1. Don’t Compartmentalize Your Life

In my life, I’ve been an expert at compartmentalization. My work frustrations stayed at work, my home frustrations stayed at home. Or so I thought. The thing is, even when you are doing your level best to not let one area of your life affect another area, you are only one person. And your one person is not invincible nor infallible.

Allow yourself the grace to know the fight you had with your partner this morning will affect your productivity at work and be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up because you’ve spent hours on a task that you’d normally complete in minutes. And don’t pretend you’ve had a great day at work when you get home when in fact, work was a train wreck. Be honest with your emotions; it lets those you love know what you’re going through and it gives them permission to do the same. I’m still working on this one.

2. People Will Become More of Who They Are As They Get Older

Maybe this one can be attributed to a dwindling supply of F***s to give but without significant intervention, self-motivated or otherwise, a person becomes more of who they are as they get older. Cranky people become miserable. Skeptical people become judgmental. Whatever angst or hurt or anger you carry with you will grow and fester and metastasize if you don’t deal with it. Don’t worry, it works for good traits too. If you love reading or travelling or cooking, you will gain more and more pleasure from those pursuits as time goes on. That part is pretty great, just watch out for the other stuff.

3. Always Have Money to Get Home

For all her faults, this is a lesson my mother gave me that I carry with me to this day. No matter what your relationship status, no matter how secure you are with the people you spend time with, always, always have cash or a credit card or some way to get yourself home at the end of the night. Always. You just never know.

4. When You’re Entertaining, One Dish Will Always End Up in the Trash

I don’t care how many times you’ve prepared the dishes you’re going to serve at your party / dinner party / get-together / barbecue, one dish will always end up in the trash. Burned. Dropped. Spoiled in some way. Eaten by the dog. It’s my opinion that this is a universal truth. Prepare accordingly.

5. As a Woman, Expect a Lot of Crap and Learn to Use Your Voice to Challenge It

This one may irritate my male readers but I can tell you it’s true. As a woman, you are going to be handed a lot of other people’s crap. Often. Recently there has been a great uproar over ‘the Taylor Swift Curse’ and her negative impact on people’s ability to enjoy a football game. Apparently, the Kansas City Chiefs were on a bit of a losing streak and who do you think should be blamed? The 50 or so men playing the game? No, of course not. The girlfriend of their tight end, she’s the one responsible.

As a woman, the earlier you learn to call out the garbage that’s handed to you solely on the basis of your gender, the better off you’ll be. I’m not saying it will be easy. It surely won’t. You’ll be called every misogynistic name in the book while men around you will be lauded. But until you can acknowledge and value your own remarkable worth, no one else is going to do it.

6. Learn to Define Who You Are

I believe it’s in our nature to define ourselves in relation to others; mother, son, brother, lawyer, plumber, waiter. Who we are as people is so easily mixed up with what we do or who we are in relation to those around us. It’s my experience that the exercise of defining yourself as truly who you are can be a challenging one but I promise you, it’s not just worthwhile, it’s critical. Throughout your life, people will try to define you, some more aggressively than others. Sometimes, those people observe and get it right; they recognize your strengths and abilities and value them accordingly. Or they see your challenges and frustrations and strive to help you overcome them, seeing them as what they are; barriers, not faults.

But sadly, at times, that judgment misses the mark. People will assign attributes that have nothing to do with who you are at all but rather are a reflection of who they are. Without solid belief in who you know yourself to be, your heart, your soul, your spirit can slowly but surely be eroded by misplaced judgment. I define myself as kind, loving, creative, and funny and I strive to live my life exemplifying those traits. I certainly fall short sometimes, but I keep trying, and that’s something.

That’s All Folks

That’s all folks, six lessons. Maybe you know them already; I’ve never claimed to be a quick study. Maybe one or two are new, hopefully you find them helpful. And maybe you disagree with every single one of them. That’s ok too. I don’t mind.

We’ll see what else I learn by the time I’m 70.

You can find the video of my lessons on my Tiktok page here.