My birthday is coming up in a few days and it has me thinking about things I wish I knew. There are lots of things I still don’t know but wish I did. I’ve found that wisdom is hard to come by and is often only earned with age and error; so any opportunity to glean wisdom from someone else’s mistakes should be taken.

I find it ironic that wisdom isn’t in high demand yet wise people are. But they say hindsight is 20/20 so sometimes I wish I could ask 50-year-old John a few things about life.

With that in mind here are a few things I wish 30’s John knew earlier:

1. Everything important will take longer than you think it should.

2. You’re developing strengths now that you will need later. The growing pains are tough but let the strengths develop, you will be happy for them later.

3. Enjoy the time you have with the people you have in your life. One day very soon those people won’t be there and all you will have left is the memories you created together. So create good memories while you still can.

4. Enjoy the stage of life you are currently in. Stop looking forward to the good things about the next stage and stop focusing on the bad things about your current stage and find the things you like about where you are. Enjoy each stage for what it is because you can wish each one away but you can’t wish them back.

5. Time flies. Don’t waste it.

6. People are insecure. Especially the ones who spend so much time making fun of you.

7. It’s stupid to complain about being young. Life only gets tougher as you get older. Plus it offends old people because they know how dumb it is to complain about being young.

8. Be brave.

9. Invest. In people.

10. Find your life mission as quickly as possible. Waste less time doing things that don’t line up with that mission.

11. The end of a relationship doesn’t mean failure. Sometimes it simply means learning something about yourself and narrowing your focus of what you want in a friend or mate.

12. People will tell you being picky is a bad thing. It’s not.

13. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Go easy on them.

14. The people who are cool now will not be cool later.

15. Don’t worry. It’s a waste of time.