First aired in early September of 2005, How I Met Your Mother has warmed the hearts of many viewers. Teens and young adults alike would gather around the TV to watch their favorite beer-drinking gang get into their crazy antics, laughing as Barney hit on some random girl, or smiling as Ted learned a new lesson in love. For nine amazing seasons, everyone got to watch their characters grow and learn from their mistakes and triumphs. Watching these characters struggle and overcome conflict taught me so much about how to navigate adult life. From learning how to accept your past from Robin, to learning about love from Marshmellow and Lillypad, How I Met Your Mother is full of important lessons.
1. You have to be able to make mistakes.
(S8E18) Life is full of mistakes for you to learn and grow from. Without making mistakes we never learn how to make the right choices. Being okay with making mistakes helps us know how to succeed. So, get that butterfly tattoo and date the wrong person, just don’t ever shave your head before your wedding.
2. Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.
(S1E18) This advice can be worked in two equally important ways. The first way can be, get some sleep. Staying up past 2 a.m. will never help you in the long run (she writes, running off of four hours of sleep). You need rest so that you can use proper judgment on tasks at hand, which is the second way this lesson can be taught. Don’t try to make life-altering choices after 2 a.m. Go home, sleep, and revisit the idea in the morning.
3. You do crazy things for love.
(S4E13) Love is a crazy thing all in itself, but when you are in love with someone you would do anything to make them happy. As love grows and matures, a relationship matures with it. You may grow out of the tiny habits that you develop in the beginning of a new relationship, but you are always able to revisit them and develop stronger and better ones.
4. It’s okay to let things go.
(S9E17) You can’t hold onto feelings and people forever. Moving on from a familiar place or a failed relationship is always a hard thing to do, but it is inevitable. If you continue to hold onto the things that have already past you then you have no room for the amazing things that are yet to come.
5. Life is full of good moments.
(S4E22) Life is hard some days, but sometimes you can see the good moments in anything that happens. When bad things happen in your life you need to step back and see the good moments. When you have your loved ones around you to support and love you, you have no need to focus on the sad or harmful things.
6. Let your heart be both drunk and a kid.
(S5E20) Whenever you’re drunk (or a kid) you do crazy things for no real reason. You ride your bike off of a roof or dry off bottle rockets in a microwave. You get to let your heart make dumb decisions and dive in head first without thinking about anything. Your heart being both drunk and a kid is letting yourself be vulnerable and diving in head first.
7. You won’t be the same forever, and that’s okay.
(S6E8) People change and life changes, nothing stays the same forever. You have to grow and develop while learning from the world around you. Growing up is a part of being alive, and is important for everyone to experience. No one stays the same as they were when they were 5 or 15 years old and that’s a good thing.
8. Keep Those You Love Around
(S3E20) Meeting your best friends in college is very possible, but sometimes you don’t meet your group until you’re way out of college. Once you do meet your group, however, you need to keep your friends and loved ones around for as long as possible. When you find people who love and care for you, you can never let that go for one minute.
9. There is someone for everyone.
(S9E24) If it took Ted Mosby 35 years to meet ‘The Mother’ you can know that someone is out there for you. Everyone has a yellow umbrella out in the world; it just matters about the right place and right time.