7 harsh lessons we learn throughout our lives

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

People who don't learn from their mistakes face the same problems all the time. The main thing is to understand in time what life tells us. And here are the most important truths to learn as early as possible.

How many times can you step on the same rake?

Life is not like a checklist. Lessons must be learned from experience. If you do not apply the knowledge gained in practice, then they will be of no use. And if something happened to you once, you have no guarantee that it will not happen again. Likewise, just because you were good at something in the past does not mean that you will always succeed at it.

Sometimes the harshest lessons of life have to be learned over and over again. It depends on us whether we will have time to recognize that we are in the same puddle, so this time to make a different decision and get out of it.

1. The easiest path turns out to be the most slippery in the end

We may be the first to learn this life lesson.

When something seems too good to be true, it usually really isn't. Free cheese can only be found in a mousetrap.

The path may seem easy because possible difficulties cannot always be seen at a glance. We often prefer it to others simply because we rushed in with the choice and did not pay attention to it. Sometimes this happens by accident, sometimes - on purpose, despite all the brake lights and red flags that we could not help but notice.

But the result is always the same. An easy path, in practice, often turns out to be much more difficult for us than the right one, but not so attractive if we had followed it from the very beginning.

2. A love roller coaster needs good brakes

Do you know examples of relationships that developed at a speed of thousands of kilometers per hour? When couples spent day and night together and couldn't get enough of each other? Have you talked to your spouse about marriage after three months of dating?

Such a relationship is full of passion and fire. But usually they are the first to fall apart. And shatter.

Yes, love is like a roller coaster. Probably, this is how it should be. But one of the hardest lessons we need to learn is that we need to be able to slow down.

You need to understand when to accelerate, and when it is better to move more slowly, when to jump into the pool with your head, and when to hold your horses.

Because without brakes, you will accelerate more and more and miss the opportunity to learn about each other what is important to know. And accept each other for who you are. By the time you realize this, it may be too late.

3. It is better to do little by little, but regularly, than occasionally arrange for yourself rush jobs

Some people think that one day everything will work out for them by itself. What kind of day is this, I wonder? How do you imagine it? Do you think that one day you will wake up in a luxurious mansion, with two Ferraris parked at the door? Where is all this supposed to come from, from a magical portal?

One fine day is today. You need to start being content with your life right now. Something needs to be changed now. There won't be a better moment.

Big breaks are only made with small, gradual steps. You will not be able to press rewind, like the hero of the movie "Click". Whatever you want to become, make every possible effort for this already at this moment.

4. Knowing yourself is much more important than personal achievement

This tricky lesson is that achievement shouldn't determine your satisfaction with yourself. It's pretty easy to tell about a person what exactly gives him self-confidence. Confidence based only on personal achievements is unstable, it is more associated with selfishness and does not lead to inner harmony.

This does not mean that you do not need to set goals and try to achieve them. It is important to understand where the feeling of satisfaction comes from.

If you only pursue achievement, you will never come to complete satisfaction. Real satisfaction is determined only by the freedom of creativity, the desire to better understand oneself and one's craft. Achievements quickly lose their importance.

You will climb the mountain, trying with all your might to overcome the steep climb, bite into the stones to reach the top. But you will not have time to get to it and enjoy the view when you notice the next mountain, higher. And then you will think that it seems that you have not achieved anything, and now you are facing a new ascent. As you can see, the approach is dead-end.

5. You are a reflection of the people with whom you spend most of your time

Tell me who your friend is and I will tell you who you are. The people around you serve as your mirror. In them you can see yourself, your own traits. If you spend most of your time with people who have the same fears, complexes, or negative qualities, you will get used to those characteristics in yourself. They will only get stronger, and you will think that this is just part of your nature.

Conversely, as you connect more with people who challenge your fears, self-doubt, and other weaknesses, you will inevitably begin to change. You will absorb and adopt positive traits that you may be lacking.

Making informed choices about your surroundings will help you make yourself exactly who you want to be. Are you lacking confidence? Chat with confident people. Want to learn a new skill? Rotate more in the circle of people in whom it is already well developed.

There is another side to this. It is sometimes difficult to know when to leave. Sometimes people appear in our life at the right moment, when we need to learn something from them, and they - from us. Friendship then begins to form. But any relationship is part of your journey. And sometimes it is very difficult to know when it is time for your roads to separate. To do this, you need to constantly pay great attention to how you spend time and with whom you spend it.

6. You can't help but change, and trying to stay the same sometimes only brings harm

Most people strive for security and stability. This is fine.

It is important to understand the value of change. Change cannot be avoided. This is usually scary. We are afraid of change because it involves uncertainty. And we would like to keep our life under control.

To get rid of this fear, on the contrary, you need to strive for change. Self-development in general can be compared to regular training. If you go to the gym and do the same exercises day after day, eventually your body gets used to the same load and these exercises cease to be difficult for it. Then the plateau effect starts to work. You feel comfortable, but at a certain point, this comfort starts to work against you. Changes are needed to move forward.

Don't expect them to come naturally. Change yourself. When you begin to feel the slightest signs that you are stuck in a routine, start making conscious changes in your life. Take warning strikes, stay one step ahead of yourself. Put your brain and body to work, try something new and unknown.

7. Inside yourself, you always know which way to go

The main thing is to listen to your inner voice. Change jobs or stay in the same place? Maintain a relationship or move on? Do what you like or what others want from you? Often there are two answers to all these questions: an answer dictated by reason or habits, and an answer that an inner voice tells us.

We all hear it. We all know how and when it sounds. However, it is sometimes so hard to follow it.

Why? Because our ego forces us to follow much louder voices that lure us in with the promise of comfort, security, great achievement, or no pain. We stay in the office instead of traveling the world, once again reading other people's books instead of writing our own. We allow ourselves to be led astray even though we know what we really need.

The problem is that the inner voice isn't going anywhere. And the more you ignore him, the louder he will address you. Perhaps in the end his whispering will turn into a scream. And you have to listen to him. This is probably how people begin to feel, for example, a midlife crisis.

Appreciate yourself. Trust your inner voice. Your heart does not lie, it will not tell you the wrong way.

All of these lessons are sometimes difficult to complete the first time. The sooner we realize what they are teaching us, the faster we will stop walking through our personal field of rakes.