We’re experiencing this cool thing called life. But as teens, do we ever listen to the important life lessons that are thrown at us?
“Be on time.”
“Don’t cheat.”
“Blah de blah.”
Yeah well, it all becomes a blur eventually. Will we be able to survive this thing called “adulthood”? Probably. Or just barely.
Since we drown out the advice of the adult-bots, I decided to compile a list of the 5 life lessons I learned from reading Made to Stick. I present to you some ideas that stuck with me:
“Be on time.”
“Don’t cheat.”
“Blah de blah.”
Yeah well, it all becomes a blur eventually. Will we be able to survive this thing called “adulthood”? Probably. Or just barely.
Since we drown out the advice of the adult-bots, I decided to compile a list of the 5 life lessons I learned from reading Made to Stick. I present to you some ideas that stuck with me:
Focus
Focus is probably one of the main lessons we are told: “FOCUS!!!” It’s especially hard in this digital age that’s always releasing new media. This book helped me realize the importance of focus because we’d be lost without it. Can you imagine a world where no one got anything done? Apocalypse for sure. Anyway, there are different kinds of focus: concentration (as in doing your work) and prioritization (school vs. social life…?). Either way, you have to decide what you’re doing and COMMIT. Life reaches the point where there’s no room for uncertainty. Better start learning how to focus now while you’re young. This way, you’ll be an expert by the time those big, scary, and looming life-changing decisions, actions, and commitments come. You’d also be more able to complete things faster. As you know, we never have enough time. Especially when we’re older. |
There are more ways to be Unhappy than Happy
I hate to burst your bubble, but life ain’t always sweet. Sad, but true. People who are happy have many common traits; sad people can be sad for a million different reasons. What can we learn from this? We can learn how to be happy by focusing on happiness, observing similarities of happy people, and taking action towards happiness. Then, we will be walking on a path towards fulfillment and happiness. Since there are people who are happy, this means that happiness is possible. And by knowing that there are more ways to be unhappy than happy, we can feel more accomplished when reaching happiness because there are more roads in life that lead to sadness instead of happiness. Life’s unfair. Happiness is an accomplishment - be proud!
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Speak English.
What do I mean by this? I mean don’t speak abstractly. Doing so leads to miscommunication, and that’s never fun. When talking to others, move away from the theories and reasoning (the “why”) and explain what actually happened (the “what”). Remember, not everyone knows what you know. I probably will never understand whatever metamorphosis is - I think that’s from biology? - and maybe you don’t know what harmony of curvy shapes is. Don’t complicate things - keep it simple and understandable. We need to remember to speak English. Speak sense. |
You Can Become
Made to Stick explains how we can make our ideas sticky by using real-life examples, such as the “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” proverb. Just like the book instructs that ideas can become sticky, we can improve ourselves to become whatever we want. Not exactly “follow your dreams,” but more like “work towards your dreams.” Remember, improvement is work. Ya, I know. The word “work” isn’t very appealing, but hey, you’d probably be working to improve yourself in something you enjoy instead of doing mandatory schoolwork. It might not even feel like work. To motivate yourself, you can stick a big poster on your wall saying: “I can become _!” Becoming something that you’re currently not is possible. Very possible. You can do it! |
Nonfiction isn't Boring
Before reading Made to Stick, I thought nonfiction was boring. What a big myth. Nonfiction can be as interesting and captivating as fiction! You can also learn valuable information, more so, I feel, than with fiction. Personally, I see fiction as entertainment while nonfiction as a resource to improve yourself since you can learn a piece of knowledge or a skill. One of the ways Made to Stick kept me interested was how the authors used real-life stories. The stories were great, but it was even better that they actually happened. It’s more convincing and entertaining than just stating statistics and explaining them. After all, people don’t really understand what numbers mean - look at me applying my newfound knowledge! I recommend Made to Stick, or you could read a different nonfiction book. But please, try reading nonfiction before deciding whether you hate it or not.
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I hope you learned from these illustrated life lessons as much as I did.
I wish you good luck in life’s journey!
All illustrations by Leia Kook-Chun