The five most important life lessons of 2022 aren’t magic tricks.
No, I’m not the David Blane of life lessons (yet some are supported by positive psychology).*
After a culmination and life of athletic purpose, a major surgery, and retirement from pro sports at 35, I lived in the terror of never knowing what to do with my life again.
Enter depression.
Anxiety.
Daily panic attacks.
Cue the violins cuz my life felt harder and sadder than Joe Dirt.
But after years of suffering, I learned struggle could be necessary for the growth of souls and transition us into the next phase of meaningful living.
Take a deep breath, enjoy my GIFs, and read the most curious life lessons I learned in 2022:
Life Lesson #1: Why You Need to Make Your Burn and Build Pile
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” — C.G. Jung
Create distinct lines between what’s a good struggle and a bad struggle.
Put these two struggles into piles of “good for you and bad for you.”
Good for you pile (we are going to build this pile slowly): Going for a walk every morning, meditating, reading a book, writing in a gratitude journal, or calling your lovely mom or dad weekly is a good struggle.
Bad for you pile (we are going to light this f*cker on fire): Doing crack. Idling on the internet or social media. Skipping workouts. Eating a pound of Rasinets. Procrastinating when you should be acting. Not exploring curiosities.
This bad struggle feels better and way more fun on the front end, but the bad reveals itself on the ratty backside like that Joe Dirt mullet.
Creating a build-and-burn pile was one of the most important life lessons I learned in 2022.
How to finish the burn pile
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final.” — Rainer Marie Rilke
Grab everything you don’t use anymore. The Abercrombie shirt from college you never wear. The pumps with dust on them. The old shitty books you didn’t read. The socks with holes in them. The friends that never call you back or visit. The clutter.
Get rid of the messy parts and processes, the stupid New Year’s Resolutions, limiting beliefs, bad habits, and business to-dos that don’t align with your core values.
Start metaphorically burning it, like now.
Or sell it.
Pass it on to someone that will use it. Give it to a stranger. Stop procrastinating and begin flaming.
Start saying no to buying unhealthy food, ruining your morning routine with endless nighttime scrolling, Netflix binges, and another House of Dragons all-nighter (yes, I feel your pain).
Simplify your life.
Let it go, and let the emotions happen as you do.
How to start the build pile:
Think about anything you’ve ever wanted to do.
It’s time to become what you were meant to be — a published writer, a part-time local musician, a stay-at-home dad, a working nomad, a present father, a scientist that wants to solve climate change, a virtuous CEO, or a more loving partner.
Sift through all your forgotten dreams, old journals, and lost goals, and try to listen to your whispers.
Listen to this voice.
Maybe it’s saying, “Leave.”
Maybe it’s saying, “Try smarter, not harder.”
Maybe it’s saying, “Start it, who cares what they think?”
This voice whispers what to add to your build pile.
And stop thinking you need to feel motivated to work on your build pile.
You don’t. Just start small. Give it one minute today. Two minutes tomorrow. Three minutes the day after that, and listen; this is awesome if you can do this!
It’s not a race.
You’re doing great with small chunks of time focused on your new habit!
So keep going forward because even those three minutes improved you, and guess what? You weren’t a little better three minutes ago — you were sitting on your ass eating another bag of cheddar Ruffles.
The good news is the more we get in the habit of burning stupid shit, the more time we have to build the habits of our good shit.
…
Life Lesson #2: Don’t Be Afraid to Jump for a New Rope
“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jumping into the unknown brings uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.
Remember the movie Goonies, when Chunk and his crew look for treasure and hit a bunch of scary traps and obstacles?
If Chunk can keep going, we can keep going.
The good news is you don’t get Goonie-like decapitated on this life journey when you fail. In fact, what you learn from your rope jumping will help you make more progress in 2023.
And 2022 was a wild year of rope jumps for me.
I lost a bunch of money in crypto.
Stocks got whacked.
But I kept climbing and ran over 50 basketball camps around Michigan which doubled revenue from 2021; our Swish House basketball fitness startup grew 100% year over year; I invested in an old assisted living home with my brother and friend, Paul.
Continuing to jump for new ropes is scary.
And when I start struggling, I remind myself (kindly) to keep climbing.
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Life Lesson #3: Add quality, not Quantity, to Your Life
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” — Henry Longfellow
Our well-being lives inside the quality of our days, not the quantity of zeroes in our bank accounts, the things we crossed off on our to-do list, or our followers on social media.
If your partner wants you to make more money, explain the importance of enjoying what you have.
It’s not about how much you have, it’s how you use and enjoy what you have.
The words we read, the food we eat, the clothes we buy, the things we use, and the people we surround ourselves with must be about quality, not quantity.
Merriam-Webster defines the word quality as a degree of excellence.
It’s the degree of excellence in which you use the dollars in your bank account to enhance your life experiences, not buy more useless shit. It’s the degree of excellence in which you share quality time with friends and loved ones, not show strangers your new toy on Tik Tok.
It’s the meaningful mountain you make progress on that feeds your soul, not the number of things you have.
Stop putting pressure on yourself to have more, make more, consume more, and remember more quantity usually dilutes the quality of our human experience.
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Life Lesson #4. Figure Out Your Weight
“The well-being that using your signature strengths engenders is anchored in authenticity.” — Martin Seligman
In pro sports, if you want to run faster and further, you’ll need to lose body fat, run consistently, stop pounding that bag of Double Stuff Oreos at midnight, ditch the elliptical, and get stronger in the weight room.
If you want to work on your side hustle earlier, you have to shut down your electronics, turn off the lights, and get in bed without negotiation.
If you want to invest and save more money, stop spending $500 a month on your daily caramel cappuccino.
A life lesson of 2022 was figuring out the unneeded weight that was slowing down my meaningful progress.
If a lack of money is weighing you down, say no to eating out with friends and meet them at their house or invite them to yours. Turn down your heat, wear warmer clothes inside, bike to work, sell your fancy gas-guzzling SUV, and invest a certain amount of money or time in something you care about.
If your relationship feels laborious, say no to any distractions that stop you from being a better lover. Say, “I love you,” every night before bed. Kiss her on the forehead. Hug her every morning. Make more positive interactions with the people you love, and your relationships will improve.
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Life Lesson #5. Do What Is Authentic to You (Yes, I’ll Tell You Why!)*
“The outer world is a reflection of the inner world. Other people’s perception of you is a reflection of them; your response to them is an awareness of you.” — Roy T. Bennett
Authenticity is more complicated than it looks.
Many desperately want to be part of the herd and feign authenticity — stay in their myopic bubbles and hold onto what makes them feel safe, cool, high-status, intelligent, or popular.
Allowing for personal growth in authenticity and personal growth can feel scary, intimidating, and embarrassing.
What will people think of my Star Wars shirt?
What will my friends say about writing love ballads on the piano?
I’ll say it again: what is authentic to you won’t be authentic to another person.
And that’s okay.
Let them be — your response to them is an awareness of you.
You’ll have to let go of certain people as you evolve. You’ll have to practice being authentic, which requires setting hard boundaries for yourself.
Say no to anything that pulls you outside your boundaries of authenticity, and say yes to anything that pulls you towards it (yes, even goat yoga).
Thanks for reading.
Good luck out there,
…
“Positive psychology teaches how to harness the power of shifting one’s perspective to maximize the potential for happiness in many of our everyday behaviors. For example, each of these findings gives us a concrete idea for improving our own quality of life:
- People overestimate the impact of money on their happiness by quite a lot. It does have some influence, but not nearly as much as we might think, so focusing less on attaining wealth will likely make you happier (Aknin, Norton, & Dunn, 2009);
- Spending money on experiences provides a bigger boost to happiness than spending money on material possessions (Howell & Hill, 2009);
- Gratitude is a big contributor to happiness in life, suggesting that the more we cultivate gratitude, the happier we will be (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005);
- Oxytocin may provoke greater trust, empathy, and morality in humans, meaning that giving hugs or other shows of physical affection may give you a big boost to your overall wellbeing (and the wellbeing of others; Barraza & Zak, 2009);
- Those who intentionally cultivate a positive mood to match the outward emotion they need to display (i.e., in emotional labor) benefit by more genuinely experiencing the positive mood. In other words, “putting on a happy face” won’t necessarily make you feel happier, but putting in a little bit of effort likely will (Scott & Barnes, 2011);
- Happiness is contagious; those with happy friends and significant others are more likely to be happy in the future (Fowler & Christakis, 2008);
- People who perform acts of kindness towards others not only get a boost in wellbeing, they are also more accepted by their peers (Layous, Nelson, Oberle, Schonert-Reichl, & Lyubomirsky, 2012);
- Volunteering time to a cause you believe in improves your wellbeing and life satisfaction and may even reduce symptoms of depression (Jenkinson et al., 2013);
- Spending money on other people results in greater happiness for the giver (Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008).”
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
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Photo credit: Maximilien T’Scharner on Unsplash
