6 Thoughts Worth Sharing at Age 30!
I celebrated my 30th birthday just three weeks ago, I didn’t plan to have a special celebration, but it happened. I climbed Mount Kenya’s third highest peak, an undoubtedly challenging experience. Was it the best experience ever?! definitely… I will try to write more about the long-term impact of this hike in another article. No promises.. ah?!
Today I wanted to share a couple of thoughts at this exciting age.. here are some!
1. Get to Know the Real World as Soon as You Can
Thanks to my father, I had my first working experince at the age of 14 during the school winter break. This experience shaped my life forever. My father taught me the most powerful life lesson when he didn’t allow me to give up when things got real; when I decided to quit, go home, and never think about working again at that age. I’m grateful it didn’t happen, and I had my father pushing me to the limit, to accept life as it is yet fighting back, and take responsibility for my decisions and desires.
I worked at a bakery, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, plus two to three hours of transportation. The salary?! 130 USD/Month. I did this until age of 18, even during the weekends when the school is open.
2. Never Eat Alone
Did you read the book; Never Eat Alone? It’s an interesting read that I recently enjoyed for many reasons. One of them is that I have always believed in sharing knowledge and experiences with others… openly! Help them achieve their goals, and whenever you get somewhere, try to help others get what they aim for, especially your social circle and the people you trust. You will achieve your target sooner than you think when you give a hand, well.. be an octopus!
3. Create Your Opportunities and Try as Many Things as Possible, Today and Now!
Let me take you two steps back to the first point, this bakery thing shaped me forever because I also understood that making life isn’t as easy as it seems, and everyone out there is fighting a big fight to live a better life. What can you do to make this fight slightly easier, especially when you get older? Hmmm.. Open as many doors as possible, and don’t worry about which ones to close yet.
Vague enough?! I know! Let me explain. I have always, literally always, believed that I’m a lucky person. Actually, my good friend and roommate in Moscow, Luis Carlos Suazo, back in 2019, told me, “Mustaf! I’m a lucky person, I have to admit this, many people out there are more talented than I am and deserve better than what I have achieved” I fully understood him, but at the same time, I believe that we create our own luck, the more opportunities or doors we explore, the luckiest we get. Lucho himself has been making his luck by risking many things at an early age and being way more curious and dedicated than most people.
4. You Can’t Connect The Dots Looking Forward. Or Can You?!
I’m sure most of you read this before “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
I had never understood what this was supposed to mean until it happened to me. Let me share a couple of my dots with you here; I co-founded a youth initiative back in 2011, the most innovative voluntary initiative at my university. I volunteered as a secretary, vice chairman, chairman, and mentor of the largest technical association in the world; the Institute of the Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) at my university. Acted as the Public Relations Officer at the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Ad-hoc committee member at the IEEE pre-university work affinity group in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. I was elected as the IEEE Young Professionals Affinity Group chairman in Jordan. I used to be a Wikipedia editor for a long time; I wrote and translated a couple of articles with thousands of edits here and there. I volunteered for Greenpeace, acted as a policy team member at the Global Climate Action Network, acted as a core team member at Injaz Green Team (Local NGO), and did many other things that I can’t remember now. All of this was voluntary work. Did it pay off?! Oh yes.
I agree that sometimes we don’t understand how these chaotic dots will connect in the future, or if it will be even possible; let me tell you that most of them won’t connect, but the more the dots the better; the probability of getting things connected is higher, they will somehow connect, even indirectly. So keep doing what you doing, don’t overthink it, enjoy the process, open more doors. Granted?! Of course not!
5. Mental Health Comes First, It Doesn’t Matter What Comes Second!
Mentally and psychologically, most of us experienced or still experiencing bad or challanging days, right? It’s natural. It doesn’t matter if things are working fine for us or not, and it’s not important if this is due to childhood experiences, family issues, financial challenges or if it’s because the current situation; socially, professionally, financially, love life, etc. We all have our own bad days.
If you ask me, what’s the one thing to prioritize and keep enhancing?! It will be my psychological well-being. Everything starts from there and ends there.
6. Love Is love, Naturality and Timing Are Key!
Let’s not get very personal here, but I’m a family person who is excited and committed to starting a serious relationship, falling in love, and giving it my everything; when the time is right, when the person is right, and when it doesn’t need a push but comes naturally. At the same time, being in a relationship, we are not talking about building a family yet, requires time, sacrifice, energy, and resources of all kinds, including emotional resources and availability; time again! My opinion?! Let it happen to you, don’t push it.
As Jacob Bank says in his beautiful song Slow Up “Love is a decision, the choice is yours.”
I have more thoughts in mind that I feel like sharing; I think there should be part II to cover the below, but let’s see when I will have the energy to do so.
A. Income Diversification is crucial!
B. There’re no Shortcuts in Life, but Networking is as Effective as Disneyland FastPass
C. Don’t Take the Good Days for Granted
D. Why I used to have a three months plan, one year plan, and three year plan, did it work?
….. and more!
Is it time already to put your hands together?! You know what I mean.
