I have a box of small notebooks that I have collected over the years. It is hard to say they are journals because it contains just as many doodles, to-do lists, and random notes as it does letters to sir journal and recaps of my thoughts. Still, I know there are plenty of entries from the best of days and the worst of days, so I work past that cringe feeling from the thought of rereading my unedited mind-dump and pour over that box of notebooks every few years to see if I have changed and if I have learned anything meaningful. I started to write down what I learned from my old entries. It has become a running list of advice I have received and lessons I have codified from my own experiences and observing others.

I turned 34 today. I felt like sharing that list, my 11 unsolicited pieces of advice for life.

1. The WHAT people do can change and often does (anecdotally true for me) but the WHY people do what they do usually stays constant. It is worth figuring out what your WHY is.

For example, schools are wonderful institutions, I benefitted a lot from my schooling, but it can also be a mindless treadmill if you are not intentional about it. It is a treadmill someone designed a long time ago (updates are slow btw) and it was built with settings that might not be the right for you. It is worth stopping for a bit to make sure you actually want to be on it. At the very least, check to see if you can change the settings to match your needs.

2. It is hard to figure out your WHY just by sitting and thinking. You need to try things and test your boundaries. Knowing what you do not want to do is just as important, if not more important, than knowing what you want to do.

This advice is so clever because people are inherently bad at NOT doing things. Try this little test. Try your hardest to not think about purple ponies… well… what did you end up thinking about? … face it…you definitely thought about purple ponies… see what I mean? So stop trying to get it right all the time and fighting your ifs, ands, and buts. Try it out then decide whether you want to continue or move on. Repeat.

3. You do not need to have all the answers, you can get really far by just asking good questions. If you are Asian and grew up in a typical Asian household, I would double tap on this advice. Wait... quadruple tap on this advice. Adopt a growth mindset. Life is also more enjoyable this way.

4. There is such a thing as making big, sometimes irreversible, mistakes. The Bible is great at pointing those out, but otherwise, I think it is a greenfield in terms of treating life as a series of small experiments. This sort of goes hand in hand with number 3.

5. It is okay to change your mind. It is encouraged actually. In finance, it is called the sunk cost fallacy. But when you do change your mind, please do not be that loser who pretends to have known it all along.

6. Do not just think about your career, think about your life holistically and fit a career into that. This will be a life-long battle. Be prepared. I didn't believe it at first but the older folks who gave me this advice are looking really wise right now.

7. Travel, perhaps... at least once...by yourself. This is about gaining perspective. True story: I threw a dart at a map and that is where I went for my study abroad program (I went to Denmark in case you were curious). I had to drop my accounting major to go. It is probably one of the best decisions I have made. It is where I deeply learned that community is important. I didn’t like being alone for that long just hanging out with strangers all the time. Inversely, I saw how the Danes took really good care of their neighbors, literally. Not to mention, it deepened my empathy for all sorts of people and grew my appreciation for life.

8. Allow yourself to be bored on a regular basis. That is when you are the most creative. And everyone is creative.

9. Your money habits impact your career decisions as it does every other life decision. I would argue that the banal question “what would you do if you didn’t have to worry about money” has a lot of wisdom. Chances are that you have nice golden handcuffs on. It probably looks nice, maybe even feels nice, but you might get stuck. Break free before it is too late.

10. This one is advice I got about marriage but it has been so pivotal for nearly every other part of my life. The person who is running alongside you as you are running towards something is the person you should marry. My wife, Alina, has been my greatest champion and catalyst for some of my most transformative life decisions. I trust you will find this person too if you have not already... If I were to rephrase this in my own words, someone with a similar WHY as you is probably a good life partner.

11. Andy Stanley so eloquently said, "Experience alone doesn’t make you better at anything. Evaluated experience is what enables you to improve.." But... how are you going to evaluate your experience if you do not have a record of it? Simple. Develop a habit of recording your thoughts and observations so you can evaluate them later.