6 Universal Truths I Am Using to Navigate My Twenties

I’m 25 today and want to share with you what I’ve come to know.

I’m 25 and I’ve seen many successes:

• I speak 7 languages
• Notion consulted for a company with over 500+ employees
• Organised a Youth Mind Summit involving several embassies
• Published articles in culture magazines, such as The Restless Magazine, CotoJapan and others
• Taught Spanish & Productivity in low-income area schools in Jamaica
• Taught English to hundreds of students of all ages in Korea, Japan and online
• Been on Japanese TV on two occasions
• Played an extra in a Hollywood film

… and I could list more.

I’m an intersectional mess of experiences. I moved 12 times before I was 10, I have an incurable chronic illness that I conjured up from stress when I was 15, I grew up with a family plagued with all sorts of mental illnesses. I have ADHD and was late-diagnosed only after I paused university in a cry for help, citing depression and crippling anxiety. I’m a mixed-Asian heritage, Jamaican who is currently trying to get a job in Sweden. Let’s just say, things have been complex for me my whole life.

As difficult as things may have been, there is also so much to be grateful for. It is exactly my intersectional mess of experiences and intense emotional struggles throughout my youth that has allowed me to feel as lifted, learn-ed and light as I do today.

I’ve collected a lot of wins throughout the years, too.

In all my adventures, these are the lessons that have stood out to me and allowed me to become the person I am today.

1. Your personality, identity & purpose are a lot more than the things you do or the jobs you command.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea that our ‘purpose’ is a job title. That our personalities are set in stone from birth, and that our identities are something we can’t really choose. As…