27 Lessons for 27 Years: How Life Has Shaped Me

I recently celebrated my 27th birthday, and it got me thinking: maybe I should do 27 lessons I’ve learned in 27 years of my life for this new blog. I’m taking a moment to reflect on how these years have unfolded, especially how the last 12 months have changed me as a person. My perspective on life, the challenges that shaped this year, the good days that made it memorable, relationships that deepened or served their purpose—every moment has been a lesson. We just need to be attentive, eagerly listening to life’s tunes.

Lesson 1: Patience. No good things in life can be rushed. 9/10 times, your timeline won’t work out, and that’s okay. You’ll still find opportunities to make the most of what’s in front of you.

Lesson 2: Trusting the process is the only way. Krishna is much bigger than your problems.

Lesson 3: Hard work never goes to waste. It will always yield results.

Lesson 4: The love you give always finds its way back to you—not in the way you imagined or expected, but it does return.

Lesson 5: It’s okay to let go. Know your self-worth and what you bring to the table, and never settle for less. Great, loving, and kind people exist outside the circles you’re currently aware of.

Lesson 6: You are the outcome of the five people you spend the most time with. If they smoke, you’ll likely smoke. If they hit the gym, you’ll hit the gym. Your brain will normalize whatever it perceives over time.

Lesson 7: Consistency goes a longer way than one big win. A single big win may stay with you for a week or make you productive for a month, but it eventually fades. Consistency, however, helps you show up every day, believe in yourself, and grow stronger and more resilient.

Lesson 8: Slow and steady truly wins the race. It’s not about the path you take, because you can’t anticipate what life will throw at you or when. Some may face their first big challenge early, while others may encounter it later.Everyone has to get through life, and no one is devoid of challenges or sadness, where there is attachment and desire, sadness is an absolute result of it.

Slow also means the one who has accepted the journey to be their journey and has romanticized it, made peace with it, also now has learnt to put their head down and navigate the journey and believe from that they may have to pivot a million times and things may hardly go as planned.

I feel like the real winner is the one who will never give up and always knows that there must be a better way, it’s just I haven’t figured it out yet, there is an alternative way waiting for me and its juts a matter of time. Slow and steady truly wins the race, the longer the fruit takes to ripe, the sweeter it is.

Lesson 9: Karma is real. What goes around comes around, whether it’s love or tough lessons. It will keep showing up until you’ve learned what you need to. Justice is always served. Do good out of love or fear, but maybe just start with fear as stage 1 and build from there until love settles within you.

Lesson 10: Some major life events feel like they happened in a previous life. We’re constantly changing and evolving. A single thought can completely shift our mindset. We may not even be the same person we were five minutes ago. One realization can change the entire trajectory of our life. So, keep an open mind and accept that people around you are changing too. Change is the only constant, and it allows us to grow together with our loved ones.

Lesson 11: Setting boundaries is a lifelong process. We slowly develop them with others in various areas of life. The key is understanding your foundational boundaries, which remain constant in all contexts.

Lesson 12: Friendships evolve, and so do our expectations from them as we age. The best friendships are those where you can pick up right where you left off. It may seem alright to just leave with your partner and family and the two childhood friends that you have, and nothing is wrong in that. But making your community in different parts of your world, will help you rely on different people for various needs and not put all the strain on only two oldest relationships that you hold.

Lesson 13: Don’t lower your standards or settle for less, thinking this is the best you can ever get. This maybe your current reality, but opening yourself to more possibilities, increasing your knowledge and widening your approach may help you connect to what you were always truly seeking for. Perfect does not exist but your definition of perfect, that does exist. Do not accept bad behavior, toxic environment only because this is your current reality. Life does exist out of the circles you are in right now. Be the light you are seeking, and it shall come to you.

Lesson 14: Actively work on your mental health.

Lesson 15: Actively work on your physical health.

Lesson 16: Family always comes first.

Lesson 17: Everything requires effort. Where you put in work, you’ll reap rewards. Priorities change with life events, and it’s okay to accept those changes.

Lesson 18: You’re no longer a teenager or in your early 20s. Accepting the changes that come with aging is part of the journey.

Lesson 19: I no longer feel the need to fit in. Being myself will attract the right people, and it saves so much time and effort.

Lesson 20: Spiritual activities become essential when life feels uncertain. When there’s no defined path like there was in school, university, or a corporate setting, having a spiritual grounding helps you navigate life’s fluidity. As Taylor Swift said:

“Bad news: you’re on your own, kid.

Good news: you’re on your own, kid.”

You create your practices and beliefs, which shape the trajectory of your life and for this having a spiritual light and grounding is extremely essential

Lesson 21: The shelter and blessings of elders, whether family, relationships, mentors, or gurus, are invaluable. Wise is not only the one how learns from their own mistakes but to be wisest is to learn from other’s mistakes. They will help you shape your life and give the guidance when the path ahead seems dark, they will hold your hand with a torch in their hand and pave the way. Experience teaches more than books ever can. No better teacher than lived experiences and a recent burn.

Lesson 22: Step out of your comfort zone and keep challenging yourself, because there is no growth in comfort, you already know what it feels like to live that schedule over and over again, you cannot do the same things and expect different results. You need to change your potential energy to change the result of the kinetic energy. You can start from small steps like getting rid of your fear of dogs by attending puppy yoga to getting rid of stage fear to speaking to strangers in interviews and then podcasts comfortably.

Lesson 23: Life isn’t black and white; it’s full of grey areas. It’s a funny thing good things feel like they existed for like a second and we process bad things over and over and over again. We need to learn to take life like the famous Chinese story and look at any life event from being detached:

“Good thing, bad thing—who knows?”

Lesson 24: Good things take time, and they sometimes come slow, but you need to be ready in your preparation for them, because when they come you want to board the wagon immediately. They come suddenly and give you immense happiness, but you need to have the bandwidth to be open and enough prep before to be able to accept with open hands all of it and it also passes like a windfall and becomes a blurred memory in no time. Preparation is very important for luck and opportunity to work in your favor and give you the ability to live your dream in your reality.

Lesson 25: You haven’t figured out everything and so haven’t others. It’s okay to not have all the answers in you 20s. Life will unfold by itself and how much ever precautions you may take, no has been spared by the tests that life eventually puts you through. Call it character development or personal growth, we all go through those periods and its essential for us to evolve as individuals and for our spiritual growth too. So don’t get disheartened when you feel like, you don’t have answers to life’s all questions, guess what no one does, we all learn through living it. I have one secret book I go back to crying called Bhagwat Geeta, Krishna says that he answered life’s all questions in his teachings to arjun and the best part is, that the teachings are applicable to all in your parts of our life’s, even if you read the same verse over and over again on different days, you will seek a new meaning out of it each time.

Lesson 26: We’re in a time of great scattering— so many of your loved ones will move away from you, you will develop connections and they will have career that makes them love, starting a new life, starting a family and just literally life happens and not all of our paths the same or may even keep us in the same city and that’s okay. Understanding that someone in our life’s served their purpose and for some friendships you will pick it right where you left.

Lesson 27: I’ve grown comfortable with my age. I feel like, I have lived past life’s only in this lifetime.  We are ever changing evolving species. This. 27-year-old self of mine, somewhere deep down lived in my 21 year old self too, but only now found the solace, comfort and confidence to fully come into me and accept me the way I’m and my life choices comfortably, to eat dinner by 7 pm and call it night comfortably by 11 pm. FOMO has nothing over me, but life’s FOMO of not making the most of it is still the journey I’m on. Do I save for next vacation or get that designer bag or save for the downpayment of the new house, I so badly want to call home.

If I could, I would hug my 21-year-old, 15-year-old, and 5-year-old selves and tell them:

– You’re going to be so happy. You now live in central London and call a tiny studio your home!

– You’ve grown into a decent adult who loves her family and has learned so much from them about being generous, kind, loving, and caring.

– You still love dressing up and posing for pictures, just like you did at 5.

– You’ve grown to trust Krishna deeply—unbelievable, right?

– It’s going to be okay. Don’t stress so much. You’ll figure it out, and you have a strong support system that will catch you when you fall. Don’t fear taking a leap of faith, but also, don’t get too comfortable.

– Love fully, live fully. Hard work from the heart always wins.

– Be kind, but set boundaries. Don’t let people take advantage of you.

– Tough times will come, but you’ll grow tougher. There’s so much you want to achieve and so much happiness you want to spread.

– This is your path. Speak to everyone, listen to everyone, but follow your gut—it already knows the way.

– And guess what? You saw TAYLOR SWIFT!!!

Love yourself, and remember: all the good and bad things in life shape you into who you need to be. Trust in Krishna’s plans; they’ve always turned out better than your own.

Much love,

xoxo