(Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash: Color Edited)
Everyone goes through pain, struggles, and heart ache in life. I listed 15 things that I have learned in my life that now made and making my life more fulfilling and helping me reach my dreams. Understanding and applying them all in my life helps me face the day and making me the person that I am today. I’m not perfect, but with these, it’s making me a better person and the person that I am proud to be. And everyday, I’m learning new things and still maturing more.
1. Change is inevitable. Sometimes it’s hard to accept the changes that’s happening around us, especially if it’s someone you know, like your siblings or friends. The people you thought you knew so well changes, and suddenly it’s like they are a new person. And they are. It could be for the better or for worse but we have to accept that. And whether you like it or not, you will go through some changes as well, even if we hate change so much. You will change because of the experiences you will encounter; all the failures and success, all the pain and relief, all the sadness and happiness, all the heart break and new found love again–everything will shape you into a new person. All those experiences will make you stronger and wiser. So, embrace those changes.
2. You write your own destiny. Your experiences and journey in life can shape you to a person you didn’t realize you wanted and needed to be; but it all depends on YOU on how you will use those new knowledge and lessons you learned from those experiences. Like I said, changes can be for the better or for worse; it will depend on YOU on how you will make it to be (but I hope its’s for the better for everyone).
3. Your comfort zone can hinder you. It’s easy to just stay in your comfort zone because it will not hurt or stress you. There’s no hardship–it’s easy. Everything you will do will be like a routine. I remember back then, I was so afraid to get out of my comfort zone that I was just stuck in my life. There’s no fulfilment and I was not happy. I was not accomplishing anything at all! But when I realized that, I started, little by little, to get out of it. And now, I’m happy with my life. Don’t rush though, take baby steps.
4. Patience. This, I think, is one of the most important ones that I learned. Not everything will come your way, and you cannot expect success that instant. All your dreams and goals in life, it will happen, but it will take time. And sometimes, the things that we want may not be for us. With patience, I learned understanding as well. They come hand-in-hand, actually. You will think, “why haven’t I accomplished this dream of mine yet?”. With patience, you will learn to really analyze and understand your life and your dreams. You will learn some things are not meant to be yours, and that’s okay. Through that, you will learn and make new dreams and goals that are more fulfilling.
5. It’s okay to ask for help. I realized this in a hard way. But asking help doesn’t make us weak. In fact, when we ask help, it means we are stronger and wiser, because those people know their limits as human being, and they are not afraid to be vulnerable to other people. They also know that they will gain more knowledge and new perspective when they ask for help.
6. Love yourself. This may sound cheesy, but this is very important as well. If you know how to love yourself (not in a narcissistic way), you will be much happier and then you will find the right person for you to share that happiness. You cannot find someone to “complete” you because that will only cause pain and heart ache in the long run. You cannot put that responsibility to other people and vice versa. And sometimes it’s hard to do this, especially if you are full of insecurities. Back then, I was that person, but then I applied patience, understanding and asking for help when I needed, and that’s when I started to heal inside. I turned my insecurities to strength; and some I did change.
7. Don’t compare yourself or your life to others. Like with insecurities, jealousy can be very dangerous, especially nowadays with social medias it’s very easy to fall on this trap. But we have to remember: we don’t know what that other person’s life is really like. Like you, everyone goes through some hardship, so we must not judge others and compare our lives to them, especially with social media. What I suggest is make them your inspiration instead–someone you look up to. But really think, deep inside you, what you really want in life? Is it all just materialistic things and money? Or is there more you want in life? This is where the next lesson applies.
8. Meditation really helps. When I was battling depression, my psychiatrist advised me to practice meditation. Back then I was intimidated by it and I can’t see the benefit of it on me, but I followed through with the advice. I’m glad I did because meditation impacted my life greatly. With meditation, this is where I learn patience and understanding; and it also taught me the value of solitude because this is where you’ll reflect on your life; evaluating your decisions and actions are very important. This will help you to better yourself. But in my opinion, its main lesson is to think before you act. It’s very important that you don’t let negative emotions consume you, like hatred, anger, sadness, frustration, etc. It’s okay to feel those; it’s normal as we are human beings. If you want to cry–cry; if you want to scream–scream. But we only have to allot a time for that. If we let those negative feelings consume us, we will not find true happiness and we will only stop ourselves to heal. So, practice meditation right now!
9. People will come and go from your life. Not everyone you meet will be part of your life forever. Some will come and go; some you will need to let go or even cut them off from your life. There are reasons why people part ways, of course. 1) because everyone changes, even you. You will have different perspective in life and likes. And/or 2) because they contribute negatively to your life; they are those toxic people. We have to realize all of these because it’s part of life. With this experience, you will learn something from the other person or from the experiences that you shared with them, that you need to treasure or remember. No need for bad blood, though. You can part ways nicely and peacefully. Although sometimes, there are instances that we cannot avoid fighting. And when the time to part comes, you will experience longing, sadness and you will sometimes blame yourself and/or doubt your decision. And that is normal to feel, but give yourself some time, and you will realize that your decision is right and it’s for the best for the both of you.
10. Mistakes and failures are our teachers. It’s okay to make mistakes and fail because we are just human. But what is not okay is if we didn’t learn anything from it. We must remember, we actually have to make those mistakes and we have to experience failure for us to succeed. We have to take responsibility of our mistakes and change them; and we have to fail and learn from it for us to reach our goals. With mistakes and failures, we gained more wisdom and knowledge.
11. Be proud but be humble. All the experiences in your life; the good and the bad–be proud of them. Don’t be ashamed to tell your stories to others because those experiences are what shapes you into the person you are right now. And you never know, you might help someone by sharing your stories because they might also be going through the same; and you, sharing those can inspire them to hold on a little longer because they will be the victor in the end. But remember, your journey doesn’t end there. Every day you wake up there’s a new chapter in your life that you have to uncover, and you will learn new things and gain new experiences. So, don’t forget all the things that you learned; don’t forget your roots.
12. Always look at the bright side of life. Sometimes it’s very hard to do this, especially when you are going through some hardships. But we have to remember that the pain, struggles, and heart aches that we are experiencing, we need to experience those for us to be stronger and be the victor of our life. It may seem like that’s crazy, but as they say, you will not know true happiness if you don’t experience sadness. And I attest to that. As I said on my last blog post, there was a time in my life that I was battling depression. When you are going through that, it’s so hard to look at the bright side of life; it’s so hard to stay positive and keep moving with life. I went through a process in treating my depression and I was successful (this will be for another story). But now, I was so happy and grateful that I experience that. Now, every time that I’m experiencing hardships, I will remember all these lessons and tell myself, “It’s okay. I will get through this. And once I have, I know it will all be worth it.”.
13. Pray. No matter what your religion is or who you believe in, pray. He is always there. We just don’t know it or see it because we are so focus on our own problems that we didn’t realize that He’s helping us. If you think you are not loved, there is someone out there that loves you unconditionally, and that’s Him. Or you can see prayers as a therapy because sometimes it’s hard to open up about your pain and struggles to someone, so by praying, you are, in some way, opening yourself up. And this will help you heal, even if by only just a fraction–that’s already a huge help actually.
14. Be grateful. No matter what you have; small or little, those are blessings. We need to be grateful and appreciate the things that we have and the people that it’s in our life. We also need to be grateful for all the hardships that we experienced because if not for those, we will not experience true happiness and success. So just be grateful for everything; this will not hurt anyone if we do.
15. Be kind. I realized that everybody needs to be this. A simple gesture of kindness or even just a smile can have an impact on someone. You never know when someone need help or need just a smile to lift their spirits up. A simple, “how are you?” is such a big help. And the world really needs this right now.
I hope this will somehow help anyone or inspire and motivate anyone who is going through some hardships in life, especially now, in this time of crisis. How about you? What are the things that you learned in life? Share them by commenting them down below, and let’s help each other out. Share this blog post as well; someone out there might need this right now.
I hope everyone is doing okay. Let’s spread love and kindness.
Love,
Kristine
Check out my 2020: Just The Beginning blog post to help or inspire you to still see and hope for a brighter future even with this crisis that we are experiencing right now.
And if you want to start meditation, I uploaded a video (music background) on Youtube that you can use for meditation. I’m going to make more of this, so stay tune for that.
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