I am the only common denominator in every single life experience

And other things I know to be true about life, and more crucially, about myself

Sometimes I reread things I wrote about people I loved and I’m always amazed that I could feel so surely and so strongly about feelings that have now passed.

I miss the clarity of youth.

Or maybe I miss that I could call it clarity without the perspective of age informing me it wasn’t really clarity but ignorance. I didn’t know what I didn’t know — and now I do. Unfortunately.

Growing old is inevitable. Growing up isn’t.

The latter, in my experience, sometimes gets forced upon you when life as you know it changes overnight. The turning point might vary — the ending of a long-term relationship; your parents’ divorce; your divorce; your marriage; getting diagnosed with a terminal illness; the death of a loved one gone too soon; discovering a betrayal; realising you betrayed yourself first by not listening to your gut instinct; a single striking comment that finally reveals the problem you’ve been trying to overcome your entire life is yourself.

But the result is usually similar.

Life splits into two: Before and after.

And so I’ve found, the more the cracks, the less certain I am of certainty. But every so often, I am reminded there are still things I know to be fundamentally true about life, and more crucially, about myself.

A photo of a feeling I have no words for. Mongolia, August 2024.

1. Changing my beliefs rarely changes my behaviour, but changing my behaviour has changed my beliefs.

I can’t believe myself into being kinder, being self-assured, being more disciplined. But when I just do things that a kinder, more self-assured, more disciplined me would do, my actions start to change my thoughts.

2. Along the same vein, competence builds confidence.

People like to ask how I overcame any imposter syndrome or self-doubt before “putting myself out there” as a journalist who often writes from my personal perspective. I always tell them: I didn’t and I haven’t. You do things doubtful and scared, and you do them over and over again. And one day, when someone asks you to do the thing you were once unsure you could ever do, you will realise, not only can you do it, you have been doing it all this time.

3. I am the only common denominator in every single life experience.

My brain was permanently altered when I finally understood that not everything that happens is my fault, but I am responsible for everything that happens to me. I can’t control what other people do or say or think or feel, but I can control how I react. And I will make good decisions and clearly bad ones. It took me a long time to realise self-acceptance is not self-enabling, but radical ownership over my choices and their consequences come what may. I know this rule may be overly simplistic and obviously won’t apply to 100% of life, but it returned me the agency I once unwittingly and regrettably surrendered to victim mentality. That’s all it needed to do.

4. I have lost so much, and I will continue to lose much more as long as I live, but I have always had my words.

And as long as I do, I am never totally lost. It’s a reminder I needed for myself that turned out to be something several others needed too, judging by one of my Notes that has gone semi-viral: Writing a Substack while holding a full-time job that also involves writing brings me back to my school days when I would write so much for class, only to come home and write some more on my blog. Sometimes I forget the biggest privilege I have is I was able to build a life from writing. And what a life it has been.