More Life Lessons
Khe Hy offers 45 excellent life lessons.
What I read: “45 Life Lessons (at 45 years old)” by Khe Hy.
During the past few years, I’ve noticed a distinct trend of articles and posts offering life lessons upon reaching a certain age. Often, those life lessons are numbered to correspond to the age of the writer.
I wrote such a post upon “Turning 67” and it remains my most popular post on this newsletter page.
Khe Hy’s post is of the numbered variety and it’s a good one.
Rather that regurgitate all 45 of Hy’s lessons, I’ll comment here on a few of them and how they relate to my own life. Perhaps when you read all of Hy’s post you’ll strongly resonate with a few of the lessons too.
Much of Hy’s content is regarding money and finances, which makes sense since he’s a former Wall Street person, but he also consistently offers great advice on a variety of topics apart from money. Along with signing up for his emails, I recommend following Hy on Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. I’ve been watching some of his videos lately and they’re quite good.
As my first comment on his life lessons, I’m going to jump all the way to number 45, “The only life design rule you need.” As Hy suggests, it’s quite simple. Ask yourself if something brings you aliveness. If it does not, reconsider pursuing it. Simple advice, but easy to apply and useful.
As for his lesson 40, “I can’t imagine life without meditating,” while I agree, I simply can’t meditate for 40 minutes at a time as he does. Good for him that he can. I can’t. I do my meditation in 5- or 10-minute time periods and it’s the only way I can keep up a regular meditation practice. Your mileage may vary.
I couldn’t agree more with lesson 33, “Make seeing your friends a priority.” I try to do this. I probably don’t do it enough. For me, life is about people and the relationships we have with them. This applies to my closest friends, but it also applies to those I'd call good acquaintances. Interacting among people matters even when that’s just a good day nod to a passing neighbor or brief chat with a regular coffee shop patron. They all add to life in important ways.
I disagree with lesson 25, “Losing your hair sucks.” Honestly, it’s sort of a godsend to not have to spend money on haircuts or the time it takes to style my hair each morning as I did in my youth. Again, your mileage may vary.
For lesson 21, “Where you live REALLY matters,” I couldn’t agree more. As a gay man, I’ve chosen to live in dense urban areas where I’m more readily accepted. Same applies to my propensity to be erotically and relationship adventurous which is much easier to do in bigger cities. I also don’t have to own a car in San Francisco where I live now and I love not owning a car.
The last lesson I’ll comment on is 20, “Kindle or paper books?” I read a lot on a Kindle. I’m a big fan of e-books in large part because I travel and move around a lot and having most of my library with me is useful and convenient. That said, I’m one of the six creators of a new book coming out September 17, 2024, “Kink Is: An Anthology of Surprisingly Relatable True Stories About Sex, Power, and Joy.” Since the book is full of some beautiful photographs and an e-book version of it wouldn’t do the book full justice, it’s only available in paper form. So, sometimes I do buy paper books when there’s a compelling reason to do so (and I hope you do too if the topic is of interest to you).
I don’t tend to write about sexuality and relationship topics on this newsletter page, but if the adventurous side of those topics is of interest to you, check out my “Love at the Edges” newsletter.
There are 39 other lessons that Hy offers in his post. They’re all good. Some resonate strongly with me, but out of respect for my readership’s time, I’ll end this post here.
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