What the babe in line taught me about life
By: Trish Kennelly
Tags: Life Hacking, 2020, First Post, 2019, Laundry

What the babe in line taught me about life

Disclaimer — This is the first collection of words I’ve ever published. Huge thanks to my friend Travis King & my mentor Maria Thomas for contributing to the lessons below & telling me to click “publish”.

A random picture I took in 2019 of my newfound spirit animal that Medium told me you’d like.

I’m one of those people who gets all reflective at the change of the year, so here it goes. Last year I quit a job and started a new one. I fell in love for the first time. I travelled to & lived in 18 different countries. I lived in camper van for the first time, and then did it again. I fell in love with treehouses. I tried to surf and speak Spanish. I saw my college best friends get engaged to each other. I took my grandparents on what might be their last big trip. I became an aunt. I got my favorite tattoo. And I like to think I picked up a few tidbits along the way — I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Life is best lived like there’s a babe in line behind you. That moment when you’re standing in line, someone sneezes, you glance over your shoulder, and BAM, you realize a total smoke show is 6 inches behind you. You then proceed to straighten your back, help the woman in front of you pick up the thing she dropped, and smile at literally everyone. That’s great, but let’s just have a good posture and be kind regardless of who’s behind us. Good vibes require laundry. Laundry is the worst. The moment you finish your laundry is the same moment that you start having to do laundry again. Here’s a terrifying sentence about adulting for you: clean laundry is a lifelong pursuit that requires consistent, ongoing effort. The same is true for good vibes — we can’t expect to wake up to something that requires us to show up everyday. Don’t salt the food before you try it. We all have the friend who puts salt on every dish before trying it. They “just know” it’s going to need more. But how can you know that something needs more, just by looking at it? You can’t. True for that omelette, and for poverty, addiction, the prison system, politics, and every group of marginalized humans to ever exist. Less throwing more on top based on a first glance; more listening and learning about what’s needed. Complaining is a muscle. When was the last time you did something less by doing it more? The answer is never. Complaining about something to “get it out of your system” never works. Complaining just results in more complaining, so let’s stop exercising that damn muscle. Being a good person or doing a good job doesn’t matter much unless you do both. Some of the most talented people I’ve worked with don’t give a fuck about their contribution to society/the planet. Some of the most well intentioned people I know fail to ever properly execute on their intentions. How can we figure out how to do both? When in doubt, drive in Vietnamese traffic. If you haven’t been to a Vietnamese city, just google “Vietnamese traffic.” There are no lanes, no turn signals, not very many traffic lights, and most importantly, no one looks behind or to their side — drivers look only forwards. When in doubt, just look forward and jam your scooter into the traffic circle with everyone else. We can’t be sure we’ll avoid a crash, but it’s the best chance we have. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. I ate some mushrooms in a temezcal in a little mountain town in Mexico, and the shaman told me this about 100 times, so that alone qualifies it for this list. Also, I learned to surf by going to a surf beach. I learned to dive with sharks by diving where there were sharks. I’m learning to love by loving. It’s really that easy, just show up and try to participate. Miscommunication is just a bullshit excuse. I got a full Brazilian wax in a language I don’t speak (side note: it was my first, and I now both applaud and worry about people who do this often). I had dental work done in a language I don’t speak. I’ve filed a police report in a language I don’t speak. Communication is a defining skill of our species, and we’re fucking good at it. Communication isn’t confusing — what’s confusing is the lack of desire to communicate and the balls to take accountability when things go wrong. We’re using the wrong metrics. I’ve been to 60+ countries and some of the most “impoverished” areas of the world. There’s a tie for the most depressing places I’ve ever been — 1) the tube in London during morning rush hour and 2) a room full of “some of the most progressive” investment bankers drinking whiskey and discussing women. Maybe if we stop measuring value in money, we could start valuing well being, the planet, community, and contribution.

Cheers to all we’ve learned in the past year, and to clicking publish, doing laundry, and exercising the right muscles in the year ahead.