1. Rules were made up by people
   
   Seoul subways stopping at midnight was a decision made by the city council. 15 vacation days at work was a decision made by your company’s HR.
   
   As a child, I used to look at rules and accept them. I thought they could not be changed. I thought “this is how life works.” However, as you get older, you learn that rules are made up by incentivized people at a particular point in time.
   
   Things can change and most often, they do.
   
   “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.” - Steve Jobs
2. Your parents are also getting older
   
   As you get older, you realize that your parents are also growing older.
   
   After I moved out of my childhood house and visited less frequently, it’s like each visit, my father has more white hair and thinner skin.
   
   Gravity is more than a natural force, I can see it pull on his body.
3. Not everyone can be what you need them to be
   
   Part of growing up is realizing that not everyone can hold space for you to celebrate wins, unload your problems, and unpack your heavy life questions.
   
   Sometimes, we can expect friends to play a role for us that they simply cannot be at that time.
   
   When we’re younger, the only role we needed to play was being students and being children.
   
   But as we grow, we need to be coworkers, teammates, significant others, neighbors, business owners, parents maybe, etc. and the emotional bandwidth is shortened.
   
   You don’t know what other people are going through now. It’s important to be sensitive to that as you grow older.
4. Time is literally all you have
   
   We’re born. We live. And then we die. In the span of how long our universe has been around, our life is a blink. It’s a spec. Relatively, it is not even a millisecond long.
   
   We get to exist on this planet a HUMAN BEING (biggest gift!) and all you have is this short time that we call life.
   
   Remembering that I will eventually die is big motivator for me.
5. Relationships are everything
   
   As I get older, I learned that having reliable and honest friends around you is not as easy to come by.
   
   I still enjoy meeting new people. But I realize investing in the existing relationships I already have is important. I want these friendships to grow, mentorships to become deeper, and camaraderie at work to be louder.
   
   Whenever I reflect on my happiest moments, I’m always with people. I’m with friends, I’m with teammates, I’m with community.
   
   Thankfully for technology, it helps us stay connected even though we are not able to be physically together.

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