Life is shorter than you think ...

- Speaker A tells the audience the top ten most essential insights that he has learned in 50 years of life on earth. Speaker D could completely change your approach to life. - Speaker A shares his top ten life insights at 50. Speaker A, it's better to question whether God is on God's side. Speaker B, don't get so attached to your identity. Speaker C, love the countless boring moments. - Brian Reeves tells people that everything they love will lose and they are terrible at grieving. They prefer to bury it underground with whatever's dead. But the ability to properly grieve is essential for life to flourish.

I recently turned 50 years old. Now, I know it's just a number, but it's quite a number. I mean, have you ever considered how many things are trying to take us out on a daily basis? It's amazing we live as long as we do. So, in the spirit of my enduring attempt to collect useful insights and wisdom for just living life well, I reflected on the top ten most essential insights that I've learned in 50 years of life on earth. Now, any of these could be life changing for you, but number four could completely change your approach to life. Number six will especially challenge you. Number eight might be the hardest and number ten should just bring you sweet relief and set you free. So here are my top ten life insights at 50 that I know with absolute certainty are absolutely true. Number one, you can know nothing with absolute certainty. The entirety of humanitys existence is contained within a relatively thin slice of liquid membrane that covers a giant marble rock, hurtling through empty space at unfathomable speed. Coming from God knows where heading to probably even God doesnt know where. The foundation of life remains an unsolved mystery, if not an unsolvable fever dream. How can anyone know anything with absolute certainty? And by the way, I can't know this with absolute certainty either. Maybe we can know something with absolute certainty. I just can't be sure. Number two, it's far better to regularly question whether you're on God's side than to assume or even pray that God is on your side. We humans can justify so much nastiness towards each other and towards ourselves thinking we know what God wants or just pulling God onto our side. There's no humility in that. There's only arrogance, judgment and violence in it. Better we live in the question, am I really on God's side on this? Am I on love's side? Number three, don't get so attached to your identity. You're just not who you think you are. Who you think you are today will change someday. And the more attached you are to who you think you are today, the more that change will punch you in the gut. For example, I was once an air force officer. Now truth is, I couldn't wait to get out of the military. It was a painful experience for me. But 30 days after I separated, I was 26 years old. I had a nervous breakdown in a phone booth in north Wales. I'd gone traveling around the world because I just needed to go. But suddenly I didn't know who I was anymore. I was completely disoriented around my identity and I felt utterly lost as a result. It was actually one of the scariest moments of me, my life. Since then, I've learned to not buy so deep into labels that try to tell me who I am, like author, coach, business owner, teacher, and so on. Nothing lasts forever. And remembering that can help you stay open to life's possibilities. And it can help you stay ever growing and always evolving. Number four, learn to ask great questions. For so long I lived inside of small, stressful questions like why do I have to go to school? Why are relationships so hard? Why did this shitty thing happen to me? Why do so many people drive slow in the fast lane? Those questions suck because they focus on what I don't want, on what I don't have, on what upsets me. And they offer no helpful direction forward. Ive learned instead to ask more useful questions like what empowering lesson is this difficult situation trying to teach me? How can I let this difficult experience make me a better, stronger, more loving person? What would keeping my heart open look like in this situation? And what bigger, better story can I tell about myself that would leave me feeling inspired and not defeated? Those are worthy questions. Number five, fear has its place, but only love makes the ride worth it. Fear will help you survive, but that's about it. Only love can help you thrive. If you aren't committed to loving, you can't have great relationships. You can't be truly grateful for anything. You can't create or appreciate beauty. You can't enjoy the little things, and you can't bear the painful things with any grace or dignity. Number six, learn to love the countless boring moments that make up a day. Let's be honest, much of everyday life is pretty boring. I mean, how many mountaintop moments, massive victories or grand gestures will you experience in a year? A few, if you're lucky. But how many little boring things happen on a daily basis? Nearly infinite? It's just far more sensible to figure out how to enjoy the countless mundane moments in a day. Like walking the trash out to the curb and the quiet of the evening. The sound of crickets and rain, the cozy feel of your favorite shirt and that first sip of coffee in the if you can't find some enjoyment in what's boring, you won't enjoy most of your life. Number seven. It's simply a miracle that any of us live as long as we do. When I hit 40, I didn't lament. I didn't feel old. I actually felt wildly accomplished. Like, I celebrated. I had outsmarted adolescent stupidity, viruses, multiple food poisonings deadly car accident, a terrifying skydiving accident. Probably even serial killers and bandits and countless other daily, unseen threats to my life. And now I'm 50, still outsmarting all those things. And I'm gunning for 60. It is so worth celebrating just being alive. No matter what is happening, for one day, one of those infinite things trying to take you out is going to succeed. As one of my mentors, Bob Duggan, used to say, you never know what comes first, tomorrow or your death. Number eight. Everything you love, you will lose. So learn to grieve well. I once saw a TED talk by a woman with cystic fibrosis who'd watched like a hundred plus friends die. She said something profound. We are wired for attachment in a world where everything is temporary. She's so right. Loss is inevitable. And constant friends rewarding jobs, vacations, homes, your partner's youth, your youth. Your child at five, your child at ten. Your teenager at home. Beloved pets. Author Frances Weller wrote it starkly. Everything we love we will lose. And yet we're terrible at grief. We prefer to bury it underground with whatever's dead. And our rituals to process loss, like funerals, suck. If we have rituals at all, we insist the dead don't want our tears, but only for the party to go on. And maybe they would, because the dead sucked at grieving when they were alive, too. We do grief like we do the dentist. Numb me, distract me, and get it over with fast. But the ability to properly grieve, as a skill, as a practice, is essential for life to flourish. It expands our capacity to feel alive. You can't feel true joy if you can't feel real sadness. Author Glennon Doyle wrote, grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved. Resist grief, and you cut yourself off from love, which cuts you off from life. Proper grieving enables you to let go of what doesn't serve anymore, what doesn't work, what is dying and maybe needs to die. Like a bad relationship, a soul killing job, and so on. By learning to grieve well, our tears become the vital rains that nourish the new life waiting to emerge. Number nine. Surround yourself with people who help you be your best self. Surround yourself with people who deeply accept you, even as they challenge you. People around whom you feel deeply good, way more than you feel bad. And minimize your exposure to those who don't help you. Be your best self. Eliminate it completely where you can. My best business plan, my best life plan, has always been to just keep putting myself in rooms with people who inspire me. It has never failed me. Number ten. Productivity. It's overrated. That my worth is tied to my productive output is a sickness I inherited from our culture. It's a lie. Chasing productivity for the sake of worthiness is a fool's task. I'll never be productive enough with that mindset. Instead, it's far more soul fulfilling and just enjoyable. To express productivity as an intentional act of creation and deep listening, like being attuned to the needs of the world around me and then meeting those needs in the unique ways that only I can offer and that light me up. Productivity merely for the sake of productivity is deadening. It's an infinite loop of existential anxiety. Anxiety channeled into a busyness that only yields frustration and exhaustion, which just then recycles itself back into anxiety. Rather, consider approaching productivity as the commitment to consistently contribute something meaningful to the world around you. And don't underestimate the vital importance of creating beauty for the world around you. There's no such thing as worthless art, no matter what the bank or the market tells you. All right, I'm just going to throw one more in there. I think it's important. Number eleven. Peas are the worst food. They're unnecessary and probably even punishment. And on this one, I am probably not on God's side. Number twelve. Let's just throw that in there. No matter what the haters say, you can put twelve things on your top ten list if you want to, especially when you turn 50. I'm Brian Withrow Reeves. Brian with a Y. Reeves. Thank you so much for watching. Whatever your path, I wish you a beautiful life. And should our paths cross, I look forward to that moment. Please consider subscribing to this channel for more wisdom and insight videos like this. Thank you again for watching.