I Am 29 Years Old. This Is What I Believe.

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I am 29 years old, and I’m learning how to be grateful for the life I have. The truth is, I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know what I’ll be doing next year, or where I’ll be working. I don’t know if the big decisions that are just ahead for me and my wife are ones we’ll be making sooner or later. All I know is that this year, the changes kept coming, and there’s still more to come. A year ago, I wrote: “By the time I write the 2016 version of this post, things could be very, very different.” If only I’d known how right I’d be!

But with all the uncertainty, I keep coming back to one thought: I’m a truly lucky guy. I get to come home every day to my wife and share a home with her. I am so grateful to have married someone so kind and big-hearted and silly and wonderful — and have married into a family equally warm and generous.

I know I’m grateful to have siblings I can count on, and parents who have always supported me — even when others lost faith. My wife and I are especially lucky to have such incredible friends, a group that keeps us anchored even when everything around us seems to change. We have good-paying, stable jobs. We have our health.

We really do have a lot to be thankful for.

And the older I get, the more I understand how important it is to find a few moments every day for gratitude. There is a lot we can’t control about our world. Best not to worry about all that, and instead be grateful for the lives we have and the company we keep.

Over the past year, there are certain things I’ve come to believe hold true. I know that my beliefs will continue to change. I know that I will change.

But here, at 29, is what I believe:

What you say matters. What you do matters more. How you treat people matters most.

Ask more questions. There’s always more to learn.

Words to live by: It takes a lot to know a little.

If you wait until you’re 100% ready to try something, you’re already too late.

Read more. The smartest people I know are always reading, and especially reading things that challenge them.

Travel more. Travel to places that inspire you, and travel to places that make you uncomfortable. Travel isn’t just for vacation — it’s also an opportunity to learn.

A great wedding has three things: Enough food, enough drink, and enough dancing. That’s it. Everything else is just for show.

Be someone who gives wedding gifts months before the wedding. As soon as you find a couple’s registry, buy them something, and make it something they’ll use. They won’t remember most of the things they got, but they’ll remember your gift, and they’ll love you for it..

Thanksgiving leftovers > Thanksgiving dinner (and it’s not even close).

Some things are worth spending a little extra money on: A direct flight. A comfortable bed. Nice shoes. Pay a little extra now, or pay for it in time or pain later.

Ever been in a room where you look around and realize, “I have something to learn from everyone in here”? That’s a great feeling.

You don’t need permission to do the best things in life — to get dinner with a friend, to call someone you care about, to try something new.

And most of all: Nobody knows what happens next. So don’t wait. Get moving. The good stuff is worth working for.

Take Care Of Yourself, OK?

dog

We’re dogsitting this week for a neighbor’s dog. Her name is Lexi. She is — and I have told her this about 10,000 times already — a very, very good girl.

This happens to be a particularly good week for us to be taking care of a 10-pound ball of fluff who basically only wants to chase a tiny Chewbacca toy around the house. She does not care what happened last week with the election. She does not care about any sort of stress in my life. She wants to play fetch, and she wants to have her belly rubbed, and she wants to nap.

Just having her around the house these past few days has made me feel so much better. I love having routines and sticking to routines — but in a week like this, it’s been nice to break my routine so I can adjust to Lexi’s schedule. She wants to be walked early in the morning and late at night, and getting out at odd hours has given me lots of time to think. It’s been really wonderful.

Most weeks, I write about work and productivity on this blog. I don’t usually write about self-care. But self-care does matter. If you’re going to do great work, you need to find ways to take care of yourself.

I’m far from an expert on self-care — but luckily, my co-workers on the BuzzFeed News team can help. I wanted to share a few things they’ve written in the last 10 days that might help you, too:

• 17 Resources For Anyone Who Isn’t OK Right Now

• 8 Ways To Challenge Your Anxious Thoughts And Actually Feel Better

• 10 Tips From Psychologists About Coping With Your Anger Right Now

And if you’re looking to do something for others today: 27 Productive Things You Can Do If You’re Upset About The Election.

There will be more days to do the work. But this weekend, take care of yourself, OK? You owe it to yourself.

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That’s a photo of Lexi the dog. (Good girl! You’re such a good girl!)

Let’s Get To Work.

Obama at Mizzou

My wife and I sat down on Wednesday night to watch TV. We just wanted some quiet. We flipped through on-demand to find something to watch, some bad TV to take our minds off everything.

Except that during the first commercial break, this ad appeared on our TV. It was an ad the Hillary team aired across the country on the night the show originally aired — the night before the election:

The day after the election, it was a very hard ad to watch.

But we watched anyway. And then we paused our show and talked for a long time about this one thing she said (italics mine):

“First, it’s not just my name and my opponent’s name on the ballot. It’s the kind of country we want for our children and grandchildren.”

And then this one, from Hillary’s concession speech on Wednesday morning:

“We have spent a year and a half bringing together millions of people from every corner of our country to say with one voice that we believe that the American dream is big enough for everyone, for people of all races and religions, for men and women, for immigrants, for LGBT people and for people with disabilities. For everyone. So now, our responsibility as citizens is to keep doing our part to build that better, stronger, fairer America we seek, and I know you will.”

I want to remember this week, and all of the confusion and the anger and the sadness I feel. But I also want to remember Hillary’s words: We have to fight for the America we want to live in — a more just, a more equal, a more loving America. We have to work for it.

There is much more work to be done. And as we say in my family: Today is a work day.

Let’s get to it.

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That photo at top is one that I took eight years ago on the quad at the University of Missouri. It was four days before the election, and then-Senator Barack Obama came to campus to campaign. We had more work to do then — and we have even more work to do now.

One Thing I’m Trying To Get Better At.

more ladders

When I was younger, I was a bit of a know-it-all. In any situation, I almost always thought I had the right answers.

But as I get older, I’m learning to quiet that voice that jumps to a conclusion right away.

There’s a concept they teach at my office, called the Ladder of Inference. It says that any time we get a new piece of data about a situation, we start thinking. From that piece of data, we make assumptions. From those assumptions, we draw conclusions. And from there, we take action. All of us are sometimes guilty of moving up that ladder — from data to action — before we truly understand the big picture of what’s happening.

the ladder of inference

But there’s a way to keep yourself from moving up the ladder too fast, and it’s simple:

Ask more questions.

Before you start drawing conclusions and moving into action, ask lots of questions. Be curious! Talk to your team, and see if you can learn as much as possible about a situation before you move. Often, you’ll uncover something new that will change the way you approach a problem.

I’m trying to get better at this every day. I’m still not there yet. I have my biases and my beliefs, and when I’m facing a familiar-sounding problem, they can be tough to shake. But when I ask good questions and seek to learn first and act later, I find that I make far better decisions for myself and my team.

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The photo of a ladder at top comes via photographer Jorge Mallo and Unsplash, and the ladder graphic comes via this Huffington Post article.