25 things i've learned in my 25 years

i am my own favorite philosopher

This past year has been learning, loving, and meaning-making in the purest sense… a year of stretching the borders of my joy, of discovering that happiness isn’t a static prize anyone gets to stumble across one day, but something we expand slowly, tenderly, through the way we choose to live.

Twenty-five years is enough time to start noticing patterns. Here is a list I’ve been working on all year, things I’ve learned, forgotten, and found my way back to.…

1. We are neither completely independent nor wholly codependent. Some say you don't owe anyone anything, that boundaries are iron walls that must never bend. Others insist that love means endless sacrifice, that we should give until we're hollow. Both miss the truth: love and boundaries live in the nuanced space between extremes. We owe each other basic dignity, honest effort, the courage to speak difficult truths. But we also owe ourselves the same. The art is in learning to hold both — to give without emptying ourselves, to love without losing our shape.

2. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. Your attention is both incredibly valuable and surprisingly limited. It's quite literally the currency of your life. Every scroll, every click, every lingering glance is a micro-investment in becoming a particular kind of person. The algorithms already track what captures your attention to sell you things; isn't it time you tracked it to understand yourself? The next time you find yourself completely absorbed in something, pause to ask: "What is this teaching me about what I truly value?" The answer might reveal the path you actually want to be on, not the one you think you should want.

3. Wait 24 hours before acting on intensely strong emotions. The decisions that feel most urgent in moments of intense emotion are often the ones you'll most regret. The text you're desperate to send at 2 AM? The impulsive purchase that seems like the answer to everything? They're being filtered through a temporary emotional state that hijacks your rational brain. The urge to do something RIGHT NOW is actually the clearest sign you should wait. Your emotions deserve to be felt; your future deserves decisions made with your whole brain engaged.

4. There is no such thing as a karmic balance sheet. The universe does not keep a perfect account. I've watched kindness go unrewarded and cruelty go unpunished too many times to believe in cosmic justice. But that's not an excuse for cynicism. If anything, it makes our choices matter more! In a universe that doesn't guarantee fairness, every act of compassion becomes a conscious rebellion, every moment of grace a deliberate creation. We create meaning not by waiting for the scales to balance, but by choosing to add weight to the side of good anyway.

5. Our bodies are not problems to be solved or projects to be completed. I spent years treating mine like a before photo, always waiting for the "after" to start living. But our bodies are not waiting rooms. They're vessels through which we experience every moment of joy, pain, and wonder. They allow you to dance at the club with limbs flailing wildly beneath flashing lights, belt out karaoke classics three notes off-key while friends cheer anyway, devour gooey 2am pizza with cheese stretching comically between slice and mouth, and then stumble through a bleary-eyed but giggle-filled morning bagel run the morning after. They change, they age, they surprise us and sometimes they fail us. But they also heal wounds we don't even notice, fighting battles we never see.

6. Change isn't always a dramatic montage moment. Most of the time, transformation is a quiet, daily practice: drinking water before coffee, reading for ten minutes before bed, taking three deep breaths when stressed. The big leaps (moving countries, changing careers, ending relationships) matter too. But it's the small, consistent choices that slowly alter our internal landscape, creating space for those bigger shifts to feel possible.

7. Revenge is for people who have already lost. Revenge fantasies are basically emotional junk food — temporarily satisfying but ultimately making you feel worse. The math is simple but brutal: every hour spent plotting revenge is an hour not spent becoming someone new, someone better, someone who doesn't need that kind of emotional accounting to feel whole. The most powerful thing isn't getting even, it's getting free.

8. Rejection is redirection. When plans collapse, when dreams unravel, when life pulls the rug out… these moments feel like endings but they're really crossroads. Let yourself grieve what could have been, then turn your face toward what might be. The best chapters often start with plot twists.

9. Aftereffects are your truest guide to what serves you. The rush before a decision — the anticipation, the craving, the excitement — is often just noise. What matters is how you feel in the quiet after. Notice how you feel after spending time with different friends: energized and inspired, or drained and smaller? Pay attention to your body after eating different foods: clear and energetic, or sluggish and foggy? After working out? After scrolling mindlessly? Keep a note in your phone tracking post-activity feelings for a week. Patterns will emerge that can transform your choices.

10. There is no shortcut to excellence. In an age of "life hacks" and "quick fixes," we sometimes forget: real growth comes from showing up day after day, especially when it's hard. The best writers write even when uninspired. The strongest athletes train even when tired. The most successful people in any field put in the unglamorous hours that others won't. Talent opens doors; hard work helps you stay in the room. Forget motivation. Build discipline instead. Create habits that carry you forward even when your mind says stop. This is the unsexy secret: greatness is built on the days when no one's clapping, when the work feels pointless, when you're too tired to care… but you do it anyway.

11. A man can leave you, the market can crash, friends can fade away… but no one can take your achievements from you. Your degree, your skills, your growth, your resilience: these are yours forever. My mother taught me this, and it's the kind of wisdom that gets truer with time.

12. The power of "one more" can transform everything. One more rep when you want to quit. One more page when you're tired. One more try when you've failed. One more minute when you think you're done. One more. Always one more.

13. Growth lives on the other side of discomfort. That cringeworthy conversation you need to have, that amateur art you need to share, that imperfect project you need to launch — each represents a mountain of awkwardness you must climb. Everyone successful has a graveyard of embarrassing first attempts, of glaring “no’s”. Your favorite authors have deleted drafts that make them wince. Your role models have fumbled presentations. Embrace the cringe. It's the price of admission for becoming who you want to be.

14. Friendship might be the most revolutionary form of love. While romantic love comes tangled with evolutionary coding and societal scripts, while family relationships are predetermined by biological lottery, friendships exist in this rare space of pure, deliberate choice. It's love without the scaffolding of obligation or expectation; we aren't staying together for the kids or because our DNA compels us to care. We're just two people who keep choosing each other, over and over, through job changes and heartbreaks and identity crises, not because we have to but because we want to. <3

15. The people you surround yourself with define your “normal.” They set your standards, influence your ambitions, and shape your sense of what's possible. This is my mother’s favorite thing to tell me. If your friends talk about ideas, you'll become more thoughtful. If they pursue ambitious goals, you'll raise your own bar. If they practice kindness, you'll find yourself becoming gentler. But the opposite is equally true: if your circle settles for less, complains constantly, or treats people poorly, those patterns will seep into your own behavior, drop by drop, until one day you look in the mirror and barely recognize your values. Choose your peers not just for who they are now, but for who you want to become. Your circle should both support who you are and pull you toward who you could be. Like plants turning toward the sun, we grow in the direction of what we're surrounded by.

16. You can have everything you want, just not all at once. Some seasons are for the unglamorous work of planting seeds — being the most junior person in every meeting, dating people who help you figure out what you don't want, or having no friends in a new city. Other seasons are for reaping what you've sown. The frustration comes when we demand harvest during planting time, when we scroll through highlight reels of people in totally different seasons and wonder why our garden isn't blooming yet. Imagine you have buckets labeled "career," "romance," "friendships," "health," and "passion projects," but only a limited pitcher of water to pour between them. Some days you'll flood your work bucket while the others sit nearly empty. Other weeks, you'll nurture your relationships while your professional ambitions temporarily evaporate. The truth is, despite what productivity gurus promise, there's simply not enough water to keep every bucket brimming simultaneously. And that's not failure, that's physics.

17. Cultivate an infinite curiosity. The joy isn't in reaching expertise but in staying eternally fascinated by how much you don't know. Each answer should lead to three new questions. Let yourself be dazzled by quantum physics one day and Renaissance art the next. There's no hierarchy in learning. A cooking class can teach you as much about life as a philosophy lecture. Stay hungry for knowledge, stay humble in the face of how much there is to learn.

18. Happiness will never be found in more. Happiness is found through contentment with what’s already here.

19. Pain is not a failure of living but a part of it. No amount of careful planning, positive thinking, or clean living can immunize you from the fundamental reality of human existence: we will all know loss, heartbreak, and grief. The trick isn't in avoiding suffering but in learning to carry it with grace. Build resilience not because it will prevent pain, but because it will help you endure it. You are your own cavalry; learn to rescue yourself.

20. The most dangerous lies are the ones you tell yourself. "I'm not ready yet," "this relationship will improve when circumstances change," "I'll start tomorrow…" Self-deceptions shape our lives more powerfully than any external falsehood because they operate below our awareness, becoming the invisible architecture of our decisions. They're particularly dangerous because they often protect us from short-term discomfort while stealing our long-term fulfillment.

21. The right thing is often the hardest thing. When Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen visited my undergraduate institution, Olin College, she left us with this profound truth: the path of least resistance rarely leads to fulfillment. So, I've developed a counterintuitive compass: whenever I’m standing at life's crossroads unable to choose, I lean toward whatever option makes my heart race faster. Not because suffering carries inherent virtue, but because fear typically guards the status quo, not my growth. Fear artificially penalizes the better option, creating a false equivalence between the transformative choice and the safe one. The choices that have most transformed my life were the ones that initially scared me the most.

22. Envy is a compass. Unlike the chaotic jealousy of youth that spins wildly at every passing achievement, mature envy has precision… it highlights the specific coordinates of your untapped potential. Pay attention to what consistently triggers that tightness in your chest: not the random successes of strangers, but the particular accomplishments that feel simultaneously within reach and frustratingly distant. That reaction isn't random; it's your deeper self whispering about paths you're meant to pursue. When you feel that familiar twist in your gut watching someone achieve something remarkable, don't rush to numb it with distraction or denial. Instead, hold it up to the light like a scientist studying a fascinating specimen. What does this particular envy reveal about your buried ambitions? The ones you've carefully labeled "impractical" or "someday" and stored away? In its most evolved form, envy contains a blueprint for action, unconsciously recognizing achievements within your realm of possibility. It's as if your psyche is saying, "This could be you. This should be you" — not in a moral sense, but in alignment with your deepest potential.

23. The 1% principle: don't underestimate the power of tiny changes. Progress compounds in ways we can't imagine. A 10-minute workout feels pointless. Reading two pages of a book feels trivial. Learning one word in a new language feels inadequate. But these microscopic changes stack and multiply. One year of these small choices turns into 60 hours of exercise, two full books, conversational basics in Spanish. Until one day you look back and barely recognize the starting point. I would be remiss to say this goes for investing too: time in the market beats timing the market. Set up simple systems the second you start earning: max out your employer's 401(k) match, open a Roth IRA for index funds like VTSAX, automate transfers to a high-yield savings account. Let compound interest work its magic.

24. Even the hardiest roses need tending, and the sweetest fruits can turn bitter if left unharvested. Love is not an object to possess but a practice to cultivate, season after season, through drought and plenty.

25. Start now, start messy, start afraid — just start.

Happy birthday to me. :)

All my love,

Maalvika