Thursday, February 9, 2023

40 Things I wish I knew...

 

Last week I turned 40 and on that day I thought, “wouldn’t it be great if I could tell my 10-year old self all the info I know now?” That led to thinking it would make a great blog so here we go, here are the 40 things I’d tell my younger self…

 

40. Don’t bite off more than you can chew: It’s easy to think that you can be Superman but committing to large things before thinking it through can lead to difficult projects. For example, coming up with 40 things right now.

39. It’s okay to be good at something: It can be difficult to be good, or exceptional, at something. It can truly be discouraging to feel isolated because something comes easily. However, you must understand that it’s okay to be good, and whatever topic, subject, or activity is something that you enjoy, and are good at, should be something to investigate if it could lead to a career.

38. It’s okay to be bad at something: If can be difficult to be painfully bad at something. You mustn’t allow this to become your identity though. As much as you’ll want, you won’t make a good hockey goalie and you won’t be the next gold medalist at the alpine downhill. Sports dreams aside, it can be bewildering that some things may come easily, and yet other things that come naturally to others will be a challenge.

37. Those normal people? They don’t have it all: You’re going to chase normal in the future. You’re even going to understand it, but you’re still going to do it. You’re going to chase what you perceive others have, but no one has it all. When you chase the myth of normal, you’re going to forget who you are and what makes you special, but as painful as these moments are, you will make it out the other side.

36. It’s okay to ask for help: Maybe I should tell my current self this as this is a challenge. However, wouldn’t it be better to ask for help now, than to make a mistake and have to fix it later?

35. Others may not know you need help: Why is it hard to ask for help? You don’t understand this now, but others don’t know what you need by pure chance. This leads us to #34.

34. You will understand the difficulty of “I think therefore you should know”: Later in life, you’ll say this is one of the five most important topics the world has to understand about autism, but for you it won’t come naturally. Just because you think something or know something doesn’t mean everyone else does. If something is bothering you and you don’t say something, the other person won’t know it even if you think they do.

33. It isn’t if you win or lose the game, it’s that you’re playing the game: Games are amazing, and at the age of 10, you’ll think winning is everything. You’re going to love the cutthroat ways of Monopoly and Risk, and there will be an extreme frustration when victory isn’t achieved, but eventually you’ll realize that the joy wasn’t in the victory, it was sharing a game and thought with other people.

32. It’s okay to be late: You’re going to struggle with this. You’re going to show up 30 minutes early to everything, but this may not be how others live, and that’s okay. You’re going to have two choices; worry about the timing of others and check the clock every 30 seconds, or accept that the world doesn’t have the fear of being late as you do and live with it. When smartphones are made, this will become easier.

31. Even when you’re right, you can be wrong: This is as involuntary of a reflex as breathing, but people will get annoyed when you correct them or facts they mess up. You may not be able to stop, but they too may not be able to stop with getting mad.

30. Real friends are blessing so stay in touch: If someone, “gets you” it’ll be good to stay in touch. It sucks to think, “whatever happened to…” 10 years after talking to them last.

29: Yes, people will get you: You’re going to spend many years wondering this, and at the darkest bits of night when you think this you’re going to think that it’s impossible. This is when #37 will come into play, and you’ll dream and chase normal, but as you get on the other side of this you’ll learn the importance of the next point.

28: Whatever is now is forever: This is joy, and it is pain. When things are good, they will feel as if they’ve always been, but when they are bad it will be inconceivable that they can ever be good again. Pro tip: things can always get better.

27: Whatever happens first always has to happen: You don’t fully understand it, but you’re going to live for routines. This statement, which will be a top 5 statement you’ll say everyone will need to know, is important for you to understand because if something that bothers you happens, and happens again, you may become mired to an unwanted routine. Know this, understand it, and when need be fight it.

26: You can’t please everyone: Others will think you’ll want to please everyone for the sake of it, but your true motive is that, if everyone is happy, you can avoid unwanted social situations. Those situations will arise, but you’ll survive.

25: People will know when you take shortcuts: In the future, when you make a list of 40 things, if you come up with, say, filler, people will notice, as they’re noticing right now.

24: Hide the phone on Christmas: Your intentions will be in the right place, but you’re going to be the only one who understands why you broke up with your girlfriend on Christmas via text message. Look, if they liked you before the text, they’re not after such a stunt is pulled.

23: A broken heart sucks: There’s no sugar coating this one, it hurts. You’re going to feel as if you’re the only one who has felt such pain, but you’re experiencing the same thing all “normal” people go through. It may feel like a dark tunnel that you’ll never escape, but I promise you there’s light at the end, and it may just be more glorious than you can imagine.

22: Others in the workplace may not have your best intention in their hearts: You’re going to be overly trusting, but the workplace can be akin to CBS’s Survivor game show. You won’t be able to comprehend why right isn’t right, and why others may do all they can to seemingly destroy what you have. One of the things that so many others life yourself have is a natural, naïve sense about them, and when others tear you down, you may never understand why they did it.

21: Forgive: It will be difficult, if not seemingly impossible to forgive others. With “whatever happens first” and “whatever is now is forever” will make any transgression against you feel like a world-shattering moment. Here’s the thing, after a couple years the other person may have totally forgotten what event it is that you’ve been carrying in your heart all this time.

20: Do what makes you happy: Job burnout will be a challenge. The thought of a 40-hour work week will be intimidating and will feel like it’s something you’ll never be able to endure, but when you end up working with the NTT INDYCAR Series, a 90-hour work week will be something you look forward to. Honest!

19: Embrace Kansas: You’ll someday write a book called Finding Kansas and you’ll describe Kansas as, “that one place where I feel normal.” That place will be a topic, or activity, that is what your brain thinks of at all hours of the day. Few people will ever experience the joy that you’ll experience when immersed in learning everything there is to know about a topic, or why you like something that may seem repetitive to them, but embrace it, love it, and cherish the times something kicks into a hyperKansas.

18: Cherish animals: You don’t fully understand it yet, but you and animals are going to have a special thing. You get them, they get you, and you will have a knack for “stealing” other people’s pets. Oh, and don’t let the time a German shepherd jumps over a fence and takes a few bites of your knees ruin that bond for too long.

17: You’re living life unfiltered, and it’s exhausting: You have no idea how others in school aren’t as exhausted as you at the end of the school day. They seem to have an infinite power source in their hearts whereas you are going to want to decompress at the end of the day. The reason this is, is that you’re processing everything around you and don’t know it. It takes more effort to pay attention to what you need to pay attention to.

16: There’s nothing more heart stopping than the words, “we need to talk…”: No matter how many times it’s proven that the end of the world doesn’t happen after this sentence, you will still fear it each and every time.

15: Don’t let the diagnosis define you, help define it: The worst day of your life will be when you’re diagnosed on the autism spectrum. It isn’t because of the stigma society may have, but rather you are going to read, “people on the autism spectrum will never have friends, will never have a job, and will never be happy.” So, some advice, don’t look up medical info on the internet in 2003. Oh, and you will have friends, some amazing friends, you will have jobs, perhaps one of the coolest jobs on the planet, and you most certainly capable of happiness and pure joy.

14: Beware the sensory episodes: Not everyone on the spectrum will have the reaction you do, but when the wrong sensory element is experienced by your brain, it will feel like hell. The first couple times you’re going to hide it from everyone, and this is just going to make it worse.

13: Learn how to live with operating under the system of being logical in an emotional world: Others may question if you even have emotions, but you do. Oh, how you do! But, amid events you may take a logical position and ask seemingly cold and callous questions. This system will lead to the Christmas cellphone incident, and try as you might, others just won’t understand.

12: Don’t be afraid of the world: There will be an incident at the bowling alley that will inspire you to write, “people are mean, people are awful, and they aren’t worth knowing.” Understand that others may be emotional in your logical world. As much as you try to be alone, some of your grandest moments will be because of the interactions with others.

11: Thank people: You’re going to come across others that open doors you never thought possible and see things in you that you never would’ve seen. Thank these people in the ways that you can because, after all, odds are you’re going to avoid the social interaction of saying it in persona and you may, right as you turn age 40, come up with a list and say you need to thank others and that “they know who they are.”

10: Learn from others: It will be in 2005 or 2006 that you’ll see Temple Grandin speak. This will change your life as you realize that you can be anything. Before that day, no matter who it was suggesting you read other people’s works and stories, you won’t because your heart is still dark from the belief that your life is predestined and not being happy is the only outcome. Try and learn from others and know that failure isn’t guaranteed even if you say it is.

9: Try and express yourself before your aged 22: One your blackest night, you will sit down at a computer and write. No one suggested it, no one asked for it, but you’re going to write your life story and explain yourself emotionally. Before that time, your family may have only thought that you experienced frustration, so try and show them the true scale of emotions before then, even if talking about emotions was, and still is, something you’ll try and avoid.

8: Learn how to cook: Eventually, there will be this amazing thing called DoorDash and you won’t have to do anything except click some buttons and food shows up at your door. However, it’s expensive and had I only learned how to cook and understand directions earlier, perhaps a whole lot of dollars could be saved.

7: Interact with people who have your same Kansas: You’re going to learn how to have a conversation in the oddest of places as in 2004, ToCA Race Drive 2 is going to be released for the Xbox, and you’re going to try and avoid talking, but you’ll learn that others playing a racing game enjoy racing as much as you. These skills will be gigantic later on.

6: You can’t change people: Other people have opinions, and you may think they are wrong, but it’s fruitless to go on a long, drawn out endeavor trying to change their minds.

5: Things won’t go how you’ve planned them: Right now, you have this idea of how life will work out, but it isn’t going to work out any way you thought it. This doesn’t mean it’s bad, so be prepared for that. We can end up where we need to be and be put on a pathway to get there without any knowledge that we were on that path all along.

4: Act like you already have the job you want: You wanted to win the Indianapolis 500, but you also want to flag the Indianapolis 500. From the first time you’re racing on a track, or flagging, be dedicated as if you’re already there. Don’t save your effort and await to give it your all at the Indy 500, instead give the effort as if you are already there. You may not think it, but passion and dedication are something other people pick up on quickly.

3: Don’t succumb to peer pressure: You may never figure out as to why others will try and change you, and there is something to be said about sound advice, but some will try and change you just for giggles. They may come off as your friends, but they may be anything but.

2: Joy to the world: When people have talked about me, I’m amazed at how much of a part I’ve played in other’s lives when I thought I was invisible. Just as you have a hard time expressing yourself, others too may not let you know just how much of a joy you are.

1: If you’ve met one person with autism… Your story is going to be unique. No one is going to have the same path or ride in life as you, but so too you won’t have others. Some are going to excel in art, and you are still carrying around the badge of shame of achieving an F in kindergarten art. Never think that another person on the spectrum should be you, or that you should be them. Drums will be the worst sensory thing you feel, and yet you’ll meet a mom that has three daughters and they are all drummers. It will be confusing, and after seeing Temple Grandin you won’t have heard of the sentence that, if you’ve met one person with autism you’ve only met one person with autism, but this will be the most important thing you’ll ever hear and it will help you carve out your own story, and your own destiny.

 

 

 

 

 

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