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And the day finally came, I turned 40 this week, and even though I am pretty much at the same point in my life when I turned 39, turning 40 is a huge milestone in my life: I have just entered my 4th decade in this world, and this was something worth embracing and cherishing. I also took the time to reflect on how I evolved over the years, and even I know some of these changes were in some cases down to the experiences I lived, the people I met on my way,  and my personal circumstances, I believe maturing and aging played an important part in my personal development and growth. These are the 10 lessons I can say I finally learned when I turned 40. I am going to treat these as my 10 commandments.

Turning 40: 10 Lessons I learned

#1 I learned to use self-criticism to evolve and grow, not to sabotage my own potential and my happiness

I’ve always been hard on myself, too hard most of the times, to the point – this is a very difficult thing for me to share – to undermine me,  to beat myself up for no reason. For quite long through my adult life, I’ve felt I was never beautiful enough, or smart enough or lucky enough. As I grew older, I decided that I want to spend my energy wisely and give room to thoughts of self-acceptance and not self-harm.

# 2 I’ve learned to accept

That is the biggie for me. As a person that has always resisted, understanding acceptance felt really liberating. For as long as I can remember and since I was a little child, I have always lived with a feeling of inadequacy, of not belonging or fitting anywhere. I gave up resisting,  I decided to accept. Perhaps it comes down to the fact that, as I grow older, I have less energy to resist. So I decide to accept. I decided to accept that melancholy is a personality trait I have to live with, that there will be dark nights of the soul, moments when I might feel like a complete failure as a mother, as a woman, and as a professional. And I accept that that is OK. Because feeling like a failure does not mean I am one. I accept that I am an imperfect person with an imperfect life, and I accept that that is OK.

#3 I’ve learned to laugh at conventionalisms

Rejecting conventionalisms is not always easy: it can make you feel like an outsider, a sort of a pariah who is outside the system of what society dictates as normal and acceptable. Now I remind myself that I only give power to what I pay attention to and instead of letting certain unwritten norms winding me up, I choose to ignore them; I choose not to give power to them. My life is far from being stable but it is unique and precious in its own way and I ‘d rather be grateful for what I have than beating myself up for what I don’t have.

#4 I’ve learned to choose myself

I have learned to base my self-esteem on how I see myself, not on how others perceive me. I believe the key is to hold yourself in high regard no matter how difficult your circumstances are or when you are not where you want to be  in your life – It might not be rocket science, but it took me quite a while to finally understand that what really matters is how you perceive yourself, and to love and respect yourself even when the outer world doesn’t seem to love you back. Now I hold on to the belief that it is my inner world that activates the outer world and not the other way around. I choose to please myself before others and choose to invest in me because I am my only asset.

#5 I’ve learned to ask myself uncomfortable questions

I believe that real empowerment comes from knowing exactly what is important to you and not what should be important to you at a specific age according to what society dictates or what people in your circles, (life, work, social life) think. Success, like pretty much everything in life, is also relative, and you should be the only one who dictates what success equals to without falling into the trap of what should be and what you should have accomplished. I think we should get rid of the shoulds and focus more on the wants. I have by no means master this skill, but I am now learning to baffle outer noise and listen to myself more, even when that implies asking myself uncomfortable and painful questions which stir up feelings that hurt. Dear friends can wish you well and give you sound advice when you feel lost but there are questions you only have the answer to.

#6 When it comes to friendships, I favor quality over quantity

Shall we favor quality over quantity even when that means not having real friends at all? It’s up to us to decide what we consider real friends. I have dear friends I feel really close to me despite being miles away from me. I’ve always preferred petit-committee of friends rather than an expanded network of “mates”. My real epiphany came after I became a mum and my lifestyle, understandably, changed radically:  many of those so-called friends” vanished. Don’t get me wrong, these were never in “circle of trust” but it hit me how volatile and frivolous people can be. I simply decided to skirt around volatile people.

#6 I’m more conscious of my own mortality

At the risk or sounding too transcendental or even dramatic, being conscious of your own mortality means being fully conscious of the fact that life is a short ride and that we only have one. The world is my oyster and I still have plenty to live through and plenty to give, but I’m more aware that my time here is limited so I have to make the most of it, accepting, forgiving, taking the reins of my life and making my own decisions.  Being conscious of my own mortality is positive because the carpe diem mantra was never as meaningful to me as it is at this point in my life.

#7 I have learned to accept that I will never live a completely guilt-free life

Guilt reached a whole new level to me after I became a mother. And feeling that mother guilt is a juicy enough topic to cover in a different post. I have come to the conclusion that due to many factors, I will never live a completely guilt-free life. I have ended up accepting that guilt will always shoot me from different angles, but it is up to me not to let it control my life,  not to lose my own roadmap and not to let it shatter my dreams and aspirations.

#8 Resilience is more than an over-used self-help manual word

I am not referring to the resilience needed to endure tragic life events such as living through war time, being the victim of injustice or experiencing the death of loved ones. I don’t want this to be misinterpreted in any way. What I learned through the years, is that resilience is not something you can learn, but something you have to do in order to thrive, get on with life and bounce back from difficult times. I finally understood that it is better to aspire to have a life full of good problems rather than having a problem-free life.

# 9″What I Want” comes before “How will I get it”

Making decisions can be dreadful and draining. I remember how the fear or not making the right one, completely paralysed me. I end that learning that the steps you decide not to take are equally powerful to those that you decide to take. When it comes to making crucial decisions, I learned, most of the times the hard way, that the knowing what you really want, comes before how I will get what I want. As messy or impossible as the how’s could be, what it is vital is knowing the real thing first. And knowing what you want implies asking yourself uncomfortable questions, get past cheating on yourself and sometimes stir-up some shit we try to be oblivious to but which is still there. I learned that I have to get past a lot of muck to get to a drier, sounder place.

#10 Learn not to see broken relationships and heartache as sad souvenirs or what was not meant to be

That’s another biggie for me. When you have been in a meaningful relationship, a break-up can feel like experiencing the death of a loved one. I don’t want to be misinterpreted and I do not want to underestimate in any way the immense pain and suffering caused by losing someone you loved, that’s not the point I want to get across. But when a relationship dies, a life-project dies as well, the life as I knew and conceived died and the dreams I had with that person died. That’s how it felt for me. You have to start all over again and get on with your life when you are at your lowest, when the person you shared so many dreams with is no longer there. I’ve always been a clingy person prone to emotional dependency; and that is bad, really bad. I suffered until I finally learned to be lenient with myself, to give myself time to heal, to follow my own pace to heal and allow myself to be sad. Now I look at heartache in a different way and think that a break-up can also be a source of self-discovery, self- acceptance, it can be a bridge to connect you with what it is important to you and finally, it can be the path you need to walk through to finally live without barbed-wire around your heart. I remind myself every day that I still have the capacity to love and that I am worthy of love and being loved.

Pics credits: Pixabay