Top 28 Things I Learned In My Official 28th
In this piece, I share my top 28 realizations about growth, relationships, gained knowledge, self-awareness and living with attention. These are reflections collected that shaped the way I see life today.
REFLECTIONS.
Vanesa Rein
1/11/20269 min read
I am firm believer that life is meant to be lived well. It does not mean it will always be rainbows and butterflies, for sure.
But it is vibrant.
Life, much like a plant, it requires different seasons to grow and thrive. Each season serves its own purpose in shaping who we become.
I recently celebrated my official 28th birthday last December 29 of 2025, a date that sits right between Christmas and the The New Year. Having a birthday during that time of year has always felt overwhelming, especially for someone like me who naturally enjoys special days and tends to immerse deeply in them. In the past, I often celebrated loudly.
But this year felt different.
Out of all birthdays I've had, this season felt particularly meaningful. I spent it in a way that felt grounded surrounded by love, peace, and a quiet sense of togetherness.
Because of that, I found myself reflecting more deeply than usual. I took time to look back on the experiences, realizations, and lessons that shaped my over the past years.
In my official 28th year, here are the top 28 things life has taught me:
Discernment
The ability to distinguish what is valuable and what is meaningless. Learning to choose wisely is a privilege one can only obtain through discernment, and I am highly grateful to have this gift.
I reckon it’s a meta-skill that is extremely helpful as it gives me the ability to distinguish between things that may appear similar but apparently have different value, truth or consequences.
It is the capacity to see through beyond what is presented on the surface.
Practicing delayed gratification
I learned how to identify cheap dopamine vs real and sustainable dopamine.
Postponing immediate pleasure or comfort for more meaningful long-term outcome requires discipline, emotional regulation and the capacity to prioritize future value over present impulses.
Practicing this not only strengthens my discipline but also trains me to endure temporary discomfort, develop deeper patience, and restrain myself from short-term gratification in favor of better outcomes and long-term coherence.
Metacognition
I started doing shadow work in the third quarter of 2025, and since then it has never been the same. At first, I thought there was something wrong with me when I realized I had started thinking beyond my thinking, stepping outside my own thoughts and examine them more closely.
I later realized that it is apparently a skill I have been practicing for quite some time. The capacity to think about my thinking in real time has transformed me on managing my thoughts, emotions and actions more effectively.
The know-how to observe my mind, gaining the ability to guide it, rather than be controlled by it.
Never tie your worth or identity to anyone or anything
Identity that is anchored externally could potentially become unstable.
Your internal foundation should be constructed within yourself. Value should remain internally anchored, because anything external is temporary.
Romantically, I learned that decentering men is highly possible. Abstinence is entirely attainable for a period of time. It is one of the most self-governing acts a woman in her 20s can practice.
There is a high psychological shift from external orientation to internal orientation. As most culture/society conditions especially women in their 20’s to organize their life around romantic pursuits, desirability and validation - decentering men removes the act of letting them occupy the revolving axis.
In this self-governance context, it means about the ability to govern on your impulses, attention, emotional dependencies and discipline.
Not to get me wrong, this does not necessarily mean one should be closed off. Rather, it means remaining open to possibilities while not allowing them to become center of one’s life.
Having a lot of friends is not necessary. The size of your circle does not determine the quality of your relationships.
Overtime, I have come prefer depth over social volume. I reckon a smaller circle often brings more peace and creates a greater opportunity to nurture friendships with meaningful connection, alignment, and stronger trust.
Humans can only allocate limited cognitive and emotional resources. Our cognitive bandwith for maintaining meaningful friendships is constrained. A few trusted connections that align with me are more relevant than a a high volume of casual acquaintances.
Not everything needs a reaction
Being responsive than reactive is intentional, regulated and aligned
You don’t always need to correct, explain or defend yourself. Most situations do not require a reaction at all.
Reactivity is about unconscious, emotion-led, urgency driven and often regretful
Though choosing silence doesn’t mean avoidance. Sometimes it simply means discernment, restraint, and self-control.
I stopped taking things personally.
I learned that people act based on their internal conditions. One’s behavior is often influenced by many factors such as their emotions, current circumstances, personality, past experiences or even their stress. Most of their reactions are reflections of their projections and does not equate to my being.
External forces be it events or circumstances could be out of my control.
Not taking things personally allows me to respond instead of reacting, leads me to greater emotional independence because I become less dependent on how others behave.
Intensity does not equate to consistency
Intensity is emotional spikes, these are bursts of passion, promises and urgency
While consistency is a regulated behavior — it is a steady presence, follow-through and reliability
Have a relationship with yourself
Having a relationship with yourself means you don’t abandon yourself and your needs.
It is the ability to recognize what’s best for you and what’s not, what drains you and what nurtures you.
I stopped stressing out for things that are beyond my control, I just keep moving forward.
There only things I can control and there are definitely things that are beyond my control and knowing which is which is very important.
It is important to have strong core foundations and values.
Having strong core foundations and values provides internal stability and direction because they act as a guiding framework for decisions, behavior and boundaries.
This helps me create consistency on what I believe, what I choose and how I live.
People will have something to say regardless of what you do. Stay true to your core.
People view others through their own beliefs, preferences, and biases, so regardless reactions will exist, and that is out of your control.
I figured staying to my core preserves my identity stability.
It is crucial to have values that anchor you to your core.
Values act as guiding principles that help me determine the decisions to make, behaviors that align with who I want me to be and the boundaries that I maintain. Without the values I hold, external pressure, social expectations and temporary emotions are inevitable. I wouldn’t want that.
Having a clear value system, everything becomes easier to evaluate options.
It basically acts as my internal compass.
I stopped comparing.
I figured that comparison distorts perspective and prevents appreciation of one’s own progress.
Everyone experiences life differently through different timelines, circumstances, and trajectories.
Comparison creates cognitive noise: ‘’why are they ahead? am i falling behind? i am not doing well” these mental loops are driven by cognitive biases that drain attention and energy. When comparison stops, that energy instead be directed toward learning, building, creating and self-development.
Your thoughts are not you.
Thoughts are produced by many factors such as emotions, circumstances, hormones, environment, past experiences or even cognitive biases - these thoughts are not fixed but because they are driven by these factors don’t necessarily mean they are permanent. They (thought) are mental events that come and go. You are just an observer.
Awareness is observing the thoughts and not an equivalent to one’s identity.
Resting when your tired is a form of self care and self love. It is a necessity.
Without rest, performance and wellbeing deteriorate. Being tired means resources are depleted and ignoring that signal leads to reduced cognitive performance, burnout and emotional instability because the mind and body have natural limits.
Providing yourself rest means you don’t abandon yourself. If one cannot take care of self, one cannot take care of others.
Growth is not linear.
Progress doesn’t follow a straight upward path but it consists of periods of improvements, stagnations, setbacks or regressions because life is influenced by many variables such as circumstances that are out of our control, mistakes and learning, fallbacks, changes in environment or priorities.
I reckon it moves in cycles rather than a straight line but gradual.
Expecting growth to be perfectly linear will position you into perfection because you will feel failure as a loss or frustration, where in fact, it’s a part of the process. Instead of interpreting loss as a failure, it can be recognized as part of the overall trajectory of development.
I don’t treat setbacks as failure or loss but instead they are learnings and adjustment that compound to my success.
You can never force someone to understand you, nor insist that they share the same perspective as you.
We are products of our environments and each of us have different upbringing, different genes, different mind processing. We are shaped by our belief system, our experiences and have different social conditioning and cultures. One can never impose to view the same lens with different eye grades.
Understanding is voluntary and personal willingness.
You can always be happy and fulfilled just by being and not needing external forces.
Reduced dependency on external forces increases psychological freedom. It creates emotional independence because wellbeing will come primarily from awareness and internal alignment.
Just by being is a form of contentment with existence itself, rather than needing constant external validation or reinforcement.
Most of all, when fulfilment comes from internal state such as acceptance, contentment, presence and alignment with values, one’s wellbeing creates a more stability and firm foundation.
Learning to love yourself and caring for myself help me love and care for others too.
If you don’t know how to love and care for yourself, you will never know how to do it and share it with anyone else.
The brain is malleable and that it is never fixed. It can adapt, learn new things and form new habits and belief. Knowledge is always expansive.
I recently studied introduction to neuroscience and the idea that the brain is malleable is described as neuroplasticity. New experiences and repeated behaviours create new pathways which is why people are able to develop skills, build new habits and change perspectives or beliefs.
Learning this made me realize that everyone has the capacity to change or grow, I don’t believe otherwise.
As the brain continues to receive information (it never stops), it sure could reorganize information, and experiences accumulate; it’s just a matter how you’re going to manage that. To progress or regress?
You can have the same values, morals and compatibility with someone but it does not equate to readiness. Potential is ambiguous.
Compatibility does not guarantee timing, though two people can share similar values, similar morals, mutual respect and emotional compatibility, however, factors such as life circumstances, current priorities, proximity, and limiting capacity could be constraining.
Recognizing potential in someone or connection does not guarantee an outcome because potential = possibility but not certainty.
The only exemption potential could be not ambiguous is when factors such as alignment, timing, willingness, mutual effort and personal readiness are available apart from sharing similar values and morals.
A person’s capacity to grow is only limited as to how much they are willing to face their shadows.
Growth requires accepting uncomfortable truths
Requires accountability
Requires facing all the suppressed wounds, shame, trauma, insecurities, attachments, control patterns, unhealthy egos that are denied or avoided and are just hidden in the unconscious parts of ourselves.
We mostly avoid it because it’s too exposing for us internally and it collapses our self-concept, the self-concept we have created as a mask, presenting to the world. There's a war that could potentially arise if we try to look at both at the same time. It collides and it's resisting. Resisting could cause dysregulation, uncertainty and uncomfortable. So we would rather stay safe which is to avoid than facing the shadows.
but on the other hand, facing the shadows means looking into the mirror without flinching onto our darkest reflection, looking at it eye to eye. (and that is highly and absolutely uncomfortable) but being able to look at it eye to eye, accept them as an existing part of yourself, no judgments, and integrating them, is the most sovereign thing you can do. it sets you free and builds you with a strong self trust, nothing can ever control you
Just because it didn’t work out doesn’t mean it never will be. Considerations such as proximity, alignment and timing are necessary.
Conditions (factors or requirements) might not be met
People
Opportunities
Even growth
Where you put your time, energy and attention dictates your trajectory.
Your development curve depends on the x amount you allocate for these finite resources. They are all limited but the possibilities are highly expansive.
Society conditions us into fearing that by a certain timeline you should already be ABC or XYZ.
life is not a fixed timeline, it’s a personal trajectory.
growth happens at different speed for different people
Everything is energy. Psychologically, philosophically, biologically, cognitively and spiritually. Leveraging energies are the key to balance and expanding of possibilities.
Human functioning depends on energy allocation. Physical activity requires energy. Cognitive tasks require attention and mental effort. Emotional interactions require psychological energy. When energy is allocated effectively productivity becomes sustainable, wellbeing is maintained and imbalance is less likely to occur (such as burnout, fatigue, and emotional instability) that’s why I mentioned rest and taking care of yourself are very crucial.
The ability to manage energy expands possibilities.
Having these realizations and lessons collected across years of living, I am deeply grateful for the circumstances, challenges, and seasons I have gone through. Without them, I would not have learned any of these. Each experience, whether difficult, complicated or joyful, has shaped my perspective and helped me grow into the person I am becoming.
I still have so much more to learn and grow.
My conclusions is this: in your 20's as a woman, especially when you don't have any kids yet and you are single, you are most likely to have a privilege to leverage this opportunity where you can invest deeply in learning, building your life, understanding yourself, and creating meaningful work that supports the trajectory of your future.
I strongly believe this is one of the greatest privileges a woman in her 20s can have and using this season to build strong foundations for the life she wants to create before entering heavier responsibilities later.
A developmental window for building yourself.
My question now is, you as man or a woman, how are you learning and living your life with meaning?
- Vanesa