Crucial Life Lessons Learned in my 35 Years of Living

24 of them! Live it up up!

Grown-ups Can Make Birthday Wishes, Too

It’s Virgo season. Time to take your life seriously and shape up what needs shaping. In Layman’s terms, the champagne rooftop party has been replaced by back-to-school planners and fall’s pared down capsule wardrobe to make way for a more sensible self.

To no one’s surprise, wellness and self-care fall under Virgo’s domain, making us the experts on what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to health, beauty and good taste. Some may call us judgmental, but we simply won’t stand for compromising our high standards.

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In honor of my 35th birthday (it was August 23rd for those of you who didn’t wish me a happy birthday), I’d like to impart the wisdom I’ve gathered in the past year.

In a snapshot, I moved from Connecticut to Columbus, got unexpectedly pregnant, had a baby, got married to my husband (again, hehe) and was reminded (yet again) that great friendships are the pinnacle of the good life.

Let’s dig in.

We deserve good wine.

We’re 35 now. We drink wine without sulfites. Ask your local sommelier what constitutes a good wine, and buy accordingly.

I thought this should be number one because it’s really a metaphor for everything as we age. We deserve the job we covet, we deserve a gorgeous lake house and we deserve a grown-up trench coat.

Recognize bad habits and swap them with good ones.

For me, this is watching TV before bed. When I read an actual book instead of turning on Emily in Paris, I fall asleep faster, my body and mind are calmer and it makes for a better quality sleep.

Batching tasks is a life hack.

I stole this from Lauryn Bosstick, and it works like a charm. Reserve your mornings for emails. Your afternoons for meetings and your evening for responding to text messages. The point? ONE THING AT A TIME = effective execution = not snapping at your roommates.

When we spend the entire day ping-ponging from email to text to DM to phone call to meeting back to email and repeat, we get nothing accomplished. It takes a significant amount of brain power to switch tasks—15 minutes to be exact—diluting our focus and making it impossible to carry out a task properly.

Find out whatever makes you feel confident, and do it every day.

For me, it’s clothes. It’s always been clothes. It will always be clothes. It’s also working out and listening to great music and podcasts, but clothes is the biggie.

I remember being 16 years old telling my friends I wanted to move to New York City so I could wear whatever I wanted. What I was really saying was, I wanted to move to NYC to be whoever the hell I wanted. Isn’t that why anyone moves to New York? Anyway, I feel like I belong in New York City, so I dress like it. And it makes me feel like I’m on top of the world.

Confidence leads to better everything. Better work ethic, a happier marriage, better sex, deeper friendships, better conversational skills, improved posture and mental health and really, everything.

Jealousy can be a motivator to do better.

When you feel jealous of someone, it typically means that person has something you want—be it looks, a personality you covet, a job you can see yourself excelling in, their ability to make friends, etc.

I was reading an article in Women’s Health when I came across an athlete’s take on using jealousy to be who you want to be. Instead of sitting in that ick feeling of “I want to be her,” things (and people) we are jealous of tend to be versions of ourselves we used to be or we want to be. So, use that pang of jealousy to your advantage by seeing the person you envy as your role model, not your nemesis.

You can’t be great in all areas of your life at once.

“She has it all!” “I don’t know how she gets it all done!” These headlines are bullshit. (A) They’re always referring to a celebrity who has resources us laypeople do not and (B) “Having it all” is no longer cool. Thank god.

Being a good mom, a successful business woman and perfect wife who keeps the house clean with organic dinner on the table is unattainable. Stop putting pressure on yourself to be good at everything at once. It causes unnecessary stress, anxiety and wrinkles.

Find out what area in life you suck at and work to make it better.

For a lot of people, this is sticking to a workout routine or eating healthy. This doesn’t apply to me—exercising every day and eating healthy is simply a way of life I have been doing since high school.

For me, the area I always struggle with is my career. More specifically, career confidence. I remember living in Chicago thinking I wanted to work as a hair salon receptionist because hairstylists’ personalities are blunt and funny, and I wanted to be around that energy.

Now, as a writer and mom of three young kids, keeping a working routine feels impossible (because it is?) but work makes me feel good, despite my forever retirement jokes. So this year I am focusing on getting my work published in places that will deem me as *an authority* and perhaps put an end to my self-sabotaging work habits once and for all. Are you reading this, The New York Times? I’m available!!

You have way more control over your day than you think.

Nothing annoys me more than hearing people say they don’t have enough time in the day to get things done. Do people like living this way? Why do we kill ourselves with over-scheduling? When people say they don’t have time, what they’re really saying is: “That’s not a priority to me.” Like when Jake says he doesn’t have time to clean out the garage. Yes you do, Jake. You just aren’t doing it.

This is also a current struggle of mine. While I am not a morning person (I get dressed for the day at 11 am), I know the only peace and mental clarity window I have is from 6-7 am, so I am going to strive to hit that a few days a week to journal, meditate, ice-roll my face without a crying baby on my hip and figure out my life goals.

Living on your phone is a shitty way to spend your life.

On that note of “not having enough time” (spare me), a lot of us “don’t have time” because we’re scrolling on our phones. Constantly. It’s sick. I hate the phone. I hate when people call me, I hate the endless texts, I hate the email pings, I hate it all. I’m bringing landlines back. Back to the day when people communicated out of necessity—not boredom and dopamine addiction.

Taking care of things THE MOMENT they pop up will free you of anxiety.

Medical bill just came in the mail? Pay it. Your son needs new shoes for school? Get them. Procrastination is a terrible habit that I have had most of my life. Only recently did I find out it was because of my *understatedly chic* Virgo status—I want every detail of every project or task to be perfect before moving on to the next thing. This is not an advisable way to live—you don’t get anything done this way.

Not taking care of things straight away leads to an inbox of 189 in all areas of life, which results in UNECESSARY AND PREVENTABLE stress and anxiety. Be a grown-up and check things off the list the moment they rear their heads.

You deserve to be in a job you love.

I have never bought into the “work is called work for a reason” bullshit. What we do for a living eats up so much of our time and energy, and those things should be protected at all costs. While certain tasks will inevitably be annoying and tedious, the majority of your job should feel enjoyable. Don’t stop looking until you’ve found her.

If the career path you’re on doesn’t feel right, listen to that feeling and make a change.

Starting over is exciting. Follow that feeling of excitement over the false sense of shame that society places on changing directions.

You deserve to feel like you belong.

If you can’t be yourself around your colleagues, you’re with the wrong company. Keep searching for the role where you can be your weird, raw, authentic self. And if you can’t find that, start your own business. Your vibe attracts your tribe. This is true in all areas of life.

Your job does not define you.

This is a tough one to swallow. Whether you’re a career hussy, stay-at-home parent or somewhere in-between, it’s only natural to tie your identity into what you do on the daily.

But we must remember—our work does not define us. External validation is fleeting, and it usually ends up leaving you feel worse once the achievement high wears off. We all like a gold star, and being motivated by work is by no means a bad thing—it’s when we let it consume our identity that it becomes destructive.

Good friends are hard to find, and even harder to keep.

Prioritize your friendships the way you prioritize everything else sacred to you.

Having one amazing friend is far better than having a gaggle of kind-of friends.

Another sweet realization that comes with age.

Food is the way to a man’s soul.

“We have nothing to eat.” The dreaded 5-word-phrase I know will hit me by midweek. STOP EATING ALL OF THE SNACK BARS THE DAY I GET THEM.

When I make dinners that Jake likes (in lieu of my kale and chickpea salads), his mood is BOOSTED at bite number one. He’s nicer to me, he is in a better mood for the remainder of the evening and is even less likely to get upset at the American Express bill.

Worrying about what other people think of you is a waste of time.

You are not going to be for everyone. This is another tough pill to swallow, especially if you are a people pleaser which most people are. I understand.

But it is reality and the older you get, the less you give you give a f*ck. What to do instead? Focus on the people who get you, who celebrate you and who support you, and forget everyone else. They don’t matter.

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

Get into good habits as it pertains to your health and happiness, and don’t get off track. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

Eat right. Exercise every day. Read to your kids at night. Be nice to your husband. Ask your mother to lunch. Give the homeless person a peach and $50.

The right time is never.

And also always. There is never a perfect time to start a business, have a baby, buy a house and go on vacation. Life is a delicate balance of preparation, discipline of going with the flow.

Do the thing that your heart is aching to do. Start the podcast. Knit your sweater. Learn French. Open your luxury resort-wear shop.

Life is short.

Do what you love with the people you love being around. Burnout isn’t a result of doing too much—it’s a result of doing too little of what we love.

You’re going to make mistakes.

And some of them are going to feel bone-deep horrible. The important thing is to learn from them, move on, and do better. As they say, time heals all wounds, which I believe to be accurate.

Remember that you are going to die.

Depressing? Not exactly. I remind myself of this daily—specifically every time I get worked up about something that just doesn’t matter in the big scheme of life. Which, let’s be honest, is most things.

On that note, be sure to have fun.

Every day. Inject a little fun into your life. On my never-ending quest to make a living having fun, a new thing I am doing (It’s my new thing!!) is asking myself; How can I make this shit more fun?

From unloading the dishwasher to taking a walk to making lunch, music will be playing, there will be dancing and there will be wine—without sulfites.

Thank you for reading. If you found this newsie helpful, be sure to pass her along to a friend.

Keep being you. A better you.

Xo, Ash

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