10 Things I Learned in the Last Three Decades

(Alternative title: fortune cookies by Sarah)

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of my existence. They say that you’re supposed to get wiser as you get older, but to be honest, I don’t feel much of either. I’m sure  my ten- or twenty-year-old selves would see the difference between me then and me now, but I still feel like myself. Like a kid.

If age is only a number, wisdom is only some words. And words are not always wisdom. In fact, I’m pretty sure these ones aren’t.

But this is my blog, and you knew that when you clicked over here. So if you weren’t prepared for my self-indulgent ramblings, then what the heck did you open this page for?

There are so many things I’ve learned over the past thirty years, ranging from how to tie my shoelaces (widely applicable) to the minutiae of my PhD dissertation research. The following are probably not the most important things I’ve learned. But they’re the ones that, right now, I still have the most difficulty wrapping my head around. And they’re the ones that I feel changed my life and behaviour the most when I finally accepted them.

1. It’s OK to ask for what I need.

In class, I make fun of the way I sent emails in undergrad: “Sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering if…” My Professional Communication students laugh: when I use a hesitant voice and exaggerate twisting the hem of my shirt and ducking my head, it’s easy to see how the sentiment comes across as ridiculously self-effacing and frustrating for the reader.

But I share it because, like so many others, I really did used to feel like asking for something as small as a letter of recommendation or the correction of an error in my schedule was a huge pain. I felt like I couldn’t dare turn the attention of some other, much more important human being to my concerns.

Now that I’m on the other side of those emails as an instructor, I know it isn’t like that. I’m glad when someone asks me directly for a favour, because I want to help others and need to know how. I cannot reject or refuse my own requests in advance out of the fear of having someone else do so. And I cannot expect others to help me unless I tell them what I want.

2. What’s important is what I do, not who I am.

I want to be special. I want to be the smartest in the class, the favourite friend, the coolest person. I want to be different from everyone else, except in a better way.

Everyone wants something like that, I think. But I am not and never will be the -est of anything. The beauty of the world is even if you are the -est at something, an even -est -er will come along someday.

What matters is not a title — not being a smart or kind or attractive person. What matters are the day-to-day behaviours that make me smart or kind or other good things. Labels like “good writer” or “anti-racist” or “best friend” aren’t the goal. My intent is not an end in itself. I have to write blogs and stories and plays; listen to others’ lived experiences and call out my own bias; and help and have fun with the people I love. Actions, not ideas, are what make the me other people know.

3. Making an honest mistake is never a waste of time.

There are about ten novel manuscripts on my hard drive, not including the ones I’m working on now. Many of them took at least three or four drafts. Some took more.

I used to think that I’d keep working on each one until it was publishable. Otherwise, I’d done all that work for nothing.

But an unpublishable manuscript isn’t worthless. Writing and trying to fix bad stories taught me how to write good ones. Similarly, messing up a new lesson plan or a treasure hunt or a business email isn’t the end of the world, and it isn’t a chunk of my life I can never get back. It’s a chunk of my life I need in order to get the next part and shape it the way I want it. Mistakes are what I need to learn.

4. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

My third- and fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Nathanson, used to say this all the time. Even back then, I knew I needed to hear it.

I was — and am — a lazy kid. I would wait to do projects the night before and then scribble down whatever was in the encyclopedia set at home, knowing full well I’d get top marks because my reading and writing skills were advanced enough to pull me through. My impulse is to cut corners, to decide my critique partners are overreacting, to leave projects at “good enough.”

Not everything I do has to be perfect — if it did, I’d never play sports or act in plays. But if something’s important to me, I have to take the extra time to make it as good as I can.

5. I don’t have to be brave enough to do it for always. I just have to be brave enough to take the plunge.

I’m terrified of heights. But I took my sister skydiving for her birthday one year. Yes, I spent a long time talking myself into it. Yes, I thought about it for months. But… when it came to it, conquering my fear boiled down to a single moment with the plane door open in front of me. I didn’t have to be brave enough to jump the whole way up there, just brave enough to board the plane knowing I still had the option of turning back. I didn’t have to be brave enough the whole way down — at that point I didn’t exactly have a choice.

Asking out another person, trying a new lesson plan, saying hi to a stranger at a party, sending a manuscript to an agent or critique partner — all these things are scary. But none needs to be scary for more than the minute it takes to commit.

6. It’s OK to have mixed feelings about something.

My favourite novels of all time are C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. I met them when I was in third grade and fell head-over-heels in love — until, as a teenager, I discovered their philosophical feet of clay

I don’t agree with Lewis’s portrayal of women or people of colour or pretty much the world in general. For a while, that meant I couldn’t enjoy Narnia the way I had when I was a child. I felt like I had to either love it or hate it. And since I couldn’t love it with all my heart, well, that left only one option.

As I grew older and learned more sophisticated ideologies, I felt guilty about more and more of my favourite shows and books. But then I realised: it’s OK to like part of a story while still finding it problematic. It’s OK to like a person who disagrees with some of your core ethics. It’s OK to love Aslan even if you don’t believe in — or want to believe in — C. S. Lewis’s version of Christ. The important part is to acknowledge and work against the problems.

7. I am not responsible for other people’s happiness.

When I host a party, I always feel disappointed when a few guests sit out from an activity or look bored. I know everyone has different preferences, and that some people like different things than I do. That doesn’t stop me from feeling like everyone I have over should be laughing and having fun all the time.

I want my friends and family to be happy. I want my students and coworkers to be happy. Heck, I want strangers on the street to be happy.

And it’s important to fulfill my ethical responsibilities to them. But ultimately, the only person I can “make” happy is me. Other people have to take that journey for themselves. It is both insulting to them and harmful to me to take that responsibility on my shoulders.

8. It’s OK to perform gender the way that’s right for you.

For a lot of my life, I’ve had a horror of being mistaken for a male. Not because that means I look a way I don’t want to look — as I get older, I can identify my personal aesthetic as androgynous, and I’m OK with that — but because it felt like presenting as gender-ambiguous was a failure on my part. It meant getting yelled at in washrooms, or making people defensive if I corrected them. It felt like there was no way anyone would ever find someone like me romantically attractive or socially cool.

Well, they do. And what’s more, I’ve met a range of individuals who also perform gender differently . Trends like dapper women and androgynous models show me I’m not alone, and I’m not a weirdo — or at least, no more of a weirdo than any other marvellously unique human being.

I’m my kind of woman. And that’s the only thing that matters.

9. Just because I’m responsible doesn’t mean I deserve blame.

There are things in this world in which I’m complicit: everyday racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ableism, fat shaming — you name it. I didn’t choose to be part of them. But I’m still a contributing member of a culture and society that supports these things. I am responsible.

The hardest part of accepting major social-justice responsibilities — like my own privilege — as well as more personal responsibilities such as fulfilling the duties of an instructor or a writer; being a good friend, girlfriend, sister, daughter, and cousin; and behaving with compassion and kindness no matter the circumstances is understanding that accepting responsibility is not the same as accepting blame.

Blame is counter-productive. It is about who should feel guilty and who should be punished. It’s about the past.

Responsibility is about the future. It’s about what I expect of myself going forward, including correcting behaviour from the past.

10. If not now, when?

From the start when I was in sixth grade, I told myself I was not going to be a pie-in-the-sky wannabe writer. My feet were going to be on the ground. I knew it was unlikely I’d make a living out of writing. I knew I’d need another way to support myself.

Although I never said it in as many words, I told myself that I’d dedicate myself to my writing once I was settled. Some day. When I had a job, when I finished school, when I had time.

And then one day I realized: these other careers I was trying to kick-start, they’d take as much effort and be as difficult as writing. I could live my whole life and waste all of it putting what I actually wanted on the backburner in order to get to the point where I’d allow myself to treat it with the importance it always had for me.

There will never be “a good time” to chase my passion or take a break or make a change. That’s why I can’t wait for one. If it’s important, I need to make it my priority now.

Here’s to another thirty years of learning.