400th Article
I’ll be turning 26 on Wednesday. As always, I’m putting out an article to look back at some of the most important lessons I’ve learned and some of my favorite memories in the past year.
Having my birthday in December means that this article serves as a sort of year-end review too.
What a wild ride this year has been. But for what it’s worth, I’d say it has been a good run.
So, let’s dig into this article.
Work With Your Biology
There have been times this year when I haven’t felt quite like myself. It’s kind of a scary feeling, to be honest, because you’re not sure what’s happening to yourself.
Perhaps the biggest change I noticed in myself is that it has gotten weirdly harder me to stay single-mindedly focused on a task, and to even tune in to conversations.
When it comes to reading, I used to be able to immerse myself into a book at the flip of a page, and shut out the world around me. But nowadays, it’s less like that. I get mentally fatigued rather easily, and my mind just wants to jump onto a different thought or task.
Reading one line at a time can help to build the momentum. But I realized that it has worked better for me to work with my distractedness, rather than against it. So, I now read multiple books at a time. When I feel fatigued with one book, I’d switch to another.
The same goes to doing work in general. It’s hard for me to focus on one task, but I have noticed that I’m more creative, and that I get more things done when I’m switching between multiple tasks. Maybe this won’t work for you, but that’s the point. Listen to your own biology, and work with it, not against it.
You Have Your Life Ahead of You
Earlier this year, I made the terrifying decision of quitting graduate school. As always, I consulted my former undergraduate advisor, who has been very much like a Mom to me. And always, she had more than a few things to say for me to really take to heart.
Perhaps the most impactful thing she said was that I still had my life ahead of me. It may be a very simple piece of advice, but in that moment where I was obsessing over every decision I made, hearing that meant the whole world to me.
Life doesn’t come with a manual. There’s no way to know for sure if you’re doing the right thing. But you can always just do your best.
You will make mistakes, and that’s completely fine. It’s impossible to completely ruin your life with a single bad decision. There are always new decisions you can make, new directions to take. It helps to remember that you still have your life ahead of you.
Mint Chocolate Coffee is the Shit.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m quite conservative in my tastes, from the clothes I wear, to the food I eat. Recently, my friends and family were relieved to know that I replaced by 5-year old Converse sneakers, only to be bewildered when they saw that I replaced them with the exact model, yet again.
A similar thing happens with coffee, whereby I would always have a latte, no matter where I am. In a rare phenomenon, though, I suddenly decided to give mint chocolate coffee a try. And I tell you, this shit slaps.
I loved nearly anything mint chocolate, but it never crossed my mind that it would pair well with coffee. This is a note for me to try new things more often.
Incubus Is a Life-Changer
I’ve written way too much about Incubus already, so I’m going to let this sub-section speak for itself.
Never Buy a Seated Ticket to a Rock Concert
I’m eternally grateful for the opportunity to see Sum 41 live on their final tour. My only regret is that I bought seated tickets, far away from the front rows, where the energy was.
It was an awkward experience to have a band rock out while you’re seated, like you’re watching an opera. There were a couple of fruity folks in the seated section who were jumping around during the entire show. But probably like most other people around me, I was too self-conscious to enjoy the show in the same way.
When it came time for one of their encore songs, In Too Deep — which is the band’s quintessential song — the lot of us dropped our self-consciousness and left our seats the moment the singer, Deryck, yelled, “Jump!”
Oh, man, how I still regret not being on the floor and closer to the stage. This is their final tour we’re talking about. But at least, I can still say, I was there.
Good Things Must End.
It took me a while to understand where Deryck was coming from in his decision to break up Sum 41. Why, when they had just crawled out of rock bottom a few years ago, and are currently at the top of their game?
The thing is, that’s exactly why Sum 41 needs to end. When you feel that you’ve done your best work, that’s when you need to lay it to rest. As Deryck has explained, he wants to honor his music by letting it end on a meaningful, high note. There’s no point in bringing out a sub-par version of yourself and your work, just because you can.
I’m reminded of a talk I attended last year, by Paul McVeigh, who wrote the novel The Good Son. He was asked if he had any plans for a new book. He responded by saying that he wasn’t an ambitious person. He was content with having written one great book. While he still had new ideas floating around, he wouldn’t write another book unless he felt strongly enough about it, because he “didn’t want to merely add to the noise.”
I didn’t understand where Paul was coming from, either. But I think I do now. A good story must have a proper ending. And much like life itself, it would lose its meaning if it were to go on forever.
To quote the song Time Bomb by Rancid, “The secret to a good life is knowing when you’re through.”
Izzat Zailan 