Today officially marks my 34th birthday, and I decided that it might be fun to compile 34 things I’ve learned (mostly about writing) in honor of my 34th birthday. Some of these things will be just things I’ve learned generally about life and myself.

Much of my 20s (and for that matter much of my teen years) were spent worrying about turning 30. Dreading it, fearing it even, but being in my 30s has in many ways been the best times of my life, and more than that, I’ve learned a great deal both about myself, and what I want out of my life. The last few months in particular have been an interesting call back for me. I feel closer to the way I did when I was 14 in terms of the world in which I currently live and my desires and attitudes. I’m in my goth era once again, I’m blogging again, I’m reading more and I find myself once more longing for an iPod and a flip phone (preferably a Sidekick if I can get my hands on it and get it to work).

1. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Especially your art. This is easier said than done but if there’s anything that I’ve learned over the last 34 years it’s that the less seriously you take yourself and you take art in general the more fun you’re going to have.
2. Whimsy is the antidote to so much more than you realize. Part of my point about feeling closer to myself when I was 14 is that I’m learning to embrace whimsy, I’m learning to embrace joy and being weird. You spend so much time just trying to fit into societies expectations and it’s a miserable experience.
3. Nap often. Self explanatory I feel. If you can manage it, nap. I did not appreciate them enough as a kid.
4. Take care of your joints. Another self explanatory one, the older I get the more my joints (especially my wrists) crack like glow sticks. I have to assume that the billion hours I’ve spent typing over the course of my life (my first typing class was in the 3rd grade but I grew up with computers soooo you do the math)
5. Water. I know this is basic and trite but water does really help. I’m not going to sit here and tell you to drink like your body weight divided by 2 in ounces of water that sounds like a nightmare to carry around or even attempt to keep track of but water and staying hydrated does make you feel better and the older I get the more I notice when I haven’t drank enough water.
6. Time outside. I’ve mentioned this a lot but I think it’s important, and I’m guilty of not always remembering to do it. Take time outside, be in nature. I’m not saying touch grass, but at the very least be adjacent to grass.
7. Unmonetizable Hobbies. Hottest of takes but having unmonetizable hobbies is actually good for your psyche and emotional well being. There is this expectation that everything you do you have to monetize, especially if you are even halfway decent at it. Any way to make money. I get it because hey working for a 9 to 5 sucks and nobody wants to endure it, but you have to have hobbies that just exist for you.
8. Online friendships are valid, but having an IRL group of people you can go to does matter too. This is another self explanatory one. I’m someone who because I moved out of the place where I lived for the past twenty years, my friendship group is essentially all digital. I have one or two friends I still talk to from where I grew up then a few friends who I’ve met online. That said I think having friend groups of people who you can see in real life is important. I’m an introvert and I get it but like making friends and seeing people in person means a lot.
9. Community is important. Especially right now, community is everything. Whether that’s a writing community, your queer community or your local community (or even just a group of weirdos who enjoy the same fandom nonsense), sometimes it’s nice to just be able to be in community.
10. Listen. This one is a bit vague but I think it’s important to listen when other people are telling you things. It can be simple, or it can be being willing to take criticism if something you’ve said or done is hurtful or harmful. It’s not always easy and it can feel uncomfortable to hear but it is often necessary. Even if it’s not directed at you, being willing to hear what’s being said and take that in for your own reference is also a good idea.
11. Learn as much as you can. Always be curious. I love learning new things I always have. Whether that’s learning to code here and there, or learning different avenues of writing or ways of creating videos, or even history. Knowledge is power.
12. Don’t work too hard because life is short. What I mean by this is like, don’t get sucked into the ‘I can rest when I’m dead’ pipeline. Don’t let the Puritans win. If you love something and you want to dedicate a lot of work to it great, but don’t get sucked into the path of “I’m not doing enough”. Believe me I’m still working on this one.
13. Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s an oldie but a goodie, and forever relevant. Comparing yourself to others is a surefire way to make yourself miserable. Again something I have to remind myself of often. Your journey is not their journey, their journey is not your journey. It can be easy when you see someone else achieving something that you want to feel like why isn’t that me? but it’s only going to make you miserable and isolated. It isn’t you, because you are your own person. It doesn’t mean you can’t achieve what you desire, it just means the timeline isn’t going to be the same as anyone else’s.
14. Be patient with yourself. Similar to the above, you have to learn to be patient with yourself. I’m someone who deals with anxiety and depression and it can be so easy to get very upset at myself when I think my emotions are ridiculous. It can also be easy to get frustrated when I feel like I should have achieved xyz thing by now–again your timeline is not someone else’s, you cannot compare yourself by that metric.
15. Learn to love yourself in a very real way. Self care is real and it is important but what that looks like is often less bath bombs and a 16 step skin care routine and more like treating yourself with kindness and compassion.
16. Empathy is everything. I cannot believe we live in a world where there is a serious argument that empathy is somehow evil but yeah caring about other people and being able to understand their plight is actually a human thing and an important thing. You don’t have to have personally experienced something to understand and empathize it’s called being a human being.
17. Anyone who treats writing like some sort of chore instead of a gift is boring and I will add to this, probably not someone you should be listening to. I resent the idea that writing is this curse and that it’s difficult and hard and miserable. Yes it requires a lot of you, yes it requires work and persistence and yes it is often under appreciated but so are many things in this world and for me I would rather be a writer than anything else.
18. Art that is interesting is better than art that is “good”. I made a whole TikTok about this talking about the whole banana duct taped to a wall art piece and I maintain that while the Mona Lisa is pretty, the older I get I’m more interesting in art that is weird/avant-garde and interesting than art that is necessarily technically good. What does it have to say? What is the deeper significance beyond just technical skill?
19. Tacky is fun. Maybe it’s the lesbian in me, but the older I get the more I love tacky shit. When I was young and both more cynical and had less personal style I used to be into minimalism and like kind of simple aesthetics. But now that I’m older and I understand myself better I really love things that some people would consider tacky. I like color blocking, I love maximalism, I love wallpaper and too much jewelry and just having fun. I would rather see someone who is doing too much and having fun than someone who is doing nothing and boring.
20. Time may not repeat but it does rhyme. (Not my quote). As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I’m more similar to myself as I was at 14 than I ever imagined I would be. And for that matter the world is more similar to when I was 14 than it was when I was 24.
21. You can be an artist even if you don’t think you’re good at it. This one seems pretty self explanatory but I don’t think there is any requirement to when you can call yourself ‘an artist’ or ‘a writer’. If you do it and you enjoy it then that’s what you are. If it comes directly from you and your mind and your human creativity then you are an artist/a writer. Plain and simple.
22. Make bad art. Similar to my point about liking tacky things and liking art that is interesting I think we need art that is just original and maybe bad but uniquely human. “Perfect” but slop is still slop.
23. Do things for yourself not just for attention/money. Social media will have you believing that everything you do has to be for public consumption. Birthdays, concerts, trips, everything must be visible at all times always and available for public consumption, but actually just having things for you that no one else has to see or share in is okay. It’s healthy and I think it’s something we need to get back to.
24. Monetizing your hobbies is a dangerous game. Okay so this one is kind of a similar point to my note about having unmonetizable hobbies but it is an individual point worth sharing. Once something becomes your job the fun can die pretty quickly if you’re not careful. So when I say monetizing your hobbies is a dangerous game what I mean is, it’s all well and good to say if you love what you do you won’t ever work a day in your life but the reality is when the expectation is that you have to do something in order to pay your bills there is now a pressure. That thing that you did because it was fun now comes with responsibility. Not to mention let’s say you DIY or you make art or you sell things that you customize. Not only is that hobby now expected to be a professional thing you now have the potential of what happens if what you made causes injury? (I made a DIY book of shadows that used some gold glass that it turns out is very sharp and has cut me a few times if you sell that and someone gets cut you are now liable for that injury potentially). It’s a lot of pressure.
25. Have things you enjoy that are analog. I love my computer. Perhaps a bit too much. But I also love writing by hand. I love making art that is in a book or on a canvas. I love knitting. I love CDs and cassettes. It’s sooo important to get back into the analog world again. Buy physical books. Buy notebooks, and sketchbooks, and make art by hand.
26. Take social media breaks. This one is something that I think is a lot more common for a lot of people and it’s something I’m doing more frequently. Social media has really started to grate on my nerves. Even positive things or things that are meant to be helpful can make me anxious and feel rushed and make me feel like I’m under some sort of time crunch or something. It’s very easy for social media to make you anxious or even feel stressed or worse erratic and taking a step back and deleting the apps and saying I’m going to text my friends if I want to talk to them is going to go a long way in keeping you mentally sound.
27. Find an exercise you enjoy and do it for your mental and creative health. I’m not here to tell you that you need to be skinny or exercise this wild amount or whatever I don’t believe in that, what I do know is sometimes finding exercise that you enjoy, dancing, swimming, and using a recumbent bike are some of my favs (I would bike on a real bike but I need thick tires) is going to go a long way in making you more creative and improving your mental health. Actually just the other day whilst on a recumbent bike I came up with a new idea I otherwise might not have had.
28. I actually enjoy sci-fi. This isn’t some revelation that is advice just something interesting I didn’t expect to learn about myself. I’ve never considered myself a sci-fi girly (I love the film Alien) but by letting myself explore things outside of my usual expectations I learned that I can like new things. I’m also not necessarily a country music person (Beyonce’s album not withstanding). Sometimes you have to go outside of your comfort zone and your usual habits and learn that you do like things you may never have imagined.
29. Ignore rage bait content. Some things are just there to make you mad. Don’t fall for it. Again one of the many things I’m guilty of but like for the love of all that is unholy don’t do it.
30. Don’t be afraid to try something new and be bad. Similar to unmonetizable hobbies, I think the feeling that you have to do things for public consumption on the interwebs and the feeling that you have to be great at things means that you do have to at some point be willing to try new things even if you might be bad at them.
31. It’s never too late to start. This is probably one of the most over quoted pieces of advice and one that I think is not often understood, but I look at it this way, as long as you are still alive it is never too late to start something new. To change your life around. To go back to school to learn a new skill or hobby or to explore something that you always thought about but never got into. If you’re alive that means you still have time.
32. You don’t have to be worthy to be lovable. Often in certain circles of the internet you hear affirmations about how you are worthy of love, or worthy of achieving your dreams or happiness, and while I will agree that this is an important message I think an equally important message is that you don’t need to be worthy to be successful. You don’t need to be worthy to be lovable. Maybe that’s just me that needs to hear this, but chances are you probably do too.
33. Do what you love because you love it. While some might argue that if you love doing it never do it for free, I would argue that it’s worth doing something that you love because you love doing it. Part of why I enjoy writing fanfic is because there is no expectation of monetization. There’s no expectation that this thing is going to make me money. It exists purely for the love of the game if you will. It doesn’t make it more pure and it doesn’t make it more special, but it does make it at least for me more enjoyable. There isn’t this pressure for it to be anything other than what it is.
34. Loving yourself is not just for the internet. Last but not least I think it’s important to remember that like I believe you should have things you do not for the internet’s approval or validation but just for you. Self love, self care all of these aren’t just buzz words for the internet. They’re important things. Your self care routine doesn’t have to be for public spectacle or involvement. Your meditation, exercise, taking walks for mental clarity, or spending time offline should be just for you. Because no one else has to live your life but you. I understand that to some degree if you have any kind of public attention there are going to be people who are curious about what you do because they want to emulate that but my recommendation to people would always be you have to find what works for you. I can’t tell you what works for me because you are not me. I am not you. You have to figure out what works for you. That’s true in writing, that is true in creating art, and that is true in self love and self care.

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