[keiferski]

Yeah, when I read lists like this, I mostly just think: "That's it?" It's very trite and uninteresting, and frankly if I make it to 72 and my advice is similar to this, I will feel like something has gone terribly wrong. If all the wisdom I've acquired in life is indistinguishable from a Hallmark card, then I probably lived a pretty boring life.

[supermatt]

Do you have any profound insights or wisdom you've gained at your current age that you'd like to share?

[keiferski]

Well, I'm in my mid-thirties, not 72, so I wouldn't claim to have any profound insights or wisdom. But if someone asked me for advice and I didn't have a long time to think about a proper answer, I'd say something like:

- Pick a career in your early 20s and get really good at it. Just pick something. Being good at something is better than endlessly searching for the "perfect" job that matches all of your interests. I worked in the food service industry for ±5 years during and after college, and I occasionally wish I had just become a chef, or an architect, or a mechanic, or some other very narrowly defined profession that results in mastering a particular set of skills – as opposed to the ever-changing, nebulous format of most white-collar technology jobs. You'll probably make less money, but I feel like such people have a better sense of identity and overall purpose than the typical white-collar worker.

- Popular culture is very feel-good about everything and shies away from any kind of negative emotions or feelings, preferring instead to neuter them, and push humans to be stoic, utilitarian, and anti-romantic. (As shown by the OP.) I don't think this is healthy or practical, and instead suggest that you learn to channel negative emotions into useful behaviors. We're all human and it's normal to get angry and not be nice.

- An extension of #1 above: good people are hard to find and the "maximize preferences" approach to dating, jobs, and other life decisions seems rational but really isn't. The best partner/job/etc. for you isn't one that has the most compatibility points determined by an algorithm and is in fact much more mundane and human in nature.

- The human ability to forget pain is really remarkable. No matter how horrible a situation is, you'll most likely forget about it in a few months or years. "This too shall pass" is the traditional adage describing this.

- You live in an era that has compressed every major life decision into a series of supposedly arbitrary choices. The real world doesn't work this way, and there are very different outcomes between say, being a parent and not being one, both for you and for society at large.

- Finally, the modern world, by default, thinks that the past was filled with dumb, irrational people, and that the present is automatically better in every way. This isn't a smart attitude and you shouldn't discount someone's viewpoints just because they lived a century or a millennium ago. And as an extension to this: don't be afraid of reading something by someone that you (think) you'll immediately disagree with. It's helpful to be able to interact with a variety of ideas and viewpoints without necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with them in toto.