I just turned 20 this week. This year has been quite a phenomenal year for me. In addition to starting to write for Forbes and encouraging other students to pursue entrepreneurship during school through speaking, I've had the opportunity to work and grow my company, a product that empowers the blind by recognizing what they are looking at. Moreover, I've been able to work with my friend to build up a company that is commercializing a product that turns any normal watch into a "smart" one, work on multiple different weekend and short term technology and venture-capital projects with good friends, meet and learn from hundreds of the craziest entrepreneurs and game-changers in dozens of different conferences and events, learn tremendous amounts of practical business skills at Wharton during my second year, and submatriculate into a Robotics Engineering and AI Masters Degree program at Penn.
But more so than "doing," this year has been a year of finding myself and personal development. I had the opportunity to travel to over 30 cities in 7 countries and learn from dozens of different cultures, read 30+ books, handwrite over 500 pages in my personal notebook, meet two new people and have a 1hr+ vulnerable conversation with each daily, woke up at 6:30 AM most days to exercise (lost 40+ lbs and gained 20lbs muscle in the process), and have dozens of late night conversations with friends asking the big questions in life. This post is the culmination of all that thinking as well as the personal values I've established over the last 20 years.
It's worth noting that these are my values and the values I want to focus on improving in myself for the next decade or so; I'm not trying to impose that these are the "right way" of living your life; you have every right to decide that for yourself. You'll note that I wrote this in the second person. I wrote this to myself (to that little voice in my head?) on my birthday, never intending to publish this publicly; it was only a personal statement of things I want to improve in myself so my apologies in advance if you think some of these items are trite or cliche (still I would recommend that you read the entire passage rather than just the catchy bolded headline for each value).
It's also worth noting that there have been many books and probably dozens of articles about each of these points. It seems like very little modern human thought is original-- rather it's an aggregation of all the experiences one's had in life; similarly these values are a juxtaposition of ideas that made sense in my head over the last 20 years. I personally subscribe heavily to Picasso's belief that "good artists copy...great artists steal." My apologies if I paraphrased your analogy without crediting you; it's not because I'm trying to take credit but rather because I could not decipher which source I had borrowed the analogy from.
So here we go. Here are 27 values I want to live by in my twenties -- and for the rest of my life -- in no particular order:
But more so than "doing," this year has been a year of finding myself and personal development. I had the opportunity to travel to over 30 cities in 7 countries and learn from dozens of different cultures, read 30+ books, handwrite over 500 pages in my personal notebook, meet two new people and have a 1hr+ vulnerable conversation with each daily, woke up at 6:30 AM most days to exercise (lost 40+ lbs and gained 20lbs muscle in the process), and have dozens of late night conversations with friends asking the big questions in life. This post is the culmination of all that thinking as well as the personal values I've established over the last 20 years.
It's worth noting that these are my values and the values I want to focus on improving in myself for the next decade or so; I'm not trying to impose that these are the "right way" of living your life; you have every right to decide that for yourself. You'll note that I wrote this in the second person. I wrote this to myself (to that little voice in my head?) on my birthday, never intending to publish this publicly; it was only a personal statement of things I want to improve in myself so my apologies in advance if you think some of these items are trite or cliche (still I would recommend that you read the entire passage rather than just the catchy bolded headline for each value).
It's also worth noting that there have been many books and probably dozens of articles about each of these points. It seems like very little modern human thought is original-- rather it's an aggregation of all the experiences one's had in life; similarly these values are a juxtaposition of ideas that made sense in my head over the last 20 years. I personally subscribe heavily to Picasso's belief that "good artists copy...great artists steal." My apologies if I paraphrased your analogy without crediting you; it's not because I'm trying to take credit but rather because I could not decipher which source I had borrowed the analogy from.
So here we go. Here are 27 values I want to live by in my twenties -- and for the rest of my life -- in no particular order:
- Remember that the future will be beautiful and that it will be better than you can ever imagine; don't worry too much. While having goals motivates you, thinking too much about what you need to do to be where you want to be is kind of hopeless and leads to unnecessary stress. The fact of the matter is you really don't know exactly where you want to be (i.e., sure you want to be an entrepreneur...but maybe you would be a better investor than an operator). Remember that you can't connect the dots going forward. Only looking back can you think, "woah I'm so glad I went to that event because I met the person who changed my life" or "it's insane that a little project that we built over a weekend ended up defining my life for the next two years" (credit Steve Jobs). Rather, just do what feels right in that moment and know that eventually you'll end up in the right place. Even if you told yourself you'd never work for anyone other than yourself, if this new company feels like it's a rocket ship, don't ask which seat, just get on board (credit to Eric Schmidt and Sheryl Sandberg for that one). Trust your gut even if it seems to be off path from the path you thought you wanted to take.
- Embrace your emotions. Let the sadness, anger, angst, envy, fears, and pain permeate your body. Observe your emotions and feel them rather than running away from them. You can't run forever; someday or another you have to confront yourself. Doing that is the only way to master yourself. As Mitch Albom says, "If you hold back on the emotions -- if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them -- you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, y