8 Reflections on Turning 28
The happiest and healthiest I’ve been
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“Life taught me love is risky. Death taught me to love even more.”
— Maxime Lagacé
This week, I turned 28.
I’m the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been — mentally, physically, and emotionally.
What this state of happy and healthy really means is a deep sense of completion, peace, and balance that I’ve never felt in prior years. It’s the state of fully expressing my sense of self despite the fear of rejections or failures. It’s one I have sustainably and gradually achieved over the past 12 months through a highly active lifestyle, creative means (e.g. painting), therapy sessions, healthy boundaries, and exploration of new hobbies and meaningful friendships.
There are some things I am most proud of this year:
- Lived in Paris for 2 months, which was a manifestation of a 4-year dream and a reconciliation with myself and my past. This turns out to be the single best decision I’ve made this year.
- Filed my first US patent in autonomous systems, with all its legal process completed right before my birthday. Am I officially an inventor now — holy sh*t.
- Developed thinking frameworks that have been quite useful for navigating my relationships and living a life true to my core values.
- Got to financially support my sister in Singapore fully until she graduated this year, and successfully maintained my monthly goal for supporting parents. I feel so lucky that I get to do this.
- Built my sisterhood support system full of badass women energy. Feeling safe and inspired by friends that you look up to and are also proud of inevitably builds a powerful connection.
To say that this year was a bit risky would be an understatement. I packed up my entire home in San Francisco to a 6-by-10 storage in February, moved to Europe in March, and later returned to the United States in June.
Although I had a very hard time finding balance during my time in Paris (I was enrolled in a French class with a 30-hour week commitment, while concurrently trying to juggle the social life and full-time work), I found there are so many beautiful things you can’t not love about Europe: the history, the food, the architecture, the energy, and the people. If it wasn’t because of the legal implications and time difference when working for a US company though, I would most likely have stayed longer in Paris.
At the same time, living abroad has also made me more appreciative of life in the US, and more specifically the Bay Area: the efficiency in meeting the day-to-day needs (and getting things done), the ample opportunities globally and diversity in cultures, the breathtaking nature, and the more liberal and innovative approach in both the political systems and individual ways of thinking.
The above experiences, and everything else that helped shape the person I am today are simply an aggregated result of my daily choices. That said, I think it’s safe to assume that it is the better choices I made this year that gave rise to this happiest and healthiest version of myself.
Here are 8 reflections that enabled me to live a life more aligned to my truths, which led me to a happier, more fulfilling life:
1. Follow your curiosity more than prestige or money.
“Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.” — Linus Pauling
One of the things I often regret is overweighing then taking opportunities that offer higher external rewards, like prestige or money, at the cost of a much lower interest in the things I care about (internal rewards). This is not to say that we should be completely ignorant of our financial situation and goals. But given the calculated risks, following your curiosity would most likely end up as a greater investment in the long term.
By greater investment I mean achieving the balance of both internal and external rewards for a long period of time. Following your curiosity allows you to be more engaged with the things you genuinely desire or want to pursue. Over time, curiosity gives you skills. When a skill evolves into a passion and the desire for mastery, you would more naturally create values in the lives of others. It is through this usefulness and the cycle of feeding our intrinsic satisfaction that money and other external rewards would likely follow in the most sustainable and effortless way — not the other way around.
2. Manage your energy, not your time.
“While time is a finite resource, energy can be systematically expanded and renewed by establishing [habits].” — Harvard Business Review
In physics, energy is defined as the capacity to work. This roughly translates to the productivity level we have as a human being. The problem of not getting more things done in a particular day is often not about time management. I can’t just work at any time and all the time, so I had to build habits that I know would improve my productivity — to work smarter, not harder.
For example, I find journaling in the morning useful to get the right mindset that sets my energy level for the rest of the day. Running and working out are necessary for my mental health, giving me that extra endorphins to feel more energized after. So I make time to exercise almost every single day.
Being able to manage my energy better results not only in higher productivity, but also happier moods. This brings me to my next point.
3. When making a decision, choose what energizes you more.
“Put your energy into building what is creative, valuable and empowering. And you won’t have to constantly fight against what is destructive and draining. ” — Ralph Marston
As someone who wants to do everything and makes everyone around me happy, I admit that I’m highly prone to feeling easily overwhelmed. I’ve been much better about managing my overreactive flight-or-flight response in my late 20's, but still — nothing feels worse than having a crippling anxiety day in and day out. So over the past year, I learned the hard way to proactively say no to things and people that drain my energy.
Your time is way too precious to waste on things that don’t empower you. Each time you say yes to one action, you automatically say no to other feasible options. Asking myself, “does this energize me or drain me?” in every big and little decision to take actions has been incredibly useful for navigating my personal life, day-to-day activities, and especially for dealing with relationships.
4. If it’s not a hell yes, it’s definitely a no.
“While you were overthinking, you missed everything worth feeling.” — Nitya Prakash
When it comes to reducing the noise in my life, sticking to a binary decision like the hell yeah or no framework has not only given me more confidence in my decision, but also so much more time back for the things that bring me life. As a result, I am left with better experiences and more beautiful memories in less amount of time.
Now, look back on all the trips that you were fully bought in, or when you went on dates that you were so excited about. Do you cherish those memories a lot more? Do these memories leave you with more positive emotions?
Exactly. Know that you own 100% of your time, so you’re in control of how you make the most out of it. If you’re an over-thinker like me, this tool will definitely help simplify your life, make better and more efficient decisions, and become a happier human bean overall.
5. Don’t force things.
“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, then it never was.” — anonymous
I‘ve heard this old saying since I was a little kid, but I don’t think I’ve really understood what it meant until a few years ago, when I realized that force is the nemesis of love. What is meant for you will find you.
You can’t make someone love you. You can’t force yourself to be attracted to someone you’re not into either. How many times have we forced a relationship to work? Chasing people and trying to force something to happen will instead make them uncomfortable and give rise to friction, which ends up repelling away what we want instead of attracting them.
I’m also not saying for us to stop attempting or hustling, but to do the right thing that’s within our control, to let go of any outcome, and to stop forcing things. There is freedom in the absence of force, and there is peace in freedom. I think freedom is one of the most loving things you can give to yourself, and the better way to build a more peaceful life.
6. What’s at rest stays at rest, and what’s in motion stays in motion.
“An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion.” — Newton’s first law of motion
It feels a bit cringy to share this as one of my most effective ways to break a bad habit, but a shift in perspective really can change your life for the better.
Earlier this year, I visited Athens, and in particular the Lyceum where Aristotle used to teach. In one of our tours, I was reminded one of his greatest teachings on “the first basis from which a thing is known.” This means that a first principle is a basic assumption that cannot be deduced any further.
Understanding Newton’s concept of inertia that’s ingrained in my daily routines, for example, has given me a better approach in dealing with bad habits, namely procrastination. Why? Because it implies that procrastination leads to more procrastination, and action leads to more action. In other words, it would feel a lot easier to start something, regardless of how difficult it is, when you simply understand that things will get easier once you start moving.
7. Setting healthy boundaries means self-respect.
“Boundaries are the framework we set for ourselves on how we want to be treated by others and how we treat other people.” — Karen Salerno, MSSA, LISW-S
Healthy boundaries are an important tool to make sure that you have your needs met. So the first step to setting healthy boundaries is knowing what your needs are and what you need to be healthy, to have a good self-esteem, and to stay grounded with your sense of identity.
What helps me achieve this is through first understanding myself, my core values and beliefs, strengths and limitations — through questions like: What do I need to be happy? What makes me feel safe? How much time do I need with myself v. others to feel empowered and grounded? What do I really want?
For example, setting boundaries in my personal life has allowed me to filter out toxic relationships. I am grateful for friends who keep choosing me even at my worst of times, who choose to see me for who I am and believe in me year after year, no matter how far apart we are. I’d like to think that narrowing down your circles to the best quality there is is a form of self-respect.
8. You are already good enough, but you can always get better.
“What’s the greatest lesson a woman should learn? That since day one, she’s already had everything she needs within herself. It’s the world that convinced her she did not.” — Rupi Kaur
It hits home each time I remind myself of this principle, since I had internally and perpetually struggled with self acceptance growing up. It infers a delicate balance between self-acceptance and self-improvement. There’s beauty in this though — that self-acceptance and self-improvement need each other, that having one without the other inevitably would lead to dysfunction.
If you’re all self-acceptance without self-improvement, then you become a lazy, indulgent, selfish twat. If you are all self-improvement with no self-acceptance, then you become a neurotic, hyper-critical, over-anxious mess.
Some effective ways for practicing self-acceptance include meditations, connecting with your inner child, going to therapies, and practicing gratitudes. Other effective ways for practicing self-improvements include setting milestones, learning new skills, and getting out of your comfort zone.
You are perfect just as you are, but you can always be better.
It’s crazy to think that the most confusing and loneliest times, and the most liberating moment of my life all happened in the past 5 years since I moved to the Bay Area. I think one strong signal that indicates the happier and healthier times of my life is this greater sense of clarity in who I am, what I want, and where I’m going — knowing that the only thing that is constant is change.
The peace, sense of wholeness, and balance that come with this year’s reflections remind me of what my father always said to me when I was younger: “everything in life needs a balance.” Doesn’t everything make more sense as we get older. As we become more patient, reflective, and intentional. As we become more open-minded yet grounded at the same time, more loving yet less attached. As we become more aware that we’re such a complex, multidimensional creature in need not of just a single thing, but many: health, family and friends, career, hobbies, and everything else in between.
If you make it til here, thank you for reading. I hope you find some things in this article that inspire you. Either way, I’d love to hear from you down in the comment, or inbox me at moorissa dot maura at gmail dot com. Will leave you with my favorite quote of all time. Talk soon and enjoy the ride!
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955–1967
