Subscribe:My Life Lessons In A Nutshell
I believe we take birth for two reasons –
- To touch lives of others and make this world a beautiful place in our own little way
- To allow this world to touch us so that we learn our own life lessons and become beautiful inside out.
Since we don’t learn anything to perfection the very first time, the life lessons keep repeating themselves – till we learn them right in theory and then, till we master them practically.
We all have our own unique set of life lessons to learn. But it is still good to learn from those that others have had. So here are a few lessons I have learnt and am still learning, have mastered (hopefully) and am still practicing …
On Life
You get to live life just once. So live it the way you want to. Test your theories. Follow your intuition. Go ahead even if you doubt yourself. You will make mistakes this way. A lot of mistakes. But mistakes are good. Especially if you are making them in your life. So make your decisions and own your mistakes. That’s how you learn, that’s how you grow. That’s the only way for you to live life on your own terms. If you are too scared to make mistakes, you remain stuck wherever you are. And since life moves forward and you remain stuck, you are actually moving backwards.
On Your Most Important Relationship
Your first and most important relationship is with you. Love yourself, be honest with yourself, take care of yourself and be kind to yourself. Be your own very best friend. If you are not with you, you could have everything possible in the world but still feel empty, lonely and incomplete from within.
On Happiness
When one door to happiness closes, another opens. If no doors open, break the wall and create your own door.
If you miss the door which opened, it’s because you stubbornly want the happiness behind the door which is no more open for you.
If no doors open, don’t sit waiting for a door to open. Unless you like that kind of external dependency on something as important as your own happiness. Take matters in your hand. Take your happiness in your hand. And you will never ever have to worry about ‘doors to happiness’ again.
On Sadness
Being sad is all right. It really is. So is being angry, frustrated, worried etc. You can’t choose to feel positive emotions all the time. If you feel negative emotions, remember it’s normal. And anyways, the question is not whether you can feel them or not; the question is what will you do with these emotions and for how long are you willing to feel them?
On Success
Success is such a relative term. You could be doing only one thing right and still feel successful or you could excel in 100 things and still feel like a failure. It all depends upon what are you aiming for and what are you judging yourself against.
When it comes to success, a question worth answering is – What will it take for you to feel successful? When you jot down all the nitty-gritty details of when will you call yourself a success, you might be surprised. You might be surprised how incredibly unfair your answer is. If your friend had answered what you just answered, you might whack her to bring her back to her senses.
On Spirituality
God / angels / nature / masters … whomever you believe in are always connected to you. They are with you 24*7 whether you are with them or not. But when you take time to connect with them, life somehow seems simpler and happier. Soul/Spirit feels nourished and joyous and at home.
Some Random Lessons
- When life doesn’t go as planned, remember, you couldn’t have planned it better. You would not have been able to put in as many new experiences, as many adventures and as many life changing scenarios if you were to plan your life. Stop your struggle. Make most of what’s happening, make most of your journey and see where does it lead you.
- When it comes to emotions, decisions are either made out of fear or out of love. Decisions made out of fear usually don’t work.
- Listen to your inner voice even if logically it doesn’t make sense, even if the message is not what you want to hear.
- When you aren’t sure what’s your priority, think what would you like to answer to ‘What did you do this year?’. Play out different answers in mind. And you will figure out what’s truly important to you.
Note: Abubakar Jamil has started a Life Lessons Series project. This article is my submission to the same. To read more submissions by other bloggers, follow the link.
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Avani,
What a beautiful way of starting this post. I loved not only the start but the lessons and how you articulated them.
I’m glad that chose to write this post because I know it will touch the hearts of many of us, who need to hear what you said.
Thank you so much.
Abubakar,
Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful series. I am glad you enjoyed the article.
Avani,
So good to see you!!
And I love the life lessons you are sharing today. As I think about happiness…I’m drawn to what how when this is internal…it is so much easier to “be” in that place. And with that – there is ALWAYS that door of happiness there…within us…just waiting to be opened… (I love your views on this!!)
Thanks for sharing these wonderful words…
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Lance,
So good to see you here. When it comes to happiness, I think we all learn the same lesson just frame it differently. Happiness to you.
Brilliant post. “Since we don’t learn anything to perfection the very first time, the life lessons keep repeating themselves – till we learn them…” So true. One of our faults is not being able to learn enough from others, like our parents. Looks like we insist on learning stuff on our own, making our own mistakes. I know it’s true for me, anyway. Thanks a lot, Avani.
Great advice here… but 1 question:
How do we differentiate between the inner voice and that nagging voice that always puts us down, and makes us regret the past, or be anxious of the future?
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> Your first and most important relationship is with you.
So true. Wherever you go, there you are. You always take you with you.
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Thanks for sharing the lessons .Going through i felt as if i amgoing through my own lessons.Inner voice is the voice of God and if we keep mit alive we will be guided by the Divine.Life is to teach us to evolve ,every incident is teaching us something.Yes untill and unless we love ourselves we can not love others. We have serve others as part of our larger self.
My best wishes and may God bless you.
Subhash
hi Avani,
Very well said that it is not necessary to remain happy at all the time. As nothing remains forever, we should letgo our emotions after feeling it!!
-Ketur
Avani,
Thanks for sharing these wonderful life lessons with us. I loved this insight so much: “When one door to happiness closes, another opens. If no doors open, break the wall and create your own door.” It really demonstrates your trust in life.
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Awesome post!!\Loved it completely…
The best part : Your first and most important relationship is with you…
How true…
Simple fact but we often end up ignoring it….
“To live it the way you want to”
Yes and it’s the reason why we took birth:)
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“When you aren’t sure what’s your priority, think what would you like to answer to ‘What did you do this year?’. Play out different answers in mind. And you will figure out what’s truly important to you.”
I love this quote, this is something I am going to apply every time I’m in 2 minds. Thanks for sharing this inspiring post.
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This post is interesting. It is because it tackles different topics such as life, sadness, success, spirituality, etc. I agree that one could get to live life just once and following intuition.
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Loved the post Avani-written like a true master !
My emphasis on your life lessons would be-learning the most important relationship with self-self love. We can’t get it if we don’t have it to give and of course,intuition, following the heart then allowing the head to jump in is always the best way round! It’s just like a muscle and needs to be built and the more you use it the more reliable it becomes.
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Wonderful post! Touching lives bring us the fulfillment that no other things can give us.
Quite an enlitening post….. will definitely touch everyones lives, at least it worked for me….. These times, I’m a bit low; and here I’m reminded that it’s ok if one feels sad…. if things don’t go as planned!!! Beautiful reminder!!! Thanx…….
Happy writing!
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