13 Lessons Your Kids Will Never Regret Learning
And maybe even you, too.
My last article on 17 Thought Provoking Quotes That Will Make You Think Twice went damn near viral. There were more views, more likes, and more shares on that piece than on any other article I’ve written.
So, I listened.
Instead of a long-form article, I’m sharing content you guys clearly want: succinct, engaging, and practical (I’ll still write long-form articles, for the record).
I mentioned in another article how I save ideas for future essays in my phone’s notes app. Well, I also save lessons that I want to share with my kids someday. There are 276 of them right now. And these lessons go beyond the hackneyed preachings of, “your word is your bond,” “always do the right thing,” and “no you can’t have ice cream, it’s 9am!” No, those lessons are the buy-in—expectations, not exceptions. If they need a reminder of those things then I have clearly failed as a parent.
Anyway, here is a short list of the MANY lessons I’ve accumulated over the years. Feel free to share your own.
Lesson 1
“Guilt comes from expecting your past self to have known what your present self does. Forgiveness is to see the absurdity of that expectation.” – Findingawareness, IG
It took me a long time to experience guilt as just a manifestation of the mind. It’s not real and it never was. No more guilt.
Lesson 2
You don't need more information to become more intelligent. You need a quieter mind. The quieter the mind, the more precise the thinking and the wiser you become.
Enough said.
Lesson 3
Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is powerful but real power comes from sharing that knowledge.
When you do this, you enable agency in others. You give them the option to act. You promote freedom.
Lesson 4
You can’t cope with something you don’t acknowledge. So, accept pain—physical, mental, emotional. To deny your pain, be it grief, worry, depression, is to deny its healing.
Think of it this way. When you were in middle school and the teacher left the classroom, what happened? The class turned to chaos, right? And when the teacher returned all the students became little angels. The same is true with pain (and I’m more specifically talking about emotions here). Using the classroom as a metaphor, the students represent your emotions and the teacher represents the noticing self (the part of you that notices emotions, thoughts, pain, etc…). If your noticing self wanders away and doesn’t pay attention to what’s going on in the classroom (i.e., the body), it’ll run amuck. You tame the chaos by getting closer to it, not running from it. A similar metaphor is the buffalo in the storm.
Lesson 5
Rejection is just a redirect toward what’s right.
Be thankful for rejection. The universe is basically taking over for something you couldn’t see on your own.
Lesson 6
Change doesn’t happen in the mind; it happens in the heart.
This is why change is so hard for so many people. They know, intellectually, that eating ice cream is bad for them, they know that more activity is good for them, but they don’t change. It’s because their desire to change is only in their heads, not their hearts. To want to change you must feel the fire the change. When you feel it, you can feed it.
Lesson 7
Your new self will cost your old self.
To become a better, different, or more evolved version of yourself, you must be willing to let go of certain aspects of who you currently are, which requires trust in the unknown.
Lesson 8
“Trust the unknown. The known is the prison of the past.” - Unknown
I find it ironic and quite funny that it is unknown who said this quote. Along similar lines as the previous lesson, clinging is the root of suffering. Shed the old, embrace the new.
Lesson 9
You don’t grow from what you know.
Reframe uncertainty as opportunity. Leland Val Van de Wall once said, “the degree to which a person grows is directly proportional to the amount of truth they’re willing to accept about themselves without running away.”
Lesson 10
You don’t suffer because of the thing. You suffer because of the way you see the thing. The truth is only what you make it to be. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
Mindset is “most.” It’s not “everything” because we are not our minds and I would argue the heart is stronger than the mind, but the mind is a heavy influence. If you don’t like how someone or something makes you feel, change your perspective. Try gratitude. Try compassion. There’s always something to be learned. Always.
Lesson 11
Be the person you needed when you were younger.
Everyone has unmet needs growing up. No parent can tend to all their child’s needs because nobody’s perfect, which is why everyone has some degree of trauma. However, missing out on xyz while growing up doesn’t make you a victim, it makes you aware of how you can heal yourself and others.
Lesson 12
A great Buddhist teacher once said, “Spirituality is never about getting anything. It’s always about losing everything.” The path is about letting go, not adding on.
The core lesson here is that liberation or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it isn't something you gain or earn. It's the natural state that reveals itself when you’ve stripped away everything that obscures it. The spiritual journey, therefore, isn’t a journey of acquisition, but a journey of un-becoming
Lesson 13
A strong determination not to suck will take you far in life.
True story.
Have a lesson to share? Write it in the comments below.