Life advice

I'm 33 today. Here's some advice for you.

Number one -- sunshine. That shit slaps. Get a lot of it.

Life is short. You'll be dead before you know it. Live it well.

Take responsibility for your actions.

The way you act has influence on those around you -- be considerate with that influence. Use it to make the lives of others better.

Be yourself. This is actually extremely hard to do, in part because you often do not know who you are. Much of the work here is actually in self-discovery, which requires self-awareness, introspection, and listening to your body.

Take care of your body. It's the only one you have. They are all different, but yours is special. Climb a mountain if you can. Take it outside. Feel the sunshine.

Go outside. Your life is outside of your computer.

Be careful with how artificial intelligence touches your brain. I encourage you to have a discussion with your agent about healthy boundaries -- AI aligns itself with you and this is not healthy! You need a challenge. Don't let anything else dictate how you think, human or otherwise. Use it as advice and support.

If you know what feels right to you, do that. If you don't know what feels right, spend the time to figure it out.

Love well. I have a complicated romantic history (divorced, recently broken up, done many things I am not proud of). Good love is a tremendous gift that you can only meaningfully indulge in if you take responsibility, make thoughtful choices, and lead with intention.

Learn your values and act on accordance with them. I recommend buying the "Live Your Values" card deck.

My values:

Love yourself. Like many people, I struggle with a significant amount of self-hatred. This is pointless. You are all you will ever have. Choosing not to love yourself is a great injustice, and it will subtly corrupt every facet of your life. It is also very hard to do.

Do at least one thing every year that scares your family. I learned that one from an oven mitt. I'm getting a neck tattoo on Saturday to get this out of the way early.

Friends. They're important. It is also hard to make and keep them. I recommend doing any activity you can find. Say hi, be yourself, text someone that you want to hang out.

Compliment people. One of my favorite things to do is tell people something about themselves that I see in them that I think is beautiful or wonderful. People need to be reminded of their light, sometimes.

Your mind is precious. Mine is very important to me. Feed it everything you can -- Not just intellectual shit but art, trivia, vague curiosities, passions, things new and old. Don't let the mind starve.

Do some stupid shit. Go to a rave. Stay out until 4am on a Sunday every once in a while. Walk to the ocean to scream at it. Start a tiny, shitty alpaca farm.

Take moments of silence. The world is deafening and sometimes you needed just Be.

Find people who make you laugh. Funny people are so rare. Humor lasts until you die, unlike your looks, body, and mind.

Get that tattoo. Nobody cares, seriously.

Being stylish is fun as fuck, I highly recommend investing in 1-2 stellar outfits. Dress up when you have the opportunity, there aren't many. All men look good in suits, get a good one and get it either tailored or made to measure (I got mine made in Mumbai).

Don't let people dick you around. They will try. Don't let people dick other people around either.

Take care of people around you. Not everyone is where you are. We all need a hand sometimes. Hopefully someone is there for you when you need it.

Learn things that are not "financially meaningful". Most things are not financially meaningful. Money happens to exist, you need it, but it is not everything. Learn to dance or play music or whatever the fuck.

Say what you mean, mean what you say. Hard to do.

Find a community. Find many. Community is key and it takes many forms, whether that's a Discord, a spiritual organization, an athletic group.

That's all I have for now.

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