35 Things I’ve Learned in My 35 Years of Life

17 min readApr 2, 2023

35. I’m trying to sit with the age, yet, to be honest with you I don’t feel much different from when I was in the beginning of my 20s. 35 is an age that seems old if you’re 21, yet young if you’re 42 😅. So, I am somewhere in the middle. Reflecting back on the things that life has taught me so far I’ve written this list. Obviously a list cannot express all the things that I have managed to pick up from my journey (one of them being that it is impossible to pass on knowledge unless someone specifically asks you for it 😅), but, giving it a go regardless, maybe this is more for my future self so I can smile at my own personal development some day.

Overall, despite being born on an island at the edge of the world, through my travels and the people that I have met on my path, I have managed to have a truly global upbringing. This I am deeply grateful for. Looking back at my 20s, this period was just a lot of tumultuous things — lots of mistakes, joy, pain, and lots of learnings. I gained friends, I lost friends. I found love, I lost love. An orphaned man from Iraq who’s parents were bombed by the Americans taught me about selfless kindness & pure love. A friend in China taught me how to play dou dizhu and having a great time — while being completely unable to understand one another language wise. Living in a dorm in Hangzhou with 32 other young people taught me about dreaming big & working hard to get there. At the UN I met some of the most inspirational people fighting for universal values shared by great men and women — and I met the ordinary and bland bureaucrats, unable to think from the standpoint of someone else, and working solely and diligently to advance their own careers within the bureaucracy. Sharing a simple meal with bedouins and combat soldiers in the Jordanian desert taught me that even when we’re different, we’re the same. Romances in Copenhagen, Rome, New York and Paris.. taught me about the feeling of joy and thrill that being in love can give. A concert in Puglia by Ludovico Einaudi under a sky full of diamonds brought beauty to my life. A sunset on an island on the Phillippines after crossing a stormy sea brought me gratefulness. Parenthood taught me of about selflessness, about being of service and of unconditional love. Meeting head of states, millionaires, world travelers, soldiers, influencers, war victims, and bureaucrats — taught me that you can find people both great and small everywhere -regardless of their titles and societal positions. Hurricanes, car accidents, failures, suicides and tragedies.. have all taught me that only in moments of deep distress you can know the heart of another human.

I am my only limit. Our way of viewing the world is defined by how we make sense of our reality. This applies to all aspects of life. If you believe that becoming a parent will destroy your life — it probably will. If you believe that work has to be difficult, that you can only earn money by working your ass off at XYZ — you probably have to do that. If you believe that the world is your home, that people are beautiful, and that you can work with people that empower you.. you probably will do that.
The importance and power of daily rituals. When things get difficult they can suddenly become anchors in a mad world. Every morning I drink a glass of water. I make my exercises. I make my bed. I brush my hair. Regardless of the thoughts that are running through my mind.
Be the student, not the expert. I remember when I was younger, I used to talk more than listen. I really wanted the world to know that I am smart, knowledgeable, and qualified. I was afraid of asking questions to not appear dumb. I was also really bad at taking responsibility for the things that went differently as how I had planned them. Today I try to listen more, I ask questions, I try to read and learn more, even though it is really difficult for me — I ask for help. I also take ownership. Through this approach I have discovered and built the most beautiful friendships, deep conversations, and ventured into areas that I knew nothing about before. I know now that there is so much that I do not know.
Relationships matter. You are the average of the people that you surround yourself with. Surround yourself with those who will uplift you, encourage growth and bring you joy. I am deeply grateful for having family that challenges and nudges me forward — however, earlier, I was much more concerned about how many friends I had around the world. The number of them, rather than the deeper connections. Today I am trying to build around me a little network of individuals that I have close and strong ties with, that I can discuss matters of the heart with. I am also learning that great friendships need time, commitment, and well, presence. I have in the past been a very bad friend — I have disappeared for months, forgotten to answer messages..the list is long. I am deeply grateful for the friends that disregarded all that and stayed by my side regardless.
Know your God. Who is your God? Progress? Jesus? Allah? Money? Consumption? If you don’t know it, probably its a good idea to find out. I was brought up without religion, but recently I have dived into this question myself — making me learn and realize things that I never thought about — about myself, as well as the society I grew up in, and the people that I would like to surround myself with. In our society I often miss substance in many public debates, and I lack moral compasses when seeing certain actions. Religion has made me return to the Tao, the holy scripts and the incredible Saints that have lived on our Earth. Somehow it made me re-connect again with my own moral compass and values, have opened up an entire new world to learn about, and many new friendships to be made and explored.
Be impeccable with your words, and commit to them. Words matter. How we speak, our language, defines our ways of thinking and understanding of the world (that’s why its important to learn multiple languages!) — if we speak and don’t act.. we loose some of our own power. I think that language is like food. How you speak you shall become. If you speak beautifully or greatly, your world will grow, if you curse and swear.. well, it is what it is.
Learning is a lifelong journey. I am committed and will stay committed to learning. Learning about life. Learning about me. Learning about others. Learning new skills. Learning how to manage life in a way that is good for me. Learning what works. Learning what doesn’t. It’s the fact that we keep learning that keeps life fresh.
Be Present. I used to be really bad at saying no — and ended up engaging myself in way too many activities and conversations. The result was that I was hardly present in any of them — I showed up as a distracted, busy, arrogant version of myself. Becoming a mother has taught me to establish better boundaries, to learn that presence matters. Today I put my phone away when I am with the girls or have conversations with people, I say no when I know that I am unable to commit, I know that when an email or message arrives from someone — I do not have to answer it right away (unless it is an emergency obviously, but those really don’t happen that often).
Confidence and self-worth come from within. Today I am much more grounded and relaxed than when I was younger. I feel more confident in my body after I gave birth than before — even though there is still a long way to go. Before I was trying to fit a societal ideal, to be liked, to be cute, to be nice, to be.. many things but myself. Today I am much better at listening to my own intuition, I know that I do not have to prove anything to anyone.My body is incredible, it gave birth to life, and my mind can create visions into life. I am enough.
Self care does not equal selfish. Before I used to have endless to-do lists. I had to answer calls, meet people, finish work, finish more work.. and spent the night doing some extra more work. Rarely did I have time to myself — to exercise, eat well, do a yoga class, meditate, or read something that was not related to the work I did. I allowed myself to be stressed and I allowed myself to burn-out. Today I can’t afford doing that. I am a living role-model for my daughters, and I would like them to grow as individuals who can take good care of themselves. I have also learned the hard way that I can only give love, presence and help to others when my own cup is full. So..I am still learning how to become better at this, but today, I ask for help, I give myself 5 minutes of peace in the morning, I have morning. rituals, gratitude sayings.. I go for runs. This is a constant learning process — but I find that I show up as a much better mother, partner and friend when I come from a place of surplus.
Move regularly. I really miss my daily workout when I was living in CPH and studying at university. I used to bike to uni — 10 km one way — and then back again in the evening. I remember the feeling I had of physical and mental exhaustion in the evening, how comfortable I felt in my body, and how well I slept. Since then I have not been able to find a similar workout routine for myself, and I can really feel how this impacts my overall well-being.
Eat well. Eating well doesn’t mean eating a lot. I remember having breakfast with a millionaire some years ago — he only had organic blueberries for breakfast. Meanwhile my plate was overflowing with eggs, yoghurts and musli, bread, fruits, and lots of other things. After our meeting I was ready to relax a bit, he was ready to go out and save the world. He was 60 years old, I was 27 yo. With time I have learned that I eat way too much. What is even worse is that I used to fill my body with lots of crappy things, that did me no good. Today I try to limit my amount of meals — I rarely have dinner and breakfast unless we’re out with some company. Lunch is our main meal at home — usually prepared with a lot of care and thoughtfulness. We eat more or less only organic and vegan, we don’t buy snacks or ready-made meals, we also don’t keep sweets at home. I remember watching Chihiro many years ago — the image of how Chihiros parents turned into pigs while they were eating really stuck to me 😂. What we eat we shall become. On this note — please also learn how to cook. I used to view cooking as extremely boring — recently I have discovered it is like chemistry and immensely exciting! There is way more to this world than pasta with tomato sauce or take-away food!
Drink enough water. I’ve tried to make this experiment a couple of times.. but I feel much better when I am drinking 3 liters per day. Today I drink a glass of water when I wake up, I drink before meals, and I’ve realized that when I do this I feel better, my skin is better, and I eat less.
Sleep enough. I have realized that I do not need a lot of sleep to function.. I have a very high energy level 😅. But if I do not get the sleep that I need.. I really find it hard to function. So today, even though I really would like to watch a movie and stay up longer, I find it much better to sleep when my own girls are sleeping and then wake up earlier (5 AM is a great time for me).
Never drink coffee to go. There is absolutely no point in rushing while drinking hot good coffee (unless it is bad coffee, then obviously you shouldn’t even drink it first place).
Love is big. With time and experience I have found that love has many different shapes and forms. There is the unconditional love I feel for my daughters. The enduring love for my husband and partner. The tender love for my mother and sister. The affectionate love for my friends. The deep love for the world around me. In a society focused on erotic love.. it has been a beautiful realization.
Never lie. With time I have found that lying never pays off. One can be thoughtful about how truth is communicated, but living in a web of lies can cause much pain and suffering. In my own family we covered lies — lies that went against my own values and integrity. These lies ended up destroying many lives, and killing one.
Create more than you consume. I believe we are all creators, we all want to create something valuable for our world, yet somewhere we lost the believe and ability, and ended up being mainly consumers instead. The problem with consuming is that it makes me feel useless and empty inside. Creation doesn’t. I feel I add something useful to this world, that I matter. “There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions”. I recently stumbled on this quote by Anais Nin and it deeply resonates with me. Personally I find my freedom in creation and art.
Never compromise your own integrity. I have done this before, but, when becoming a parent I became even more challenged to stay true to what I believed was the right thing to do. Every time I went against what I believed I felt that I became less human — I became smaller. In the end I have decided that it is much more important to stay true to what I believe is right than doing something that goes against the societal norm. At the end of the day I have to live with my own decisions, no one else. So today I try as much as possible to live by my own value-system — even though it sometimes demands a lot of courage and can be quite lonely. A great approach is to make a list of why you do certain things — if you don’t like the answers — rethink your choices ;).
Read the Classics. Every summer my mother prepared long reading lists of age-appropriate books that I had to read by the end of the vacation. As I moved through the list we discussed the readings, the themes, the learnings. I am deeply grateful for this. I have found with time that it is very few people that actually have read or read classical literature — maybe that is why we humans keep reinventing wheels, have such high thoughts about ourselves, and are dealing with rising nationalism? Because surely, if you’ve read some of them, if you’ve dived into the worlds of Dostoevsky, Marquez, Goethe, C.S. Lewis, Mahfouz, Hugo, Wolf, Joyce, Bulgakov..you know that the world is much bigger, more beautiful and more complex than we possibly can grasp. Classical literature allows us to take a deep dive into the lives, world-views, and mindsets of people we’ve never met, visit the places we’ve never been, and understand the times we’ll never directly experience. Both my girls can look forward to both summer and winter reading lists.
Love & respect your body. I have not loved, neither respected, my body for a very long time. Growing up I was constantly comparing myself to my mother who is very slim and beautiful. I actually never really liked wearing a bikini, and would often choose sizes that were larger than necessary .. just to avoid bringing my own figure to attention. Compared to her I felt fat and ugly — I considered my traits too round, too slavic, my eyes too narrow, my waist too wide..it is difficult to change how I felt about my body, but with time I have learned to acknowledge its own unique traits. My body is strong. My body is healthy. I did not inherit my mothers fine traits, but many other great things. Today I focus a lot on treating my body well — eating well, exercising it, resting it. I am not a big supporter of the movement that says that fat is beautiful. I think that healthy bodies are beautiful. And healthy bodies are respected bodies — that are loved and treated well. You cannot respect your body and stuff it with crap.
Forgiveness is healing. We heal ourselves when we let go of the pain, anger and feelings of revenge caused by others. I have been hurt by many people throughout my journey of life.. some I felt deep anger and rage towards, I wanted revenge, I wanted karma.. I wanted them to feel the pain that they had caused me. With time though I have learned that those feelings were burning me up from within and not letting me move forward. The only one that was stuck in the past was I — while the one who had caused me pain was elsewhere. So, learning to let go. Today I feel pity for the people that have hurt me — I will never forget what they did, but, their actions are not holding me back in the past.
When hurting, we hurt others. Adulthood has made me realize that in all those failed past relationships .. I was toxic too. I too made mistakes. I too did not act from a place of love, but mainly from a place of pain. I attracted those people into my life, and they attracted I.
Find your shadows, face them, and embrace them. We all have shadow sides. We all have traumas. I am still learning to face my own, but each shadow I reveal, the more wholesome I become.
Ownership. Take ownership of your own life. The feeling of victimhood is a choice.
Learn to give pleasure to others (maybe it will help in lowering your ego 😂). I’ve been really surprised by how open our society is when it comes to erotic love — we display sexual images everywhere, talk about sex, show sex.. yet, when I was introduced to sex in school the main topic was about the culmination being the male ejaculation. I am horrified by the amount of girl friends I have that have never experienced a real orgasm (and don’t dare to mention it to their partner as they are ashamed by it!), and male friends that define intercourse by when they have ejaculated. Giving pleasure to your partner is beautiful and only enhances your relationship with one another (this learning I have learned on behalf of my male friends. If you’re reading this — please learn to give pleasure to your partner ❤️).
Know your body. So, I’ve only recently discovered how the four phases of my menstrual cycle actually impacts my body and mind — and how I can use this knowledge as a source of power, peace and flow. Our cycle tells us a lot about our own well-being. When my girls become older I’ll sign them up for a workshop about this — there is so much to learn!
People will treat you how you let them treat you. If you allow someone to treat you badly they will keep doing it. I remember when I was small an old English lord told me that if I wanted to be treated as a queen — I had to behave as one. So much truth there is in that statement! Have the confidence to stand up for what you believe that you deserve.
Most people are good. I’ve traveled the world and relied so many times on the kindness of others. And.. there are so many kind & good people out there! The world is not evil as the popular narrative often wants us to think. Another thing I have learned is that most of us would like to do good.. sometimes we hurt others — but our intentions are often kindhearted. If you meet people with the believe that they are kind, you will often, if not always, receive kindness in return.
Choose a partner with similar values as you. Relationships are a lot about compromise… don’t compromise on your own integrity.
Life is too short for uncomfortable shoes. Seriously.. when I see the high heels I was wearing back then — I really don’t know what was wrong with me. I once managed to put on a size 35 which then caused internal blood poisoning (!) (I wear size 38), because the shoes made me look cute. My left foot has been scared for life for another dumb shoe decision. Wear stuff that makes you feel comfortable and great.
And that too shall pass.. I’ve learned with life that some of the hardest & most painful moments, the lonely nights, the fear.. shall pass. The darkness will fade and will remain, yet there will be joy and life again. I have lost several people in my life that were dear to me due to suicide. I once learned that those that commit suicide do not believe that things shall ever pass, that life will come again. If you know anyone going through a hard time.. please tell them that it will get easier. Not immediately, but eventually.
Create a more beautiful world. Instead of fighting or complaining about systems that are not working — create a better system. A better world. Do great work. It will give you more pleasure and less headache. It will most likely also provide more meaning to your life.
It’s ok to dream big and believe in magic. I grew up in Denmark where it is not culturally acceptable to think that life can be bigger or better than what it is (or to question how society is). I have also met incredibly many people that have asked me when I will grow up and accept that life is “mediocre” (when I will stop traveling, when I will find an office job from 9–5PM, when I will stop XYZ). Today I’ve stopped bothering trying to persuade others that life can be more than what it is — because in order to create & live a life worth living and dying for — you need to believe in it yourself.
You are exactly where you are supposed to be. I found myself earlier often thinking about where I would have been if I did XYZ instead of ABC. This entire thought process often brought me away from being present in the moment and place that I was in. I sometimes listen to Alan Watts lectures, and there is one that begins: “Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have. You would begin, by pursuing every kind of pleasure. Fulfilling all your wishes. And then you’d get a little tired of that and wish for a surprise. A dream that isn’t under your control. You would become more adventurous. And finally, “you would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.”. I look around my own life as if it is the dream I wanted to dream. The so-called wrong turns I’ve made got me here. The mistakes I did. I didn’t choose the road on the right, neither did I go left.. I somehow made my own path. I am in a house in Ericeira, Portugal. I have a lush green garden. The sun is warming my face. I can see the ocean from my house, and hear the strong waves crashing against the shore on a cloudy day. I have two beautiful and healthy daughters. I can hear them laugh now. That type of laugh that makes you smile yourself. I have a partner who supports me and loves me. Our friends just became our neighbors. I am writing. There is good coffee in my cup. Soon I will go and swim in the sea. There are so many more memories to come and things to discover. I am grateful.. and I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

To summarize what I wrote above — my main learnings have been: Life is short. Have fun. Love and be loved. Surround yourself with great people. Live according to your highest standards. Taste the world. Regret nothing. 😂. Obviously I don’t follow every learning above.. but I am trying, and I am constantly evolving and learning. Looking forward to see what new learnings the next years will bring ❤️.