Maybe as a young millennial I don’t have the life experience to dictate what the fruitful components of life truly are, but with one less testicle and an exceptionally pale smooth head I have gained some insights into what may be the most over-valued unessential notions in life.

1. Starting tomorrow: This stems from something that I believe has contributed to many lost hours in my own life. I don’t lack in resolve to take on new challenges, but very often I found myself making lists of things that I wanted to achieve. With notepads full of Goal lists, and multiple tabs opened on guitarpro, beautiful recipes, Italian lessons and Religious teaching I would so often just plan to begin. Planning to take on a project holds a somewhat fulfilling prospect that made me feel as if I had actually achieve my goals, but its not true. Start today and you will be amazed. So if you have always wanted to bake that impressive chocolate mousse cake, go now and start whisking.

2.Stressing about that which is out of your control: My family has perhaps been a living example of this lesson. With a brother who spends the majority of a day pacing around any piece of round-ish furniture and a father who finds solace in a gentle nose touch (Not any more with Corona) whenever they are even mildly anxious, I have learnt how little it helps to worry about unchangeable likelihoods. Unfortunately so much of what happens is out of our control, and it is a life changing revelation when one learns this.

3. Cutting out Carbs: This I attribute fully to an Italian Nonna who believed that if you didn’t want pasta for lunch there was without any doubt something terribly wrong with you. This is perhaps a skewed notion but the underlying message is that I don’t believe we gain much long term advantage from removing what we truly love from our diets. Most of my life I have lived on the extremes of eating, putting only green leafy things and dry poultry on my plate, with the idea of saving one day in the week where I could exchange the breasts for thighs and the leaves for golden brown flakes and soft, pillowy loaves. Recently, noticing that our time is more limited than we might think, i have learnt that embracing lifes greatest sensory experiences should be a daily affair. In moderation one can truly eat a balanced diet that has no shortage of carbs (or chocolate)

4. Trying to Capture every moment with a cell phone Camera: Even to me this is very controversial. There are some moments in life that are better experienced retrospectively. Moments which deserve the filters and the painfully sustained smiles. These moments should with no doubt live in archives of your cloud for many years. However sometimes the rainbow just won’t look the same on your tiny LED and the sunset might just disappear before it lives perfectly within the confines of a pixilated cage. Sometimes we look at things but we don’t really see. And to really see something, in real time, is really awesome. 

5. Ignoring your Gut (or real concerns) because you are afraid of the outcome: Driving to the Urologist on the 19th January was probably one of the most terrifying decision I have made. But it is one that saved my life. Usually concerns about ones health, that mole that looks particularly deranged or that tooth that has been semi-painfull for the last month, get temporised until the perfect moment for taking action arrives. Don’t do this. Humans have found answers to many things, especially when they haven’t been around for too long.  

Maybe all of this is not the complete truth, but it is my truth. The learnings of a young man who looks like the aged and experienced old man. Maybe its worthwhile considering it.