I’ve spent the day relaxing in this quiet room, and providing my Traveling Partner with caregiving. It’s detail-oriented personal service work, providing care to this human being I love so deeply. Still, it has been a day with ample time for reflecting on life and love and what I have learned along the way.

Here are 61 lessons from my mortal lifetime thus far:

1. There’s always something more to learn.
2. Change is a constant.
3. Zest for life is closely tied to experiences of wonder and awe.
4. Self-care matters.
5. Meditation is an effective practice.
6. We become what we practice.
7. We each have the power to define success for ourself.
8. Setting boundaries is a self-care practice.
9. Our values are not what we say they are; they are what we live and practice.
10. Taking the time to do something well is reliably more efficient than having to do it more than once.
11. Anxiety is a liar.
12. Chasing happiness does not result in greater happiness.
13. Lust is mostly a matter of biology.
14. Savoring life’s small joys and making time for gratitude builds emotional resilience.
15. Human primates operate “emotion first”.
16. Our quality of life is more dependent on the quality of our relationships than the size of our paychecks.
17. Assumptions are not facts.
18. Expectations are not facts.
19. Opinions are not facts.
20. Beliefs are not facts.
21. The catchiness of a slogan has no bearing on its truth or usefulness.
22. Very few of life’s stressful moments have lasting impact.
23. I probably need to drink more water.
24. “Wealth” is relative.
25. The person who throws the punch doesn’t get to decide whether it hurt.
26. We are each having our own experience.
27. A lot of the crap that bothers us most is shit we totally made up in our own heads that has no actual basis in reality.
28. Self-reflection can help develop perspective.
29. Rumination can be really damaging, and tends to limit perspective.
30. The difference between rumination and self-reflection can be subtle.
31. Emotional intelligence has real-world value.
32. Getting enough rest is as important as drinking water, eating healthy food, and exercise.
33. Solitude can be rich, beautiful, satisfying, and nurturing.
34. Few people recognize their own confrontational, hostile, angry, or escalated tone of voice.
35. Forgiving someone is a thing we do for ourself, not for the person being forgiven.
36. People notice when someone isn’t paying attention.
37. Distracted driving is potentially lethal.
38. What we think we understand about human behavior isn’t reliably accurate, and can’t be assumed to apply to all people in every circumstance. It doesn’t.
39. People are people.
40. We’re all in this together.
41. The journey is the destination.
42. Your lived experience is yours. My lived experience is not yours.
43. How you behave when you think no one is watching will tell you what your values truly are.
44. Rationalizing poor behavior doesn’t make the behavior any better.
45. We feel our own pain the most.
46. Our ability to understand the world is limited by our perspective.
47. Being a dick to people is a poor practice with predictably poor outcomes.
48. Thriving and surviving are two very different experiences.
49. Reading is an incredibly useful skill, the benefits of which are multiplied by enjoying it.
50. Art is a way of expressing the things we don’t have words for.
51. Language functions by agreement.
52. Carefully defining the terms in a discussion prevents a lot of arguments and misunderstandings.
53. Apologizing without sincere contrition isn’t really an apology.
54. Apologizing while making excuses for how the offense is justified, understandable, or must be overlooked isn’t really an apology.
55. An effective apology is 100% focused on the person hurt and how they were affected, and 0% about how the offender feels about it.
56. Listening deeply is a powerful relationship building tool which takes time, practice, and effort to develop.
57. Hijacking a conversation to talk about yourself instead is rude.
58. Waiting for a turn to talk while someone else is talking is rude.
59. Interrupting someone while they are speaking is rude
60. Manners and civility are key to quality of life and cultured society.
61. Life is worth living.

It’s not science. These are things I’ve learned myself, over a lifetime. I’m not even saying these observations and learnings are “all there is” (what would you add?)… these are just a few things I’ve learned that continue to serve me well.

It’s your journey, up ahead. I’m over here walking my own path. May your path be smooth and the way ahead illuminated.