20-something years ago, I was a struggling student with a shit side-job and a so-so relationship with my family. Life felt like being a hamster running in a wheel, it felt like there was nowhere to go.

I had dinner with a friend of mine, who announced that he was leaving for a study-abroad year for our last year of masters degree. I was glad for him, but definitely envious, and he told me: “well, do it too then”.

I spent the next 30 minutes trying to explain the myriad of things that were keeping me down in my life, but he dismantled them one by one.

Like:

• “But packing my studio apartment will be tedious…” - “So you’ll live the rest of your life in that apartment?”

• “But money…” - “You know you can take a reasonable loan for this and that it will pay off in opportunities.”

• “But I’m the one keeping everything together at work.” - “And they know it, it’s not in their interest for you to be find a job in your degree’s career. They’ll ask you for favors forever. You should look out for yourself there. It’s probably a good thing to make it stop now and have you be unreachable a while so they can figure it out.” (This was before smartphones.)

• “But my family will hate it.” - “Because they also don’t want to let you go, you should look out for yourself there too.”

He was spot on about everything, and eventually, I had run out of excuses. That night I ended it with a non-committal “I’ll think about it”, but that small conversation started a big train of thoughts that changed everything about how I made decisions. Basically, it turned me from being someone quite risk-averse and shying away from things, to becoming someone unusually risk-seeking and ready to take on opportunities that would present to me as much as I could without letting anything keep me down.

I wasn’t able to join the program he joined because the deadline had passed, so I had to carve out my own study-abroad opportunity, so I did. It was scary and tedious, but it paid off. Interestingly, I now live halfway across the world from where I grew up, and he is back in our hometown. We lost touch over time, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t realize how this small conversation that day changed everything of the path I was on.

When we started wearing masks at work, I started to get called ma'am a lot.

I started hormones the next year.

When I was a kid my dad was a contractor. He worked hard, always doing the most possible to make sure my mom and siblings were taken care of.

When I got older, I started going to work with him. I realized how hard it was, how everything he did was extremely physically taxing. It was after moving his ladder for the 12th time I realized this is why he's so tired all the time. He's working his ASS off for us, trading his physical health for us to have a good childhood.

It was my time with him that A) opened my eyes and respect to the thousands of trades folks on the market and B) without them, this whole operation we call modern society falls apart.

So the "little" thing that changed my life was seeing my dad provide the way he did. I chose to continue in the same field as my dad, but now I'm the designer that makes the plans, instead of installs them. He would always tell me "Use your brain if your have one. Otherwise, you can use your body".

I forgot the details, but I remember vividly the strong feeling of being right about something. And then I learned I was wrong.

This was when I started to distrust that feeling. It is comforting, but not a trustworthy guide to truth.

For me, it was the combination of two Linguistic tidbits of info, from uni classes:

• verb modality being split between epistemic and deontic
• Linguistics itself being descriptive, while normative grammar being prescriptive.

I won't go further on what those posh words mean because they were just the "trigger". What changed the way that I perceive things was that, by their powers combined, I realised that there's a deep distinction between

• what we know, what we don't know, what's true or false
• what we want, what we don't want, what we consider good or bad

and that we should never mix both things inside our heads.

Taking anthropology courses in college made a significant change to the way I view the world. I don't necessarily know or understand anyone else's way of thinking about things, but I am always aware that alternatives exist. It made me more accepting of differences and more open to new ideas. There are an infinite number of "right ways" to do things. (Although there are still wrong ways too.)

Worked with someone senior to me in my org, who would always complain about how people don’t know how to work well or get too distracted by new technology etc. It was often compelling and made you feel guilty about not being better.

Then I realised they were unconsciously talking about themselves. They were always distracted by their emails and computer and hardly ever getting good work done.

You hear about people projecting. But to see it in person and realise that a whole person’s seemingly insightful or valuable position on what’s “good” was just self-centred abuse is quite another thing.

I was never one to take authority seriously, quite the opposite really, but this really removed what little ability I had to perceive someone with respect without massive amounts of evidence and proof.

There are few hero’s amongst us. We’re all pretty flawed and broken.

Living in different countries made me realize how little people usually know about others. I like to remind people that calling things "strange", "weird" or saying "Nobody would do xyz" is often wrong and people just a flight away actually find this normal

Still in that country I worked for a company made of 100% foreigners. When I joined the boss took me under his wing and try teaching me the ways in this country and how to get sh*t done. It took a disagreement on product roadmap for me to realize that he was not technically good, he was actually racist and I definitely didn't want him as a role model. Now I'm extra careful on seeing the signs early

Give non-alcoholic bars a try if you have one in your area. Virgin beers and cocktails of course, but also incredibly creative drinks that taste fantastic.

Mushrooms. First time I took shrooms they were offered to me while drinking and I said sure why not, never tried em before and I was always interested. It was a low dose so I didn't hallucinate or anything, but I was the most comfortable I've been in my life for hours. The next day I felt like I just took a 2 week vacation and something just clicked for me. Existential dread and stress I had been focused on disappeared overnight and I just felt generally secure and comfortable for the first time in ages.

This was a while ago in my early 20s, so I think they were mindset changes that I would've made over time anyways, and I'm sure I've made much more since, but it was wild how much of a mindset change I made over night.

Reading about stoicism. It’s like an ethical anchor in my life now, a guide to be happy. It’s like the upgraded version of religious belief, perfectly fitting in the 21st century (even though it’s thousands of years old).

I was doing two master's degrees and I was active in student union. It was impossible to be in three places at the same time. After the first week, I realised people don't really care if you are late or not and if you come or not. Before this I was always minimum 5 minutes early before the starting time. After that I've been late almost always. And not just by few minutes...