39 Things

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Today I’m turning 39. And I thought it would be a good moment to post a list about 39 things I learned so far in my life. Or things that seems important to me now. Or just things.

  1. Regrets are like plastic surgery: they can’t really improve anything and they’re expensive as hell.
  2. Money is good, but you’re way much better than your bank account.
  3. Hate is useless. No matter at what end of it are you.
  4. Love survives. Somehow.
  5. You can be fooled by the wrap sometimes, but everything you receive from life is in fact a gift.
  6. You’re as good as you want to be.
  7. Friends are in your heart, even if they aren’t in your life for many years.
  8. Goals are good, but no better than the mechanical rabbit at a dog race. At the end of the race, they’re useless.
  9. Believe everything you want, it will turn out to be true at some point.
  10. Day dreaming is like oxygen for your mind. If you can’t day dream, you’re slowly suffocating.
  11. Inside or outside yourself, travel is a miraculous thing.
  12. Work pays off.
  13. It’s ok not to like somebody.
  14. Your words are more powerful than you think. Use with caution.
  15. No matter how much you have, it’s always about how much you give.
  16. I’m much better at starting things than at managing them. I made peace with that.
  17. When you really need someone or something, it will appear in your life. You may not see it, but it’s there.
  18. I bumped into many “it seems there’s no way to get over this” moments in my life. They’re all in the past now.
  19. Whatever you speak to yourself into your mind, you will silently go to others around you. Treat yourself nice.
  20. Hangovers are temporary. So it’s pain.
  21. Whenever you feel you can’t do it anymore, you can do it at least twice the time you did it. That’s a fact.
  22. Believe your intuition. Just don’t let it know that, it will inflate with pride and lose accuracy.
  23. Forgive fast, forgive often.
  24. You have to repeat your lessons until you learn them. Can’t trick the system on this one.
  25. There is no such thing as an “inappropriate moment”. Everything happens on time.
  26. You don’t need permission to be happy. Nor acceptance or validation.
  27. Fighting is such an energy waster. So much healthier to go the gym instead.
  28. When you want something, go get it. Don’t fantasize about having it.
  29. You can make mistakes. That’s ok.
  30. Other people can make mistakes. That’s ok too.
  31. Everything happens for a reason. You may not see it right away, but it’s there all the time.
  32. What you see is mostly what you think you see. Looking back, a lot of stuff looks different to me now.
  33. Success is not a career, a family or wealth. Success is happiness acknowledged.
  34. Happiness is a process, not a goal.
  35. Somebody may hurt you at some point and you may hurt somebody. Pain is part of the game. Suffering is optional.
  36. Everything you get, you wanted at some point. You only get what you want.
  37. It’s ok to be loved by other people, even if you don’t love yourself.
  38. Sometimes I get so bored with elevated sentences about life, like the ones I wrote here. I really do.
  39. Stop doing stuff. Start living your life.

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59 thoughts on “39 Things”

  1. Pingback: The Art Of New Beginnings
  2. Pingback: 33 Ways To Care

  3. Happy Birthday (belated), Dragos!

    I loved the list, and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s all in the process, not in the goal. Regarding happiness, though, I think I’d take it a notch further. Happiness (we agree) is not the goal; and while I agree that it’s in the process, I also think it’s a decision. Happiness is the approach; happiness is the premise; happiness is where you are at the beginning of the process.

    It’s independent of environment; it’s independent of state; it’s independent of physical health. It’s a decision, it’s a choice.

    Just some random thoughts at a (seemingly) random time in the morning. I’m going to bed now.

    Happy Birthday! Wow, you’re just a kid … 🙂
    Cheers!
    Joel

    Reply

  4. Happy Birthday Dragos on your 39th. I find myself in many of these points especially #15 about having and giving.
    .-= Hicham Maged´s last blog ..Psycho Circus =-.

    Reply
  6. Pingback: Goals and Mechanical Rabbits

  7. happy birthday Dragos, since i’ve subscribe here (april 09) i’ve got a lot of inspiration and motivation (for life and business) – and this list confirm that. nice way to celebrate 🙂
    love #39

    Reply

  8. Honestly it was great list, Happy Birthday (2days late, sorry for that).

    BTW: I’m gonna print-out some article in here, So I can pass it to non-internet people too…

    Reply

  9. What an awesome idea for a personal development exercise. I am going to try and make a list like this for all my future birthdays! Thanks for the wisdom!
    .-= Steven Handel´s last blog ..How Stress Ruins Everything And What You Can Do About It =-.

    Reply

  13. Happy birthday Dragos … great way to celebrate your birthday. I was looking for ways to celebrate mine (today – 11th) and this gives me a little spark of inspiration.
    .-= Ian | Quantum Learning´s last blog ..10 Books That Shook My World =-.

    Reply

    • Thanks, Ian

      Happy Birthday to you too, fellow Scorpio 🙂 Glad to be of help and also congrats for the last hit you launched, the post in your signature here, you deserve all that traffic 🙂

      Reply

    • Thanks, had a little bit of champagne last night. Not even remotely enough for a hangover, but reminded me of old days 🙂 Cheers to you too!

      Reply

    • Thank you, Johnny, appreciated. I like this idea of pictomins (never heard of them so far). I think it would be really interesting to put a link back to the reference or inspiration. I can recognize mine there, but I’d be really curious who is that guy with the elephant :-))

      Reply

  17. Wow. Just wow. This list is awesome Dragos. And I love the way you write it. There’s entertainment value besides the usefulness. Exactly what I need!
    .-= Karlil´s last blog ..Fight =-.

    Reply

  18. Happy Birthday Dragos, wishing you all the best! I so enjoyed this post! I wonder about #22, never knew intuition has pride:) Maybe it is just ego inflating with pride and starting to interfere with intuition. Anyway..happy Birthday once again, thanks for a wonderful read!
    .-= Lana-DreamFollowers Blog´s last blog ..Why Positive Thinking Doesn’t Work =-.

    Reply

    • Thank you, Lana

      Yes, you may put it like this too :-)) Whenever we get too proud of something it seems that our intuition has to suffer.

      Reply

  19. This is wonderful Dragos, I love it. I think I might try this. At one point in my life I did a gratitude journal where each day I wrote down something I was grateful for. Most days there were so many things, but I picked the most unique for that day and wrote it down. But this would be a new project. It would really help us all claim and clarify that which we have learned, which is a good exercise for us all. Thank you my friend. I found many of these very touching. Wise.
    .-= Robin Easton´s last blog ..When We Don’t Speak of Death =-.

    Reply

    • Thank you, Robin

      Your authentic and open presence is always refreshing. I did a gratitude journal for 30 days (there are some posts in the blog about it) and it was a healing experience.

      Reply

  20. Happy birthday, Dragos.

    Looking forward to your list on your 82nd birthday. 🙂
    .-= Marko´s last blog ..Upgrade Your Listening Skills with Functional Ear Training =-.

    Reply

    • Thanks, Marko, I didn’t see this coming, but I’ll make sure to keep you posted when it comes. Maybe we could just update one another telepathically in 40 years. When you’ll feel a little pinch in your arm, well, that will be a pingback :-))

      Reply

  22. Happy Birthday and what a lovely wisdom list for you to share with us.
    I especially like from 31 up.
    Have a great day well evening now!
    Cheers
    .-= Bunnygotblog´s last blog ..The Answer Lies Within The Question =-.

    Reply

    • Thank you, Jonathan

      Your last post was an inspiration for me. Many of your posts are, as a matter of fact. Thanks you for being around 🙂

      Reply

  28. Hi super Dragos.

    Happy birthday to you man~

    There are loads of real-world messages here. I could comment on so many of them. 18 is a great one for someone who is stuck in one of those times. They do pass.

    #28 is a great one to keep us from wasting time for nothing imagining some good result without actually getting it, and I read somewhere that imagining already having it can make us less likely to actually want to get it, because we get some of the good feeling of having it already.

    #38 makes some good sense because there is only so much elevation that is presentable until regular material becomes more desirable.

    I could keep going but great value here for those that see it.

    You’re bringing it with momentum and vigor, and we like to see this as it continues.

    To a cool 39
    .-= Armen Shirvanian´s last blog ..Knowledge Is Your Best Friend =-.

    Reply

    • Thank you, Armen

      Just wanted to tell you that your comments mean a lot to me. Every time you do it, you bring more value and that’s something I always respect. 🙂

      Reply

  32. “Goals are good, but no better than the mechanical rabbit at a dog race. At the end of the race, they’re useless”

    WOW, I’m really impressed how well you put it. I’ve been screaming from the top of my lungs for a while now, that life is more than a set of pointless goals.

    Most people heard that you should “set goals you can’t achieve in your lifetime”. You end up not in a rat race, but in a perpetual rat race.

    The whole point to life is to live.

    BTW, the best part of getting older is that you’re getting wiser.

    Reply

    • Well, I wouldn’t say that getting wiser with the age is really a fact. I mean, look at our leaders, they seem to gradually increase their level of idiocy with every new year. IMHO 😉

      Reply

  34. Happy Birthday.
    I have been a reader of your blog for some time, but this is my first time commenting.
    Number 39 strikes a chord. It does seem sometime that the days fly by when I am “doing” stuff and leaves me wondering whether I have actually “lived” in those days – a difficult balance.
    .-= CynicalDoctor´s last blog ..Audible – A brilliant idea =-.

    Reply

    • Thanks for happy wishing 🙂

      Yeap, this is why I put number 38 there too. Elevated and motivational and inspirational sentences are good and I admit I am (or I got over the years) relatively good at crafting them. But beyond those sentences there’s real life and life can’t be concealed under a sentence, no matter how brilliant that sentence may be. Life’s gotta be lived 🙂

      Reply

  35. Wow, Dragos!
    I love to read personal life lessons. They tell so much about a person. And even more, I would love to learn the stories behind these life lessons (Ok, not the one behind the hangover…:) )
    I would add to no. 33 & 34 – Therefore, happiness is a choice.
    Damn difficult to make, cause it’s buried somewhere beyond what we think we can control – covered by society restraints and rules (the super-ego in psychology). But it’s there all right.

    Reply

    • Absolutely: happiness is a choice. As for the stories behind the hangovers, they’re still part of my life. Some of my highest moments here. I wouldn’t repeat them though, but still part of my life 🙂

      Thanks for being around.

      Reply

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