.  If a handful of people are telling you something is bad, it probably is.  Re-evaluate.

10.  Listen to your instincts.  If something doesn't feel right, walk away.  If something doesn't sound right, ask questions.  If the initial thought in your head is, "Whoa, wait just a minute here..." after someone has said or done something, walk away and evaluate the situation on your own.  Nine times out of ten, you are right about your feelings.

11.  "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."-Eleanor Roosevelt ('Tis true!)

12.  Sometimes all you need is sunshine, good music on the radio, and a faraway destination.

13.  Don't beat yourself up over your mistakes.  You are human.  That's what we do.  Learn from them and move on.

14.  If you want something bad enough, you have to work for it.  I mean work for it.  There will be times you want to quit, don't.  Don't ever quit.  If you want it, get it, and don't let anyone else tell you that you can't do it or you can't have something.

15.  When you feel like you are at your wits end, have a good cry, pick yourself back up, and keep going.

16.  Use pain as fuel for your journey.  Take all of the anger, the hurt, the sadness, and the rejection that you have had in your life, ball it up, and set fire to it.  Use it to propel you into a new frame of mind, a new life, a new beginning.

17.  "Drowning never is an option when I am my own life jacket."  -Meredith Levick.  Save yourself.  No one else will.  Do not expect people to help you out of tight spots or bail you out of bad times.  If you have people that will do that for you, great!  BE THANKFUL AND APPRECIATIVE!  Do not burn them.  Do not mistreat them.  However, you need not get yourself into those predicaments.  It takes practice and mistakes.  Learn from it all and move on.

18.  Steven Tyler of Aerosmith said it best, "Life's a journey, not a destination."

19.  Stay away from drama and the people that create it.  Anyone who busies themselves with everyone elses life while theirs is falling apart or not going anywhere, is not really a person you want to have in your corner.  They will flip on you like that *snaps fingers*.  (Read more about my experience with drama here.)

20.  Stop looking through keyholes.  You will start believing that most things are keyhole shaped.  Translation:  Open your mind, allow yourself to experience things, live in the grey of life sometimes.  When I stopped seeing things as black or white and started exploring the grey areas, my life exploded, for the better.

21.  "Don’t mistake silence for ignorance.  It may just happen that some of us know a lot, we just don’t go on and on about things, unlike some of those who know very little." -Author Unknown.  Sometimes the people that talk the most are not as intelligent as they may appear to be.  That may sound harsh, but I have experienced it first hand.  Some people will do or say anything to get you into their good grace's, and sometimes, that isn't a good place to be.

22.  Unless you are a celebrity or own a business, you do not need 500+ friends on your Facebook page. Seriously.  Do you even know all those people?  Come on now!  (For anyone who is curious, I have 163 friends on Facebook and I like it that way.)

23.  If you don't agree with the way someone is leading their life, it isn't your place.  If they come to you and ask your opinion or advice on something, give it.  Do not butt in to other people's lives.  It isn't any of your business.  Nine times out of ten, they aren't going to listen anyway.

24.  Do not start completely over on a 10-15 page research paper the week before it is due in your second to last semester of college.  You will consume way too much coffee and sugar and you will feel like you are dying.

25.  Don't go to college unless you really know what you want to do.  Parents, you can shoot me later.

26.  Highway patrolman don't care that you may possibly be related to one of their own.  They are gonna write you a ticket anyway.

27.  If the teacher says not to pass notes in class, don't do it.  If you have luck like mine (which is:  If it is going to happen, it is going to happen to me.) your note will be confiscated and read ALOUD to the WHOLE CLASS.  You will then remain in a constant state of embarrassment the rest of your school career.

28.  Listen to your parents on most things.  If they tell you you can't go and do something, it is for your own good.  However, some of you may have parent's like mine who let you figure thing's out for yourself.  You may get angry at them for this.  Don't.  They are trying to teach you about life and how to be an adult.  It is for your own good.

29.  Love your sibling(s).  They will be all you have left of your childhood once your parents are gone.

30.  Every day is a new day.  Do not carry yesterday's junk into your tomorrow.