54 Things I’ve Learned About the World at 54

So, I just turned 54 on Sunday this month. It was kind of an odd experience for me because my head was full of questions. Where did the time go? How the hell am I 54? What’s the best use of my time and talents from here on? How hard should I go into AI? Health writing? Self-help writing? Should I start doing interviews on Culturcidal? What about video? Should I ditch Culturcidal completely and move into a different field entirely or start working for a bigger outlet again?

I could go on and on with these questions and there are never any perfect answers because the world is always changing. However, even as the world constantly changes in some ways, it’s also repeating over and over as well. The hook changes, but the rhythm? It’s eternal. With that in mind, here are 54 things I have learned about life at 54.

1) God, family, friends, country, and conservatism. In that order.

2) If you worry about things you can’t control, you are going to spend a lot of your life worrying.

3) If you don’t have the courage to go against the crowd, you’re not really free.

4) There’s almost never a time when someone has “no choice.” The choices may be hard, bad, difficult, or radical, but yet and still, they are choices.

5) If you want unconditional love in life, the only places you can potentially get it are your parents, your kids, and your dog. You can even mess those up if you’re enough of a screw-up.

6) One way or the other, all relationships have an ending point, so if they’re good, enjoy them while you can.

7) The vast majority of humanity will not think twice about you a week after you die. Treat the ones that will with the full level of kindness, deference, and respect that they deserve.

8) Most of your happiness will come from the relatively small number of people on earth who deeply matter to you.

9) Don’t be passive-aggressive. Don’t have any covert contracts. You know, if I do this for this person, then they should know they have to do this for me. Set a basic standard for what you’ll accept and ask for what you want.

10) Do say, “I love you” to your family. One day, you’re going to be gone, or they are and you’ll never want them to doubt how you felt about them.

11) Make a real effort to forgive people for your sake, but don’t forget what they did.

12) Habitually being nice to people generally makes life smoother, but if someone pushes it way too far or tries to take advantage of you, be such a son-of-a-b*tch they’ll regret ever crossing you.

13) It’s much healthier for you to cheer people on and applaud their success than to resent and envy people who are more successful than you.

14) You can’t “fix” anybody and seldom will any good ever come of thinking that you can.

15) If someone you care about asks for money, you can give it to them if you want, but you shouldn’t lend it to them because if you do and they don’t pay you back, that puts your friendship at risk.

16) If people want your help and you want to give it to them, that’s great. However, don’t try to push your help on people that don’t want it. It’ll just end up making both of you unhappy.

17) No matter how well you do in life, your desire for some things like love, fame, money, status, and power is boundless. Once you start pursuing them in earnest, no amount of them will ever quite be enough to make you feel completely satisfied.

18) If you want to be the best at anything (or even close to the best), you have to neglect everything else in life that doesn’t contribute to being the best at that one thing.

19) The best spoils, memories, and moments in life come from doing, not watching.

20) The more someone goes on about their integrity and honesty, the more likely it is that they’re lying to you.

21) If you’re traveling and want to know if an area is safe, look for middle-aged white women. If you see them around, the area is probably fine.

22) There’s a world of difference between being busy and being busy doing something important. One just wastes your life while the other can change your life.

23) There’s a level of randomness to life, but over time, most people create both the good and the bad in their lives with how they think and behave.

24) Being overly cynical is just as much of a mistake as being hopelessly naïve.

25) If doing something makes you feel guilty or ashamed, it’s not worth doing.

26) When you go for it, you’re going to fail a lot, but your greatest moments will also probably be a result of you going for it even though the odds were against you.

27) If you can’t reinvent yourself and what you love to do, you are going to be incapable of dealing with an ever-changing world.

28) The 80/20 rule basically states that 20% of the cause leads to 80% of the effect in almost every area. There is a lot of truth to that and it’s why you need to put a lot of effort into maximizing that most productive 20% of your life.

29) You should absolutely have a dream board in your house both to remind you of what you’ve already accomplished and to inspire you to keep pursuing your dreams.

30) When you fail, commit to doing better from now on, but also forgive yourself for falling short. All of us do sometimes.

31) Unless you know or respect someone, accept their compliments, but ignore their criticism and opinions unless you think they’re valid. They haven’t earned the right to criticize you or impact your mood.

32) The clearer your goals in life are, the easier it is to make decisions and know what you should be doing every day.

33) Most people would benefit from tactfully ignoring more things. Someone flips you off while you’re driving? Ignore it. Your girlfriend makes a snippy comment while she’s in a bad mood? Ignore it. Somebody makes an obnoxious comment online? Ignore it. Deciding to ignore those kinds of things saves you a lot of unnecessary aggravation.

34) Don’t be sad over what you’ve lost, be grateful for what you had while you had it.

35) The most underrated trait for a human being is enthusiasm. People who are excited and enthusiastic are a joy to be around.

36) Your mood has a lot to do with the outcome of whatever you’re doing. Show your anger about being cut off on the freeway or sadness over not getting a promotion while out with a group of friends and you can be the buzzkill who ruins everyone’s good time. So, since you get to choose your mood, choose it deliberately and wisely.

37) Make sure to have a list of to-dos, a list of ideas, and a budget, if only to help quiet your restless psyche that’s convinced there’s something you may be forgetting to do.

38) Accept that life’s not fair instead of spending your life angry and upset because the world isn’t conforming to how you think it should be.

39) Shape your environment to achieve what you want. Don’t load the fridge up with sugary treats. Put exercise equipment beside a door you go in and out of regularly. Don’t use your bed for anything except sex and sleep. Don’t put distractions in your workspace. Get out of your own way and prime your environment for success.

40) If you practice just about anything long enough and hard enough, you’ll get pretty good at it. Maybe not good enough to be world-class at it, but still, pretty doggone good compared to most people.

41) Man can’t make foods that are healthier than the ones God made.

42) The older you get, the more physical maintenance you have to do not just to improve, but to keep from going backward.

43) Once a society’s morals turn to sh*t, everything else in that society soon follows.

44) If someone is being paid to push an idea or a product, you can’t ever take what they’re telling you about that idea or product at face value. That applies to everyone from influencers, to politicians, to scientists.

45) Just because you see it in a video doesn’t mean it’s real. Just because a description says something is happening in a video doesn’t mean that’s what it is. Just because a video is real doesn’t mean it wasn’t started or stopped at a time designed to give you a misleading impression of what happened.

46) Be careful of partnerships. They’re magic when they work well, but most of the time they ultimately don’t.

47) Don’t sign any contract that has a clause in it that’s unacceptable to you. Get it changed, cross it out, just don’t put your name on it no matter what they claim or say unless you can live with it.

48) When you work, work hard. When you play, play hard. Don’t mix those two.

49) There are only so many hours in a day, which is why it’s very difficult to get rich unless you can find a way to move beyond just getting paid for your time to make money.

50) The more popular you become, the more people are going to hate your guts because of it.

51) Whoever you are, you are behind and time is running out. Pursue what you really want to do while you can.

52) Never forget that for good or ill, life is cumulative. The choices you repeat, day after day, will echo into your future.

53) Living in things that happened in the past that make you unhappy is a certain recipe for a miserable present.

54) We’re all tiny specks, in a big world, in a nearly infinite universe who know shockingly little about well… everything. No matter how smart, powerful, important, or right you may think you are, be humble.