24 life lessons in 24 years of life

Photo: me at 2.5 years old versus almost 24 years old

As I write this, I am living the fact that it is my last day as a 23-year-old. Whoa, I'm entering my mid twenties?! It feels surreal, and honestly, time is an illusion. It feels as if life unfolds in cycles of expansion and contraction. I felt like this during a similar phase of life in 2020. That was also the first year I wrote a similar blog post called "20 life lessons in 20 years." As I get closer and closer to fully developing my prefrontal cortex, I want to recount some life lessons and document them.

The following list is in no particular order. So, here we go! again :) 1. Success doesn’t make you happy; a regulated nervous system does: This has been one of the most important lessons for me. I thought that it was external achievements that make one happy, peaceful or fulfilled. But as the Bhagwat Gita says, "we do not experience our world, we experience our nervous system". This idea has changed my life, and I have now become a student and practitioner of nervous system regulation. It has been more biological than anything for me. Evolution does not care about happiness; it only cares about our survival.

2. Fascia is the organ that explains how emotions are stored in the body:

By now, it has become common knowledge that emotions are stored in the body. But I always wondered where exactly the emotions are? Like physically? In that rabbit role, I have discovered an organ that I didn't know existed: the fascia. It is the connective tissue that surrounds our organs and connects the whole body. It has very interesting mechanical properties that make it store tension and emotions. It is mostly made up of water, and doing fascia stretches has unlocked a new level of relief in my body. I highly recommend looking into it if you have lower back pain and overall stiffness in the body.

3. Experimentation is underrated and under-incentivized:

Common wisdom often encourages people to go deep and specialize quickly. And capitalism encourages that due to standardization. However, I have found that doing small experiments in life consistently has an extremely high ROI. It supercharges learning and produces specific information very quickly. I felt like people expected perfectionism in school, at work, and everywhere I went. But being open to failure, doing quick iterations, and continuous experiments in every aspect of my life is now a critical tool for life.

4. The moment right after failure determines who you are:

My life has been defined by many failures. They are countless and ever-present (might be due to my experiments from above, haha). The moment I get rejected, I consider it the most high-potential moment. It is full of choices and opportunities for you to decide who you are. I am careful with these moments, and I decide if it is a finite or an infinite game. The realization that the most important games in life are the infinite games we play forever, like exercise, relationship building, and mental focus, has given me the perspective to handle the finite games, which bring about the failures and the rejections.

5. Extreme optimism or pessimism is both passive:

When people ask me if I am an optimist, I always respond with this thought. Both extreme optimism and extreme pessimism require no active action. If I am an extreme optimist, I can just relax and watch the movie of the future unfold; if I am an extreme pessimist, everything is doomed anyway, so there's no point in taking action. So, now I believe in the middle path of action. The future can be good if we act on it. So, pick the path of action.

6. Courage is rarer than intelligence:

Growing up, I always thought that intelligence was quite rare. However, I am now surrounded by countless extremely smart and competent people. To me, that is no longer rare. What is rare is courage. To do things one is scared of. Also, since extremely smart and ambitious people are status and prestige oriented, risk becomes harder. The stakes are higher, and there is more to lose. So, I never want to lose sight of courage in the face of intelligence.

7. Women/Girls should take more risks:

Continuing on the theme of courage, risk-taking becomes a natural segue. In my 24 years on this planet, I have noticed how much women are socialized to be pleasing and likable. My contrarian view is that girls should not actively care about being liked. It should be a natural byproduct. It's okay to be slightly polarizing. They should disturb the waters a little, see what gives, take more risks. Get into fields that fascinate you. This is a muscle that can be built. And if you try something and it doesn't work, there is no difference between you now and the version of you that tried and failed, except maybe some uncomfortable emotions. So, do not engineer smallness into your life; go for "it".

8. For me, the tension between belonging and standing out seems never-ending:

I optimize for one; the other seems to give. It has been a challenging balance for me. How to do things that have never been done before while also maintaining a connection with people? This is one lesson I am on the lookout for the lesson. If you are reading this, let me know if you have any.

9. Antifragile ambition: how I will approach my career pursuits now: There is a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called Antifragile: Things that gain from disorder. It introduces a concept called antifragility, which basically means systems that improve, grow, or become stronger when exposed to stress, volatility, disorder, and mistakes. It goes beyond resilience (surviving stress) or robustness (resisting stress) by thriving on uncertainty. Examples include muscles strengthening from lifting weights, immune systems adapting, or businesses improving from challenges. After several years of intense crashes and burns, I am now applying antifragility to my long-term ambitious goals.

10. There is no connection without vulnerability:

I have learned a lot about vulnerability in my life. It takes immense courage to be vulnerable. However, it is the stepping stone for intimacy and connection in any relationship. There is an art to not overdoing it or underdoing it. But not doing it is not an option.

11. Shame and guilt are the most fascinating compass emotions:

Whenever I feel immense guilt or shame, it is my cue to journal deeply. Those emotions have some of the strongest evolutionary reasons. Back in the day, survival depended on tribal behaviours, so if anyone swayed away from them, shame would bring them right back. They are critical for survival, but in the modern world, they can happen in excess. These emotions are also some of the biggest triggers of trauma memories, so a mastery of these emotions is a mastery over our destiny.

12. The pursuit of prestige purely is dangerous:

This one is subtle but extremely important. It is so easy to start chasing impressive-sounding things that the actually impressive things get blurred. To seem small can be an ego death for many, including me at times. I am very susceptible to this, too. Humans are status creatures and have deep social hierarchies, but being aware of this strong pull has made all the difference in my trajectory. Knowing how to keep it calibrated will be a lifelong journey.

13. You don’t need permission:

There is often this notion of invisible laws that socially govern our world. Most of them are illusions and man-made, even if important for things such as the social order. However, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these are not real. We have way more freedom in life than it feels most of the time. I have come to realize that I do not need permission to do things; I can just do them. Unless I am breaking the law, I should be breaking more social conventions. Chaos and order must be balanced.

14. Expose yourself to Black Swans more:

There is another concept in finance called black swans. They're basically extremely rare, unpredictable events with massive, often catastrophic consequences on global markets. These events lie outside normal expectations, cannot be predicted by traditional forecasting models, and are typically rationalized in hindsight. They can be summarized as unknown unknowns. There are things in our lives that we cannot even imagine. I always try to create space for the unimaginable, to increase the surface area for luck. The black swans.

15. You attract what you are, not what you want:

This is a lesson I keep learning over and over again. Anytime I chase opportunities or a person, the feedback seems to be directly correlated with who I am in that moment. Once I am that thing, I seem to get it more and be able to hold onto it longer, but desire somehow seems to imply a pre-existing separation from that thing. So now, I try to become the thing I want before I try to "get" it.

16. Fun is a massive competitive advantage:

It is extremely difficult to beat someone who is having fun. So, pick games in life that you have fun with.

17. Continue using the regret minimization framework:

Upon reflecting on these lessons, I have come to realize that I regret minimizing decisions all the time. Whenever I am in a particular season of life, I zoom out and think about what choices would make me regret this season of life the most in the future. That gives me the perspective I need to make seemingly unusual decisions. For example, after graduating, many people go straight into the workforce or graduate studies. While that is a commendable choice, I felt as though I needed time to reflect, to visit grandparents, to understand a different part of the world. I see it as accumulating potential energy before unleashing the kinetic energy into the world. This framework has made me have an extremely strong sense of self as well.

18. Explore your inner space before you try to go to outer space:

For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with the idea of going to outer space and exploring the universe. While that desire hasn't changed, I have found an even more profound idea. That the human soul, the inner psyche and the 95% of the subconscious hidden within us is just as fascinating to explore. And they seem to have a reciprocal relationship. The one influences the other and vice versa. This is a powerful lens that I now take into my future endeavours.

19. Apply first principles thinking more often:

I have come to appreciate the value of first principles thinking. Around me, I often see discussions of politics, economics, law and media. But without a basic knowledge of the history of the universe, evolution, math, and the scientific methods, the rise and fall of civilizations, it all feels like a fragile house of cards. Like trying to understand a leaf without understanding its branches, the trunk and most importantly, the roots. Being able to reason things from the bottom up is an essential skill to save ourselves from the dogmas of society.

20. Romantic relationships cannot be treated with career success strategies:

There was a time when I tried my romantic life with the same strategies I use for my career progression. But now, after all of these years, I have come to realize that you cannot muscle through this. It is more of a dance, a letting go, and reciprocity. Also, accepting the inevitable hurt and disappointment :)

21. Consistency beats intensity (oof):

This one is huge for me. If you know me personally, you know that I am an extremely intense person. I have intense drive, intense emotions and overall high intensity. But one of my biggest weaknesses has been the inability to be consistent. I have a high energy bout in something, I rest deeply, and then continue again. The thing I want to work on now is how to half-do things. I never liked it well enough, but for some aspects of life, good enough has to be enough. I have to preserve energy instead of constantly exhausting myself. Rest has to be built in instead of forced. It's a struggle, but again, hopefully my self-awareness will save the day.

22. Truly being selfless and helping someone is not easy at all:

This is one of the lessons/beliefs that has become a foundational principle in my life. I think humans are inherently extremely selfish. We have to be. Biology demands that we are. Everything about our physiology is oriented towards survival, which requires selfishness and self-interest. So, to claim I will help someone else feels like a tremendously bold statement to me. I take it very seriously, very humbly and not trivially at all. I am and will always be the first to admit my selfishness and personal interests, and try to be careful in basking in my own self-importance, and my ability to suspend my ego to look and help someone else.

I write more about this here: https://www.jagritiluitel.com/post/are-we-competing-for-the-prestige-of-selflessness

23. Transcendence is a key ingredient to a fulfilling life:

I think we all need some sort of transcendence, not to fall into the nihilism vortex. I have gotten into this vortex many times, and it gives me an appreciation for people who buy into religion and god. I am not there yet, but I am constantly developing my belief systems and am spirituality-curious. Sometimes ideas give me that sense of transcendence, that I am working toward something greater than myself. If I am ever in doubt, I stop looking around the people around me and think more about my connection to the purpose itself. It clarifies the signal from the noise for me.

24. My name, Jagriti, feels appropriate for this life. I hope I can live up to its meaning in this lifetime:

My name means Awakening/Awareness in the ancient Sanskrit language. I have thought about it a lot. My dad wrote this name in his notebook back when he was a student politician to remind himself to stay awake in the day-to-day trenches of life and society. That has always stuck with me. I feel like it is extremely easy to be hypnotized by the day-to-day reality of life. To get into a sort of autopilot. This has always scared me, so these blogs and reflections are an attempt to stay awake. To be able to experience life not just in my own assumptions and my head. Hopefully, I can stay awake, stay Jagriti.

Here are a few more honourable mentions:

1. Just ask for what you want. Just ask.

2. Try to get yourself onto power laws, not just linear graphs.

3. Avoid zero-sum games, embrace positive-sum games.

4. Play long-term games with long-term people

5. Look for character, fun and intelligence in friendships 

6. Look for integrity, intelligence and hard work in career collaborations.

7. It's okay. All will be well.

Whew, this was a lot. I was initially planning on finishing this on my birthday, but life had different plans for me. Still, I am proud of myself for finishing it.

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