Top 12 Life Lessons From a 23 Year Old
A Quick Word
A quick word before we get started with the topic of today’s post.
A friend of mine and fellow entrepreneur, Joe Niemchak, along with a couple other founders, started an online community called iMPACT U.
The community is dedicated to bringing people together who are interested in the topics of spirituality, self-inquiry, meditation, enlightenment, and self-actualization. Entrepreneurship is also talked about often there.
I have found the community to be an amazing way to meet like-minded people.
There is something contagious about being in a community with people who just want to spread love and good vibes. It gives me faith in humanity and ignites me all the more to keep doing what I’m doing.
Anyway, if this resonates with you, here is the link to join: https://impact-u.circle.so/home
P.S. There’s a free group call every Saturday from 2pm-3:30pm EST where we talk about a variety of topics related to spirituality and personal development. The main purpose of these calls are to foster 1 on 1 connections with people so we go into breakout rooms often. I try to make it there on Saturdays as much as I can.
The 12 Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned in 23 Years of Life
Now, for the main post.
In moving to a new environment, I’ve been going through A LOT of shifts lately, and for some reason it felt right to coalesce everything important I’ve learned in my life into a few key points.
This is where I did all the brainstorming for this post, there’s something about being in Nature that makes you able to better reflect on what is truly important.
Anyway, consider these points advice I would have given to a past version of myself.
However, anyone trying to navigate this complex endeavor called life can learn immensely from these points.
I truly believe it is impossible to reach your highest potential as a human without adhering to these points.
So here they are, the 12 most important lessons I’ve learned in my 23+ years of living as a human!
Hope you enjoy!
Curiosity Needs To Be Pursued At All Costs
Whatever makes you think “Huh, that’s interesting!”, “I want to know more about that!”, “I’d like to try this!”, “What could this mean?”, or “Where did this come from?” needs to be followed at ALL COSTS.
You see, everyone is born with unique attributes, aptitudes, and interests.
Based on these unique qualities, different curiosities will develop, usually fairly early in childhood.
I notice among many people that one often possesses an attribute or set of attributes that manifests in childhood that sort of becomes like their North Star in life.
For one person it might be an interest in building things, for another it may be an interest in diverse flora and fauna, and for another it may be speaking or drawing.
For me it was a rich imagination, along with a wonder for why things are the way they are, typically expressed through writing. I’ve been writing in my free time ever since I learned how and have never stopped.
My main point is that if you aren’t following what you are curious about, you are doing a MASSIVE disservice not only to yourself, but to the world too.
Life quite literally ingrains into your DNA unique qualities that make you, you.
Life begs for niches to be filled and questions to be answered.
The universe values diversity, and cultivating your uniqueness is the path to your self-actualization.
However, oftentimes, the expectations of parents and society can dim these curiosities that come natural to us.
And if you find yourself in that boat, which manifests as a feeling that you are living inauthentically, that your life isn’t quite “you”, or that you feel there is something “more” to life, you NEED to make it a priority to follow those curiosities NOW.
2. The Quality of Your Life is Determined by the Quality of Questions You Ask
When we are growing up in life, the world can seem confusing, and naturally we look to others to tell us how it works and what to do in it.
Essentially, we inherit the worldview of our parents, teachers, peers, and culture at large.
This worldview will have truths to it, but also numerous falsehoods, and if we do not question it, we will unconsciously project the shadow of this belief system onto reality, perpetuating suffering both to ourselves and others.
And so, I encourage you to poke as many holes into your beliefs as you can.
In essence, the quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask.
Question everything, even the most seemingly obvious assumptions.
Question your religion, question commonly held scientific truths, and question the stories you tell yourself about your life.
Even question your identity as a human! (you might just have an awakening!)
In doing this questioning, take in LOTS and LOTS of perspectives.
Read dozens of books, read articles, watch documentaries, and listen to podcasts.
And don’t neglect direct experience.
Set aside time to meditate and contemplate.
When you don’t know something, don’t be so quick to fill in the void with some belief.
Remember, a belief is not the truth, it is only a HUNCH about what is true.
Learn to just sit in a state of not-knowing.
From a sense of detachment, watch your mind dance around the paradox.
It is only from this state of not-knowing that Genuine Insight can arise.
And you will know when it arises.
I attribute EVERYTHING worthwhile I’ve done in my life due to asking powerful questions.
When I was a wee boy, I was in awe at how my Catholic grandparents could believe the stuff they believed in.
I truly could not fathom how any human could actually believe stories (in a literal way) from a book written a couple thousand years ago.
And so, I embarked on a quest both to understand what the truth actually was and to understand how people could become so profoundly deluded.
In my initial questioning, I naturally inherited the collective reaction against dogmatic religion, which is atheism/agnosticism.
This worldview is heavily scientific, focuses on the cold hard “facts”, and essentially does not believe in anything that cannot be verified via empirical evidence.
At some point in my early teenage years, my questioning halted and I became fixed as a stone cold atheist.
This, combined with other life factors, led me into a state of nihilistic depression in which there was no inherent meaning to life and that nothing mattered. I genuinely contemplated suicide in part due to a nihilistic worldview (more on nihilism later).
At some point in my teenage years, usually when I was out in Nature and was witnessing beauty, I started to question “Did all of this really just happen by random chance? Everything seems to weave together, so perfectly, is there really not a higher power?”
My staunch atheism eventually gave way to a more open agnosticism, and I started to feel better internally.
But I kept questioning, which led me to having a few mystical experiences, which then confirmed to me that there is a profoundly, unimaginably intelligent force at play in reality.
A “Genius of Being” as author Peter Ralston would call it.
These mystical experiences radically altered my sense of self, as I now saw myself as being part of a grand unfolding of evolution that is beckoning humanity towards higher love, consciousness, intelligence, and unity.
From there, I knew I had to lock in as a human and heal myself from the traumas I’ve accumulated and orient my life towards serving the collective.
And as a result of all this inner work that stemmed from asking questions, I am a profoundly more loving person and am 10x happier in day to day life than I was in my teenage, atheistic, nihilistic days.
So, my friend, make sure you are always questioning.
3. Developing Intuition is KEY
Don’t listen to the mind as much as you listen to the heart.
Reason alone cannot be trusted to make life decisions.
To truly know what you are meant to do with your life, you will have to listen to the heart.
The mind is tethered to the ego-self.
And the ego seeks comfort.
It despises change (if it is comfortable), and so it will rationalize why you shouldn’t make that career change, why you shouldn’t start expressing yourself a certain way, or why you shouldn’t change your environment.
But the heart is tethered to your soul.
It is spirit-in-action.
It is the part of you that longs to express without any conscious reasoning.
Keep a balance between the two, but leave more space for the heart.
Sadly, many people in this world lose connection to their intuition in attempts to conform to the expectations from parents, peers, and society.
This loss of intuition is especially prevalent among men, many of whom feel the need to put on a display of traditionally masculine qualities and be the “alpha”, which includes characteristics such as aggression, social dominance, and often a lack of consideration for others.
Really, what all of these men call “strength” is really pseudo-strength, because their identities are actually extremely fragile and involve a fear from actually feeling and expressing their emotions.
The most strong thing anyone could do is to express themselves as they truly are.
To strengthen the connection to your intuition, here are a few practices to try:
Meditation
Nature walks
Stream of consciousness journaling
Conscious use of mind-altering substances
Following excitement
Listening to dreams
Talking to yourself unfiltered while driving
These practices are all about directly experiencing whatever is present in awareness from a non-judgmental state
In doing these practices, beware of the ego’s tendency to put up walls, repress, deny, and avoid whatever is in experience.
You have full access to your intuition when you are directly present with whatever is so.
Try out various practices, find what works with you, and use your intuition to guide you towards your life’s greatest gifts.
4. Dream as Big as Possible
Dream, dream, dream.
As you are following curiosity, questioning everything, and listening to the heart, give yourself full permission to dream as big as you possibly can.
Contemplate these questions:
What does the life of my highest excitement look like?
What is my highest vision of myself?
What am I capable of when I am at my best?
If nothing was holding me back, what could I accomplish?
How do I eliminate the things that hold me back?
What is the ideal human society like?
How can I help create this society?
What can I provide to the world to uplift humanity?
These questions will help form the foundation of the vision of your highest possible life timeline.
Dream big. Don’t hold anything back.
If you aren’t following the life of your highest excitement, then what are you even doing?
Nuff said.
5. Blaming Others Gets You Absolutely Nowhere
Your life is 100% your responsibility.
Get rid of the mechanism that blames anything outside of yourself for your lack of ability to create the life you want.
Sure, various life factors can give the path more resistance, but those are things you cannot control.
You cannot control everything, but you can control how you respond to the circumstances.
Respond wisely.
6. Self-Trust is Absolutely Essential to Living a Profound Life
If you don’t have the trust in yourself to create the life you want, your #1 priority should be fixing this.
I know what it’s like to not have trust in my abilities to create the life I want, and it is extremely depressing.
In the second half of 2023, I fell prey to mindless distractions, became lazier through smoking weed pretty much everyday, was on an erratic sleep schedule, and as a result the productivity in my business endeavors sharply declined, and virtually ceased from mid November to the end of December.
I lost a lot of trust in myself to build my business, and became quite depressed as a result.
And so, I changed my environment by moving out of the town I was living in, to a location where I knew there would be minimal distractions so that I could cultivate the discipline necessary to make this thing work.
But it also goes much deeper than that.
Throughout my life, when I fell short of my expectations, I would mentally beat myself up, counterintuitively causing myself to feel and perform even worse.
There would be periods of time where I deeply lost the connection with my word. I wasn’t doing the things I told myself and others I would be doing.
As a result, I often felt dishonest and terribly incapable.
This is still an issue I’m working through so I don’t have all the answers to solving it, but what I do know is having that trust in yourself to create the life you want is absolutely essential towards actualizing it.
But one thing that is for sure is that you have to love yourself throughout the process.
You may fall down, but when you do it’s best not to fester in it, not to beat yourself up, but to pick yourself back up and just keep going.
7. Authenticity is a Need, Don’t Neglect It
Authenticity is also something that can fall under the umbrella of self-trust, especially when one is scared to express themselves truthfully.
Authenticity is most definitely a human need, and it is not to be neglected.
Every human wants to express themselves and share their uniqueness with the world, but it can often be difficult to do so when your authentic expression goes against societal norms and is met with harsh feedback from the world.
Millions, probably billions of people in this world have their lights dimmed to some degree because the world does not accept and appreciate their uniqueness.
When one cannot express themselves truthfully, you will feel it in your body, accumulate trauma, and can adopt toxic beliefs such as something is wrong with you, that you are weird/strange/bizarre, and even unworthy of being loved.
And so, on this journey through life, it is imperative that one has the trust in themselves to stay true to their unique energy.
To not dim their lights in order to conform to societal expectations.
For the longest time (and still am to a degree), I was terrified to share my true self with the world.
As I was going through radical internal transformation via psychedelics, I hardly told anyone about it because I was afraid of being labeled as crazy, delusional, or a junkie or something like that.
I didn’t even tell my parents about any of my transformations nor the Youtube channel I made that had accumulated over 20,000 subscribers at that point until two years after the fact.
Nowadays, I am more quick to tell people who I am and what I do, and care far less what they think, because I feel a duty to express myself as I am to the world.
It doesn’t come without some difficulty though, and it can be heartbreaking to have something so valuable to share and not feel that it will be appreciated by those around you.
And so, you need to have the trust in yourself not to dim your light, not to conform to familial and societal judgments, and to stay true to you.
Do what you must in order to build this trust within yourself.
Do the deep work it takes to heal your traumas and your addictions.
Change your job, restructure how you live your days, do whatever you need to in order to cultivate the necessary discipline and habits.
Move to a different town if you need to. Your environment can make or break your life.
Consciousness is contagious.
Surround yourself with friends that uplift you.
Choose your place of residency with caution.
Choose your “career” wisely.
Minimize low consciousness distractions at all costs.
Buy a lockbox for your phone, stop doom scrolling, stop the excessive and mindless use of substance, stop doing anything that is no longer serving you.
This is all easier said than done, but if you don’t have the trust in yourself to create the life you want, you need to fix NOW.
8. Non-Duality Should Be Taken Very Seriously
Non-duality is the notion that you (the observer) and the outside (the observed) are not fundamentally separate.
It is the notion that Self and Other are one.
And don’t just take it as a concept.
Consider the possibility you could have an experience in which your body/mind, and outside world can occur in the SAME SPACE.
Consider the possibility you could gaze upon the mountain in the distance, or the car in the street, and see it as part of you, just as you consider your body, or the voice in your head a part of you.
Imagine that your sense of self can expand infinitely outwards, encapsulating the entirety of the universe in its embrace.
If your sense of self is infinite, then that means there is no separation at all between “you” and anything else!
This is what enlightenment is all about!
Enlightenment is about consciousness transcending the ego structures that have made you believe you are separate from reality for your entire life.
It doesn’t do anything to take this as a concept, for it is impossible to truly understand non-duality without experiencing it.
Through self-inquiry, meditation, contemplation, and perhaps doing these activities under the influence of psychedelics in a healthy state of mind and environment, you can taste it.
It is fucking mind-blowing.
That’s all I’m going to say for this one.
9. Suffering is to be Embraced, Not Avoided
Your sense of being a limited self, separate from the rest of the world, is your ego.
Your ego has an agenda.
This agenda is designed so that the ego can survive and thrive.
And because the ego is finite, that is, it desires certain things over others and believes itself to be this form and not that form, it suffers when reality is at odds with what it desires.
In short, you suffer because you desire the reality to be some other way than it is right now.
And it is common for humans to be distraught with the extreme suffering that occurs both in their own lives and the lives of the collective.
It leaves many disillusioned with existence, with some wondering why a world that could allow such atrocities would even exist at all.
The most disillusioned may even view existence as a human as a prison of suffering.
This is the ego’s strategy to cope with a reality it does not find pleasant.
The solution is to embrace suffering as the aspect of existence that reveals the limitations of our ego structures.
Think about it, if we experienced no suffering and hardship, why would there be any desire to improve our lives and the world?
The truth is that only through suffering that our beliefs, identity, ways of thinking, behaving, and relating to the world come into question.
We’ve come a long way as a species.
The only reason you are sitting in the comfort of your home, without a second thought of where your next meal is coming from or who might be coming to invade your village is because your ancestors suffered mightily, and then they created solutions to make their lives easier so that they would suffer less.
Be grateful that we stand upon the shoulders of giants.
Now, think of all the reasons that you, along with others in this world, continue to perpetuate suffering.
Now ask yourself: “What can I do with my life to ensure that future humans can live more peacefully and harmoniously?”
This is what self-actualization is all about.
It is about finding a niche that is uniquely you, cultivating your gifts, and bringing value to the world.
But you will never get anywhere if you are dwelling on your own disillusionment with the world.
If you are suffering, I am not telling you to just repress it away and charge forward.
Feel the suffering fully, give yourself time to heal.
But make sure to ask yourself why it is there, what you can learn from it, and how you can use it to evoke more love in the world.
If you want more knowledge on embracing suffering, check out my most recent Youtube video:
10. Meaning-Making is a Function of the Ego, Use it Wisely
The reason we create “meaning” out of things is to make sense of ourselves and the world we inhabit, to give ourselves some sort of distinct identity, and to evoke ourselves with a sense of purpose so that we are motivated to do the things we find meaningful.
This meaning-making mechanism is a function of the ego, and because the ego is biased towards its own survival and thriving, it is important not to draw any hard truth claims to the scripts and narratives we tell ourselves about our life.
The scripts we tell ourselves are EXTREMELY important, for they are filters through which reality is interpreted.
If you are operating with an unhealthy script, you will perpetuate suffering onto both yourself and the world.
Following a breakup from high school, I picked up core beliefs that I was weak, not “man” enough, and ultimately unworthy of being loved.
It was extremely depressing to operate under these narratives.
In my most depressed state, I thought these were fixed truths about myself, so all meaning I ascribed to the world confirmed these beliefs.
Eventually through allowing time to heal, introspecting, and self-inquiring, I replaced these stories with healthier ones, and felt significantly happier as a result.
In addition, I was able to detach myself from the chatter of my mind, and see that none of it was me.
This was relieving.
It is important to be nuanced here though, for this sense of being detached from one’s experience is not automatically a healthy thing.
For many people, the realization that all meaning is a projection of the ego can put one into a nihilistic bubble and make them feel disillusioned with life, for there is no “inherent” meaning to reality.
But the thing is, this is just another story you tell yourself! It is just another script you are operating under.
This narrative is subtle, but in nihilistic depression, there is the narrative that there needs to be some sort of objective meaning and intrinsic value in life in order for life to be meaningful.
It is true that there is no “inherent” meaning to life for all meaning is egoic projections, but it does not mean that there is no intrinsic love/good to life.
In addition, taking another perspective could view this lack of inherent meaning as incredibly freeing, for one is free to evoke whatever meaning they want in their lives.
The power is in your hands.
The choice is yours how you choose to see reality.
I encourage you to take an inventory of your various held scripts about life and ask yourself “Is this serving me? How is this making me feel? Is it even true?”
It can be difficult to detach ourselves from narratives that are so rigid to us, stories that we’ve told ourselves for so long that it just seems like fixed reality.
Luckily, therapists and life coaches exist to help you with this issue.
If you resonate with my work, and feel called to, consider booking a free 15 minute discovery call with me to see if we would be a good fit together (Head to “Coaching” section of my website).
11. There is No Such Thing as “Bad” or “Evil” People
Everyone tries to do good given their model of the world.
Even Hitler genuinely believed he was doing good.
What we call evil is really a lack of holism in consciousness.
Every human has “good” intentions, but when their sense of goodness is relayed through a worldview that is divisive, non-inclusive of certain ethnic groups, etc., “evil” occurs.
This image is from Actualized.org’s video on Holism and Holistic thinking, you should watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tmKFbXneis
My point is that humans are inherently loving, the issue is how much their love extends beyond the confines of their ego.
When you start seeing it this way, it becomes easier to err on the side of compassion and give people the benefit of the doubt.
This does not mean people’s harmful actions are to be excused, but it becomes easier to see the “being”, to see their inherent goodness and love them nonetheless.
When you see extreme selfishness in another person, ask yourself “What could have caused this person to act like this?”
And don’t just say “pure evil” or “Satan” or “the devil’s got a hold of him.”
It is because these people are deeply fragmented internally.
And almost always, this fragmentation occurs because of accumulated trauma that causes a person to put up a strong barrier between self and other.
Read about Hitler’s childhood. It is fucking brutal.
Realize that everyone is trying their best to love based on how they know how.
Once you see this, the world becomes a whole hell of a lot better place.
12. Align Yourself With the Self-Transcending Drive of the Cosmos
“Telos” is a Greek word that means “ultimate purpose” or “ultimate goal.”
The universe has a telos of its own, which is to be one with itself, to be united, to be whole.
Thing is, the universe already is at one with itself, what’s not at one with the universe is our sense of being someone separate from the universe (our ego!).
All human affairs are essentially attempts to alleviate suffering, which really are attempts to transcend inner fragmentation so oneness with reality can be experienced.
Have you noticed that virtually every historical figure we see as a “hero” was radically liberal/progressive for their time period?
This is a feature of the cosmos, not a bug!
This is because the universe demands new ways of thinking, behaving, and relating to the world in order to evoke maximum unity/holism in reality.
In addition, if you study virtually any comprehensive human psychological developmental model, you will find that maturation coincides directly with an expansion of identity, a.k.a. a move towards wholeness/oneness with reality (e.g: ego-centric → religio-centric → nation-centric → world-centric → cosmo-centric).
Jesus and Buddha were enlightened beings, and a facet of enlightenment is having this cosmo-centric sense of concern for life.
That is, they did not value their own self, or ethnic group, or nation above others.
They valued all beings equally, and that is why even thousands of years after their deaths, people still worship them today.
But my advice to you is not to worship them, but rather seek to be like them.
In seeing the self-transcending drive of the universe, one can only get so far through study alone.
One needs to taste it.
It needs to be experienced directly to be deeply integrated into one’s being.
Psychedelics are how I first was able to experience the telos of reality (always be extremely cautious and careful with psychs).
Know that this is not the only way to experience it. Intensive meditation, yoga, breathwork, and many other methods can show you the force of evolution flowing through you.
It was a high dose of LSD done in mostly silent darkness.
At the peak of my experience, I experienced a strong force that at the time I labeled as “sexual”, but now I label as “creative”, “spiritual”, or “spirit-in-action.”
I initially labeled this force as sexual because it felt like I was going to have an orgasm, but instead of it being a bodily orgasm, I felt that if the energy “broke”, that I would literally, physically die and be released from my existence as a human and go into some sort of higher reality.
The energy kept increasing towards what I knew would be this Ultimate Release.
And even though I knew the Ultimate Release would be the end of my existence as a human, I still wanted it.
To what was left of my ability to think as a limited self, It felt like the obvious choice.
It felt so right, it felt like aligned with Love, with God, with Truth.
It’s just what had to be done. It was obvious.
As the energy was still increasing, I surrendered to it. I genuinely believed it would carry me to my physical death.
In my mind’s eye I saw my parents, friends, and world at large waving and cheering me on, beckoning me along with the flow of the energy that was carrying me to whatever came after this human existence.
But the energy never broke.
It reached closer to the tipping point, but then it started to die down.
And then the message was clear: You are 18 years old, you really thought you were going to die now? This is the direction everything is moving towards. There is much life to live, much to do, many a people to help. Go shine your light onto the world.
It took me a while to integrate this experience due to how much it shook up what I believed to be true about the world, but gratefully I found a number of resources that helped me put it all into perspective.
And by the way, if the energy broke, I don’t believe I would have actually died, I probably would have just experienced a deeper level of ego death.
But the point of this is that all of life is essentially this energy I experienced, which is spirit-in-action.
This spirit-in-action, which I also feel comfortable calling God, wants to experience its true nature, which is everything, one with all, complete wholeness, etc.
When you live in ego, you experience reality with this fundamental split between self and world, and therefore you cannot experience reality-as-is.
And in this, your capacity to love will always be limited.
This is why you suffer.
This is why we kill each other.
This is why we are destroying our planet.
And so, I value following curiosity so much, because spirit gifts each individual with unique curiosities that when cultivated, go on to fill the niches of life that need to be filled in order to harmonize the world.
And so, I value questioning so much, because if you do not poke holes in your belief systems, including your own selfhood, you will never discover the true reality and will continue to live in your egoic projections, continuing to perpetuate suffering onto the world.
And so, I value intuition so much, because intuition is literally spirit-in-action flowing through you, and if you do not have a connection to it, you are relegated to your egoic reasoning which is always in some form selfish.
And so, I value authenticity so much, because if you do not feel comfortable expressing your unique self with the world, you are relegated to living within a fragmented mind and within the framework of a fragmented world.
So, my friend, align yourself with the self-transcending drive of the cosmos.
Feel life move through you, do what comes naturally to you, and don’t dim your light.
And don’t fall for the trap (I’ve fallen for this trap) that you have to become “enlightened” as fast as possible.
This is another trick of the ego that desires to live the highest and most noble life for itself.
Do what comes natural.
Do what you feel is right.
Be yourself.
Love.
That’s all you have to do.
These are the 12 points I would tell my past self who was just starting his journey.
Hope you found value in it.
My Offers
If you reached the end of this enormous post, THANK YOU!
If you would like some guidance in finding and living your life’s deepest callings, I have openings for 1 on 1 work.
Just head to the “Coaching” tab of my website, book a free 15 minute discovery call, and we will discuss your situation and see if we are a good fit for each other.
With love and intention,
Wyeth