Jennifer O’Connell: Lessons from my (almost) 40 years

By now, I was expecting to have it all figured out but there’s a yawning chasm where I was expecting all that wisdom to have magically accumulated

This is the year I will turn 40. By now, I was expecting to have it all figured out: how to make a curry from scratch, how to meditate, how to have a baby who sleeps through the night. Instead, I’m facing into my 40s with a yawning chasm where I was expecting all that wisdom and maturity and instinctive knowledge to have somehow magically accumulated. So when I was asked by my editor to come up with a contribution for Wisdom Week, I experienced a moment of panic similar to the one I feel when someone asks me what hobbies I enjoy.

The embarrassing fact is that I still haven’t worked out how to achieve the perfect work-life balance. I haven’t finished that novel. I don’t know how to use any of the equipment at the gym. I can’t change a tyre or wire a plug. I go to bed with rows unresolved. I eat too much sugar and drink too much alcohol. I once came across a chart drawn up by Maria Montessori of things a child should know how to do by the ages of four and six and eight and I remember really wishing she would make one for almost 40-year-old mothers-of-three.

But I think I’m pretty good at one thing, and that’s being at peace with myself. Along the way I have acquired a little collection of useful rules of thumb; adages, you might call them. Some are my own, and some I’ve read or borrowed from my friends or my mother or my late grandmothers. I rarely get through a day without referring to at least one of them.

If it takes five minutes, give it five minutes
Replying to that email, folding the laundry, uploading the photos from your camera. Whatever it might be, just do it now because there will never be a better time.

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Remember this moment
This applies to the bad moments as well as the good ones. When you're waking up for the third time at night with your teething seven-month-old, remind yourself that before you know it that seven-month-old will be a stroppy 17-year-old, and you'd give anything for a wet-cheeked cuddle and their warm, shuddering breath in your ear.

Revel in the now
. . . even when the now feels hard and thankless and repetitive. Because the sobering fact is that you may never have it better than you do right at this moment.

Never apologise, never explain
Okay, not never – this really just applies to when you're cooking for other people. If your lasagne is dried out or your broccoli is limp, that's because that's the way you like it. My maternal grandmother was very firm about this one.

If you can't think of a specific occasion when you'll wear it, you'll probably never wear it
So put it back on the rack. My best buys have always been things that I've snuck into the loo after purchasing and put straight on.

Good enough is good enough
This is my motto as a mother and the more I see everyone around me strive for perfection, the more stubbornly I cling to it. I am striving for mediocrity, and most of the time I probably don't even achieve that. But that's okay: since I'm the only mother my kids will ever have, I'm perfect to them.

They probably didn't notice
That awkward thing you said at dinner? That night you felt like you were the only one at the party with no one to talk to and everyone was staring? Trust me on this: they probably didn't notice. Most people are far too busy worrying about what other people are thinking about them to notice you.

More handbags will not make you happier
More holidays might, though. You can buy happiness, but usually not in the way you think. You rarely make yourself happier by using money to accumulate more things. I'm still getting to grips with this one myself.

You're as happy now as you'll ever be
Most people have a baseline of happiness that they inevitably return to, no matter what life throws their way. So winning the Lotto or getting a new job or becoming ill might make you more or less happy for a time, but eventually you'll revert to where you were in the beginning. This is surprisingly reassuring.

There is no perfect solution to the question of a work-life balance
. . . or whether being a stay-at-home parent or a working parent is better. Whatever works for you and your family is the right solution for you. This might not be the life you planned or imagined, but it's the life you have, and you're lucky to have it.

When in doubt, revert to an adage
I have lots of adages that begin with "when in doubt". When in doubt, talk less and listen more. When in doubt, get up earlier. When in doubt, throw it out. When in doubt, don't.

The deathbed test
Without fail, I apply this to all of life's big decisions. When I'm at the end of my life, looking back on this moment, will I be glad I held on to that money, or will I cherish the memories of my amazing family holiday that we really couldn't afford? Will I be glad I stuck it out for another year at that job I was growing to hate, or will I be glad I jumped over the cliff? Will I be grateful I was such a good Facebook friend, or will I be happy I was a good real-life friend? Will I be glad we took the chance and moved abroad or will I wish we'd stuck to the life we knew?

Turning 40 is better than the alternative. . .