1) Life is happier when you love people as they are instead of trying to change them (that goes for everyone: friends, family, yourself).

2) You only fail when you try, and all your worst failures eventually become your best anecdotes, so really everything is a win-win.

3) Migration is a human right, and 100 years from now, people will be horrified that we ever thought otherwise, so we should work for open borders now.

4) If you compare yourself to people who have more, you’ll feel like you don’t have enough. If you compare yourself to people who have less, you’ll realize how much you have, and you can use that awareness to motivate you to give more and work harder to reduce inequalities.

5) Food tastes better when we share it (even if all we can do is drop it off at a neighbor’s door).

6) Dogs, sunrises, flowers, toilets that flush, elevators, buses, cats, music, funny tweets, tiktoks, homemade signs, chamoy, babies, abuelit@s, strangers doing nice things for each other, choirs, cookies, lipstick that matches the dress and the shoes! Everything is incredible if you really think about it. You just have to stop to think about it.

7) You’re the protagonist of your own life, so do the things that matter to you and don’t worry about what other people think (they’re mostly busy starring in their own lives!).

8) I don’t think anyone ever regrets saying please, thank you, I love you.

9) Ask for what you really want, and never expect anyone to read your mind.

10) Vote, join a union, work together, help take care of the people around you! Independence is a dangerous myth. Interdependence is powerful (and it’s the only choice we have, anyway).

(I wrote this last year as I reflected on the decade that was coming to a close, and re-reading it has helped me take comfort and make better decisions this year, so I decided to post it here. Also, wow, number 10! I thought I knew about interdependence, but this year has shown us how connected we really are. Our lives are in each other’s hands. I try to remember this every day, and I think it’s helped me keep things in perspective.)