25 things I learned at 25

Hello everyone! Fancy seeing you here… Today I’m sharing with you a list of “25 things I learned at 25” years old.

As cheesy as that sounds 25 years old is a great milestone… A quarter of a lifetime if you will. So I thought it would be interesting to see what and how many things I could come up with in one go. I was surprised, once I stated writing it was really easy to fill up the 25 “life lessons”.

Having been traveling through Central America (San Jose, Costa Rica to be precise) during my 25th birthday, after also recently seeing my family in Mexico for the first time in almost four years had me thinking…

After this trip I’m going back to New Zealand for the first time as a willing resident. If you didn’t know, I moved to New Zealand with my boyfriend Jono just before the pandemic thinking we’d be there for one year tops, distributing that time between traveling and working a little bit just to make enough money to keep moving abroad. A lot of things happened in that time we got “stuck” due to Covid. Lots of personal growth, facing past traumas and new ones too.

On top of all of that, I got a cold that had both Jono and I stay at home (at our accommodation) without much activity or any source of excitement other than our frequent visits to “La Casa de las Sopas” (“The House of the Soups”) and “La Taquiza Antigua” to get their wonderfully hot hot chocolate (great for clearing out the phlegms) in Antigua, Guatemala… Got me thinking all sorts of existencial thoughts too.

Therefore, and without further a do… Here are 25 things I learned at 25 years old:

1. Some relationships and “issues” can’t be fixed

I’m still working on my long list of personal issues and traumas, I’ve learned to realize while you can do a huge 360 in any situation in life if you put your mind to it, some things and in particular for me, relationships, just can’t be fixed.

I had a thought relationship with my family growing up, the family dynamic didn’t work and we were, well dysfunctional.

This is the root of many issues and struggles that I still battle day by day and although the inner work required me to carve in and find the source to find a way to healing, I also had to accept that what happened happened, people in your life aren’t gonna change because you do. Some things, some relationships aren’t going to be fixed and that’s ok.

A few quotes that relate to this go along the lines of:
“Why are we expecting the source that broke you to fix you”
“The problem is that we live getting mad at the hole that can’t provide for what you need, instead of moving on and finding a hole that can provide”

2. Money is not worth all the missed experiences and opportunities, you can always gain back any money you spend

I’m not saying spend all your money and put yourself through debt just to have fun but having grown up with money issues at home, I had such a hard time allowing myself to invest in things that made me happy and even things that I needed to be healthy and sane.

I realized, even if I spent all the money I have, I can always work in any type of job and pick myself back up anytime. In saying this, I have to recognize I have the privilege to be able body and not be in any type of debt like student loans or such which gives me a big advantage and piece of mind to back me up in this one but it definitely took a whole lot of work to do the mind shift to fully allow me to do what I’ve done and enjoy it.

3. Everybody’s busy worrying about their own life

No body cares about your path, ups and downs or mistakes. You’re the only one who knows what’s going on in your life. All your mistakes and things that you messed on… As big and lifechanging you feel they are for you, nobody’s noticing unless you talk about it and even then, people might or might not remember it.

This is both sad and liberating. Realizing whatever you do or don’t do is not important or at least not nearly as important to anybody else as it is for you. You can decide when, how, where, how valuable something… an object, an experience, a person is to you.

4. If you messed up it’s not the end of the world, making mistakes is part of the process
Even if you mess up you can come back and fix it, get better at it, apologize, mess up with grace.

5. There’s no right time to start, to bloom. There’s no timeline for life.

6. You create your purpose and you are your purpose.

Nothing in your life matters if you’re not alive… To better serve your purpose and others you need to serve yourself first

7. Things in life don’t have to be profitable

8. What society and capitalism value is not equivalent to the real value of things

The value of things is a deeply personal and subjective thing. What I value is not going to be the same as what the person next to me values, no matter how similar or aligned you are.

9. When free from capitalism, most people would choose art

10. You don’t need to reach any sort of goal or achievement to then start or have a desired lifestyle that works for you and suits you best

11. Accepting privilege

12. Realize and accept people don’t see or want to see past appearance and first impressions

Judgement (although toxic and hurtful) is natural. Even though some people realize certain judgments and stereotypes are wrong and hurtful, they can’t help it… Even me

13. Breaking cycles is no joke.

You see it on inspirational quotes all over social media. At least on my feed with my “mental health” algorithm I do… I grew up resenting people of all sorts for deviating from their issues in any sort of way. Going out on the weekends for drinks, playing videogames, shopping, doing sports. For the longest time, I couldn’t do any of that. I had a hard time allowing myself to enjoy and have a break. I though the things that are happening to me are my fault and I’m not allowed to have fun or relax if I don’t at least obsesses about it and try and fix all my problems before I can relax.

I resented people for not doing the same and going around in life hurting or hurting others by ignoring the issues.

The more I worked on my self and stopped blaming myself for what happened to me and started my path through self acceptance and self care, I realized all the pain and damaged I went through to get here.

Don’t get me won’t, I don’t regret anything because all the pain and hurt I went through was the drive that lead me to where I am right now but seeing it in retrospective, I understand why other people would be afraid to do it and wouldn’t ever dare to look at their issues and things they have going on in life that hurt, let alone think about starting the long path to recovery.

14. A second language does open doors

As a kid, I was never happy about having to go to class and learn things… When my parents and in particular my dad insisted on me learning English, I dread it with all my heart.

15. You can only live your own life, can’t fix other people’s problems

You can’t solve their issues, can’t make the right or wrong decision for them, not your children’s, not your friends, not your partners, not even your parents.

As much as you would like to see your loved ones or anybody you care about have a better life or make it easier for them (and yourself who has to live with them), you can’t. They’ve made their own decisions and formed their own life. The same way you will and you need to concentrate on managing your own decisions in life now so that no one has to do the work for you in the future.

16. Some people will die with regrets, my grandpa

I was so scared of this for a while, now and at a few points in my life recently I’ve felt like if I died now, today, I’d be happy with what I’ve done, achieved and with the way I’ve lived my life so far.

17. You won’t learn anything by other people telling the way of things

You have to experience failure and learn it for yourself at the right time. This one I have experienced both ways, me trying to tell people how (I think) it is and seeing things evolve into chaos and failure and I’ve experienced goings through failure and learning lessons in life years after I heard somebody say or point out the issue anteriormente

18. You (and others) did the best they could with the resources and knowledge you (they) had at the time

19. Everything happens for a reason, but also the law of attraction is real

I believe everything that happen is meant to happen because you have to learn something from it

20. I believe every god is the same God

21. The sphere diagram to explain one subject or matter of study from many different angles

22. It only matters what you believe

23. Don’t believe everything you believe. No creo saberlo todo

24. It’s ok to walk away from the things and people that hurt you

25. Learn to not take things personally

I still struggle with this. Coming from an abusive and dysfunctional family I became a very easy target full of nerves, shame and regret. I get triggered very easily when people break my trust and gossip about or conspire against me. Although I have the grounds and physical memory of protecting myself, I have learned to understand that whatever people do to you is not based on you but on themselves.