32 Life Insights From a 32-Years-Old

I turn 32 today. As I mentioned on my 31st Birthday, (you can read about 3.1 Realizations on the way to 31 here) birthdays are not as monumental once we hit thirties. We start getting settled as adults. We start getting focused on work, legacy, children and death. In our thirties, it is less about feeling special and getting surprise gifts and more about making others feel special and surprised. Yes, these milestones (we call them ‘birthdays’) do remind us that we are dying everyday. We start getting serious about our time and attention. I spend a big chunk nowadays reflecting on my life and taking things to the next level. Here are 32 insights I want to share with my dear readers today. Maybe these insights will save you some trouble. Or you’ll have to learn on your own.

1. Schools are parenting outsourced. Parents should send their children to school only when they want them to grow socially. 
2. Situational Awareness is also as important as  self-awareness. When you know what to say, it is self-awareness. But how to say it and when to say it, that’s situational awareness.
3. Parenting is more about parents and less about children. Instead of finding the hacks about how to handle the child, we should focus on our own mindset and growth.
4.  Passion = Confidence + Character + Creativity. Passion is about being confident to follow the path we think is right for us. Passion is about showing character to keep walking the path despite hurdles. Passion is about keep creating new ways to make things happen.
5. Just like an athlete does lots of off season training to stay fit for the season, we shouldn’t underestimate the time creative people spend to think about ideas so they can get some product out of it eventually. We should respect the work creatives do behind the scenes.
6. Celebrations of wins are not enough. We need to integrate wins to make it part of our identity. To integrate wins, we need to reflect those wins in a way that it becomes part of who we are.
7. Resilience is showing persistence even when it’s against your values.
8. Are you artistically professional Or Professionally artist? If you do what you love, you are artistically professional. If you love what you do, you are a professional artist.
9. Every now and then, you should look at all the roles you are performing in life. You might be performing a role of father, son, Muslim, brother, businessman, Pakistani etc. You should consider each role while taking a decision in one particular role. Just like we do TAG others while posting on social media. Whenever I decide something in one role i.e as a father… I should also TAG amir as a human, CEO, reader etc in that decision too so it can become a wholesome decision.
10. Human behavior is quite subtle. Expecting it to get fixed or improved in a short time is naive expectation. And in crucial relationships it should be the fundamental to remember. 
11. When someone quit a job. It is not a RESIGNATION but a REASSESSMENT. 
12. We train our stress and lack of presence by millions of swipes and scrolls. 
13. Parenting is not a competitive sport. Give your child space. Because when you take away space, you take away choice, when you take away choice you take away learning and when you take away learning you take away growth. 
14. We mostly live in ‘states’ not in ‘traits’. But once we live in a state long enough i.e. depressed state etc. We take it as a trait. 
15. Your job as a coach or teacher to someone is not to PUT IN what is LEFT OUT. But your job is to PULL OUT what is LEFT IN. 
16. Performance Management is about two different problems that must be handled differently: First it is about Performance Acceleration: getting more out of you. It is not about goal setting or feedback. It is about a conversation about improving work. Second it is about Performance Measurement:  it is about RELIABLY measuring the performance of different peoples.
17. Most people hire trainers for the sake of confirmation bias. They just want to confirm and add a third person voice for their team on what they already believe causes success. Once you tell them something that contradicts their already held idea of success, they will start defending it by finding flaws in training, not in their mental models.
18. One of the biggest skills in business is to buy more time from investors or clients.
19. Freelancing, Teaching and Nursing are three of the most burnout jobs because of lack of team and being on your own. 
20. 3 keys to successful relationships are: keep seeing the best out of the person, always finding a generous explanation for each other’s behaviors and stop being a therapist or detective all the time and start being a good listener.
21. We should not sacrifice “Crucial Affairs” just because we are too busy attending “Current Affairs”.
22. Once you accept the fact that “Urgencies are not emergencies”, you will start finding lots of time for important work and will live a stress-free life.
23. Want to build a better society? Here is the rule of thumb: everything starts with you. Stop preaching what good should others do and start doing the good things.
24. Trade-offs lie at the heart of every great project. You need to sacrifice cozy and comfortable rewards in order to gain long-term greatness and happiness.
25. You are not a warrior on a battlefield whose life depends on winning every battle. You afford to lose sometimes. So stay calm and maintain your perspective.
26. Do not postpone something with an assumption that your future self will handle it because you will get wiser, better and energetic. This is a trick your brain is playing to avoid the discomfort of taking action now. Do not fall in this trap. Act now with whatever you already have.
27. Your journals are the proof of well-lived hours. Your journals can be your legacy.
28.  Most people get more tired of breaks than they were tired because of their work. It is because of our unhealthy ways of taking breaks. We should learn how to use our free time and how to take rest.
29.  Ultimate goal of successful parenting is to prepare the children to live after your death and handle the loss gracefully.
30.  Best way to build a successful career is to keep getting back to work. Feeling low? Get back to work. Enjoy a great vacation? Get back to work. Finished a project? Get back to work. This attitude will allow you to keep producing the great work.
31. Things always look worse before we encounter them. There are always more wolves howling in the dark before they get counted. You need to face your fears. Once you do it, you will find them less horrifying than what you have imagined in your head.
32. There is a Zen philosophy “Chop wood, Carry Water”. I fell in love with this philosophy nowadays. It is about enjoying and loving the mundane tasks. Because no matter how high or how low we go in life, we have to get back to routine tasks. So, we should enjoy whatever we do.

Anyway, that’s me at 32. I hope to be better next year, if I am lucky enough to be around for it. If I am, I’ll see you with some more insights. Till then, live with purpose and passion.