29 Things I’ve Learnt Over 29 Years
The order is random—they might be important or utterly trivial, interesting or banal.
Over 29 years, I’ve learnt the following:
1) Temporary ≠ permanent
Everything passes, including the bad stuff. You might spend an extra year at a job you dislike, but that job won’t last forever—there’ll be a new one, much better. You might live for an extra year in a temporary flat you’re renting until you find something better, but that flat will change too. Don’t worry too much about temporary difficulties—you can fix them with time.
2) Social media = a drug
Deleting social media from my phone was one of the best decisions of my life. Social media has almost nothing useful to offer—the harmful effects far outweigh any benefits.
3) Gratitude is brilliant
You need to find time to thank people who’ve done something good. It’s not really accepted in our culture, but you need to overcome the awkwardness and say thank you.
4) Books are still the best source of knowledge
The book format forces the author to express their thoughts comprehensively and in a structured way, which is why it’s still an important source of knowledge. No YouTube videos, courses, or articles have the same power.
5) Sometimes you need a longer break
I’m very grateful to fate that my life has had long periods without conventional work, but also without excessive stress. It’s pleasant to have time for yourself: for reading, long, serious games, cinema, thinking, walks, hobbies—work takes all of this away, perhaps not completely, but certainly partially.
6) Everything is done by ordinary people
Steve Jobs once said that everything around you was made up by people that were no smarter than you—and he was absolutely right. If it seems that directors of large corporations are somehow smarter than ordinary people, or that completely different kinds of people work in serious companies, that's not the case. Ordinary people work everywhere, making the same stupid mistakes, equally unsure of what they're doing. You can find many decisions from Apple, Google, Amazon and others that prove this point completely.
7) You still need to know things
Knowledge supposedly loses its significance when you have LLMs with search, but that’s not true. It’s still important to be able to make decisions in seconds based purely on knowledge. And searching is much easier when you know where to look.
8) Don’t treat new circumstances as a reward
When a difficult life stage ends, it’s easy to accept the current, better situation as a reward—that’s a mistake. It’s simply a new situation, and to consolidate your position in it, you need to do ×N of what you did before.
9) Everything can be done more simply
Absolutely everything can be done more simply. Whether it’s worth it is another question. But very often it is, because excessive complexity rarely gives bonuses, whilst simplicity very often does. When I replaced more complex solutions with simpler ones, I was always satisfied.
10) You need to write down your thoughts
I don’t know how many points didn’t make it onto this list because I was too lazy to write them down straight away. I remembered some of them, but not others. You need to write down everything and let your future self decide whether it’s important or not.
11) Persistence helps
Didn’t work the first time—you can try a second, third, fourth, or even 20 times. If you, your project, users, clients, or team need something, not giving up after the first attempt is a good tactic.
12) Switching is a separate skill
You can know four languages perfectly but have difficulty switching between them. You might have no problems working on macOS or Windows, but when switching, you mix up shortcuts. Switching quickly is a separate skill that requires additional training.
13) The human brain is a machine for languages
I didn’t believe that you could learn a language through listening and reading, but it really does work in some magical way. Children learn languages like this, but it’s also available to adults. You just need to have a lot of time.
14) Money is a tool
Money is a tool for buying freedom. Freedom to travel, freedom not to work and to think, freedom to choose from different options, freedom to make mistakes. If more money doesn’t mean more freedom, at least in the long term, it’s better to have less money and more freedom.
15) Tracking expenses is useful
Recording all your expenses might seem too complicated, but it’s actually quite easy to do, thanks to modern technology. And it helps you be more conscious in financial decisions. Knowing that restaurants, cafés, and deliveries can easily eat up a third of your budget makes it easier to refuse them. Information that rent costs three times more than groceries helps with planning. And knowing that an ‘expensive’ hobby is actually the last column in expenses is simply pleasant.
16) The world is complex
If someone offers a very simple model, it’s most likely false. Sometimes it’s accurate enough to solve the problem, but you need to remember its inaccuracy so you’re not surprised later. The world is complex, multilayered, and multifaceted.
17) English is the language of freedom
I’m very grateful to my mother for transferring me to a school with English, because I never learnt French anyway, and English gave me a path in life. Thanks to English, I have my current job. Without it, I wouldn’t have such freedom in choosing books and videos, and travelling would be a nightmare.
18) Don’t bang your head against a wall
Modern success clichés promote never giving up and always going all the way, but that’s flawed logic. Sometimes giving up is the smartest thing you can do, because it helps preserve resources for more important or profitable things. Give up on useless things—do what is truly meaningful.
19) An e-reader is a brilliant device
I used to think reading on my phone was fine, and I generally liked it, but for my birthday my wife gave me a PocketBook, and I don’t want to read on my phone anymore. It’s not fine anymore.
20) A space without distractions = good
Fighting destructive desires is energy-intensive work, so it’s better to organise physical and virtual spaces to avoid distractions rather than fight them. It’s easier to delete social media from your phone instead of promising to spend less time on it. That’s also why a steam cooker is a good idea—it’s difficult to cook unhealthy food with it.
21) Accepting what you cannot change is wisdom
The principle is described in the works of the Stoics and in this simple prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
22) Without an example—it’s unclear
If you need to explain something, it’s better to give an example; otherwise, it’ll be unclear. The human brain understands examples well but poorly understands abstract concepts. For instance, point number 20 would be unclear if I hadn’t given examples.
23) Just do it
I once saw a video where someone jumped a construction fence and climbed to the top floor of a skyscraper—whilst it's obviously a terrible idea to actually do this, you can borrow their audacity and confidence. That same boldness applied properly can get you far. Want to speak at a conference? Submit a proposal. Want to work with someone you admire? Send them a message. You can achieve many things this way—you just need to take initiative and do it, with audacity.
24) Energy is more important than time
Energy is difficult to measure and therefore isn’t taken into account in planning, but it’s very important to consider. Sometimes one task eats up so much energy that it destroys the desire to do anything, whilst another task takes all day but, on the contrary, inspires work and adds enthusiasm.
25) If you can do it straight away, it’s better to do so
Someone sent a message and you’ve already started reading it—better to answer straight away, because later you’ll have to figure out the context again. Noticed a bug in a project—create a task immediately. Need to buy something—order it online or add it to the shopping list straight away. If a task can’t be done immediately, you need to do at least something—for example, write it down or schedule it.
26) You can simply wait for the right moment
There’s no great sense in choosing paint for the walls when the foundation of the house is being built. Very often, waiting for the appropriate stage to propose your plan is the best strategy. Don’t be too insistent at the wrong moment.
27) If you can and want to do it yourself—do it
If achieving the best result requires going beyond your authority, very often that’s exactly what you need to do. Just don’t forget about tact: ask before going beyond boundaries, or suggest your solution simply as an idea or option.
28) American positivity is brilliant
Previously, I hadn’t worked with Americans much, so I’d only heard about toxic American positivity from other people’s stories. Having experienced it myself, I can say only one thing—it’s wonderful, much better than ‘Slavic honesty’. I don’t know how sincere the positivity is, but working in conditions where your work is valued and you’re respected is very pleasant.
29) The final push is the hardest
It’s easy to do something, and you can do it endlessly, but the last 5%—the difference between doing and done—that’s the most important and most difficult part. You need to allocate more time and energy to it.