37 Things I Want to Remember: Life Lessons and Reflections by Sean DeLaney

Life is a journey filled with lessons, insights, and moments that shape us. Here are 37 things I want to remember, each offering a piece of wisdom to help navigate the complexities of life. These reflections are meant to inspire, challenge, and encourage you to live with intention, joy, and presence.

1. Presence is a Gift

Often the greatest gift you can give someone, including yourself, is your presence. We’ve gotten really good at not being present for ourselves or others. Be here fully for yourself and others. All positive changes come downstream from presence. 

How can I show up with a bit more presence for myself and loved ones today?

2. Choose Joy

“Be joyful because it is humanly possible.” ~ Wendell Berry

Joy isn’t some fleeting sensation; it can be an outlook on life. Benjamin Zander’s father, a Holocaust survivor, exemplified the “rigorous discipline of possibility” by creating a university in an internment camp, showing that joy and possibility can exist even in the darkest times. So, choose joy today.

3. Extend a Hand in The Darkest of Times

When you see someone whose head is down and eyes are darkened with pain, don’t look away. Extend your hand, give them help, both visible and invisible help. Because someday, you will have your head down, your eyes will be darkened with pain, and your soul will silently be reaching its hand out asking for someone to take hold of it and help.

4. Earn Wisdom

Wisdom can’t be read in a book or a list of 37 things to remember; wisdom can only be earned through living. As Rilke wrote, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.” Live the questions now, and you may gradually live into the answers.

5. This Is Not a Rehearsal

Too many people are sleepwalking through life, waiting for something bigger. Here’s a wake-up call: This is not a rehearsal. This is your life. Each moment is unique and will never come around again in quite the same way. 

What does it feel like to know you’re in the middle of your one and only shot?

6. Listen to the Bold Souls Only 

When seeking advice, listen to the bold souls only. Don’t listen to the tiny-hearted or fearful souls. Listen to those who know triumph and disaster and who have dared to dream and strive. Smile at the downers but never take their unearned advice.

7. Questions as Doorways

Questions are doorways into a new way of living and experiencing life. Become exquisite at having real and deep conversations with yourself. Collect great questions that act as a portal into a new way of being.

8. Just Fuckin Do It

We often search for the perfect advice on habits or routines. Here is my advice: Just Fucking Do It. Stop being your greatest excuse maker. Start where you are and put your foot forward in the direction that gets you to a better place. Just Fucking Do It

9. Cherish Childhood

Children will only be children once; you better not blink, you might miss it. Be the reason your children’s eyes shine when you walk in the room. Laugh with them more, don’t take yourself too seriously, and help them expand their imagination.

10. Ripples of Little Actions

Little actions you’ll never remember can create ripples others will never forget.

11. Craft a Better Story

Our lives are filled with invisible boundaries, all of which are stories we create. If you don’t like the story you’re living, craft a better, more compelling story.

12. Consistency and Intensity

Build a foundation for your life based on consistency. For excellence, add times of intensity. Life works in oscillations, and this pattern allows excellence to be reached.

13. What is Worthy?

Think deeply on this: What is worthy of your time, energy, struggle, and soul? Do what makes you come fully alive and ignites your soul.

14. Ubuntu

 An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket of fruit near a tree and told the kids that the first one to find the fruits would win them all. When he told them to run they all took each other’s hands and ran together, then sat together, enjoying their fruits.

When he asked them why they ran like that as one could have taken all the fruits for one’s self, they said:

“UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”

15. Slow Down to Speed Up

When we’re lost, we have a tendency to speed up, thinking this will bring clarity. Velocity isn’t an answer to more complexity. Sometimes the best way to speed up is to slow down. Intentional action over frantic activity.

16. The Only Person Who Can Stop You is You

My mentor and lacrosse coach Bob Turco once told me, “The only person who can stop Sean DeLaney is Sean DeLaney.” 

The only person who can hold me back is me. The only person who can unleash my potential is also me. It isn’t about external factors, opponents, circumstances, or luck. It is about self-belief, self-awareness, and self-empowerment.

We all have the ability to liberate ourselves from the shackles of self-doubt and move past the fears that have kept us stuck. 

Realize that your greatest obstacle and your greatest ally is the same person: yourself.

17. By Running We Become Trapped 

We all have things in life we don’t want to face. It could be a past mistake, a difficult conversation, feelings of guilt, or perhaps a problem that seems too big to handle. 

It’s natural to want to run away from what brings us pain or discomfort. We want to avoid the confrontation, the struggle, and the uncertainty. 

But here’s where the paradox lies: In running away from these challenges, we’re not only avoiding the pain but also running away from our own freedom. Freedom is not just the ability to choose or the absence of constraints. True freedom includes the capacity to face ourselves honestly, engage with our lives fully, and confront what holds us back.

So what are you running from? Make today the day you face it and set yourself free. 

18. Precious Things Can Be Lost

The things you’ve spent decades building can be lost in an instant. Never lose sight of what’s precious and how quickly it can be lost.

19. The Raspberry Story

Generosity is not about the size of the gift but the size of the heart. Strive to cultivate a heart that gives, a soul that loves, and a spirit that uplifts.

20. Don’t Cheat Yourself

We often think we can enjoy life without paying for it. But a great life requires struggle and effort. Willpower is the key to moral action.

21. Contribute Positive Energy

In every interaction, decide what energy you will contribute to the world. This will define you.

22. The Need for Recognition

Every person in the world wants validation, appreciation, and to be seen. Human beings need recognition as much as they need food and water.

23. Live with Integrity

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law. – Immanuel Kant

24. Listen to Your Inner Voice

There is a faint whisper of a voice that comes from deep within; it never lies. Heighten your ability to hear this voice and act on it.

25. Speak Things into Existence

You can speak things into existence.

26. Own Your Problems

“If I think that someone else is causing my problem, I’m insane.” – Byron Katie

27. The Power of Silence

Profound moments can echo in silence. Being there for someone, even in silence, can be exactly what they need.

28. Embrace Change

What must die within you to give birth to what’s waiting for you? Life is a continual process of death and rebirth.

29. Change Trajectory Now

Any change in trajectory is just a moment. Why not make it this moment, then the next?

30. The Power of Kindness

“Simple kindness to one’s self and all that lives is the most powerful transformational force of all.” – Richard Dawkins

31. Wholeheartedness

“The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness. You’re so exhausted because you can’t be wholehearted at what you’re doing.” – David Whyte

32. Relationships Turn Lives Around

Programs don’t turn lives around. Only relationships do.

33. Truth is the Path

No matter how bad you believe the outcome will be for telling the truth in the moment, it is the path to your best possible future.

34. Awaken Possibility in Others

Awaken the possibility in other people. “He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful.” – Benjamin Zander

35. The Power of Close Relationships

The “Harvard happiness study” shows that good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Cultivate warm relationships of all kinds.

36. Regrets of the Dying

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself.
2. I wish I’d let myself be happier.
3. I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.
4. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
5. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

37. Someone is going to accomplish youe dreams. Why not make it you?