LIFE LESSONS.

5 Life Lessons I Wish I’d Known Earlier.

Maybe it will save you a little heartache.

I’ve done a lot of really stupid things in my life. I mean, really stupid. Most of those decisions (or lack thereof) came from the same places of brokenness within me. They came from the lies I believed about myself. They came from not knowing any better.

When I first met my boyfriend, I shared my guilt with him. Without hesitating he asked me, “Did you do the best you could at the time?” Of course, the answer was yes. “Then let it go,” he said simply.

What a profound lesson.

There are some things you learn way too late in life — after the heartache, after the guilt, after the stockpiling of shame. I’d like to spare you some of that today.

Five life lessons I wish I’d known earlier

And if you’ll take them to heart — it may save you a lot of pain in your life.

1. It is ok to say no.

I cannot express to you the slippery slope of saying yes to things when your internal gut is screaming “NO.”

I grew up in the south of the US. There’s been a decades-old mentality of women being agreeable and polite. Our internal sense of self-preservation is often trumped by the need to please other people, keep the peace, and to not offend anyone or risk them thinking you impolite or snobbish. These subliminal, deeply-rooted messages need to stop. (Here is a moving poem I wrote about this topic, if you can relate or if you’d like to have a better understanding.)

Pick any of these:

Do what you know to be right in your heart without worry over what it may do to alter their impression of you.

Which brings me to my next point:

2. Don’t try to impress all the wrong people.

Sometimes when you are in the moment, it is hard to recognize who exactly “all the wrong people” are, when it becomes abundantly clear later.

In a nutshell:

• Those who do not have your interests at heart.
• Those who are using you.
• Those who are not loyal to you no matter how much you invest in the relationship.
• Those who are toxic or unhealthy for you.
• Those who will never change their mind about you, no matter what you do or say.
• Those who are trying to change you into what they think you should be.
• Those who will not matter in a week, a year, a decade.
• Those who you uplift to a level they have not earned in your life.
• Those you don’t even know but spend entirely too much time trying to impress.

3. Don’t hang on to people who want to go.

Relationships take on very different purposes in our life. Not only do you have to be aware of your own needs in the relationship, but also the other person’s needs, and their intentions. True pain can come from trying to force a relationship or a person into a box in which it will not fit or does not belong. If they are “just not that into you,” for example, and you try to press a romantic relationship into fruition.

Or that person who found themselves in a romantic or sexual relationship with you and they are ready to get out of it before you are ready.

Trust me, when people are ready to go, you can’t fight that. You cannot and should not attempt to change the path of another person to quell your own fear of moving on or letting them go.

Make peace with it. Move forward with the lessons and the personal growth you can glean from the experience.

4. Beauty and talent have nothing to do with success.

I’ll spare you the clichés on beauty.

But I will offer you this:

Your beauty is defined by your character. — cmw

Your successes are defined by you. — cmw

I wish I’d known when I was young and more outwardly beautiful, that the more I concentrated on that beauty, the further away I was from authenticity. Don’t get me wrong — I love a mascara that gives my lashes that curve I like. I love a good hair day and a new outfit. I love things that make me feel confident — but a warning here; don’t let that stuff define who you are.

I also wish I’d known when I was chasing some kind of carrot-led success, that I was running further and further from my own authentic path. Perhaps you are doing this right now?

5. Every single day is a gift. You define your own path. Live it authentically and unapologetically.

Understand this disclaimer: By unapologetically — I mean with confidence. I do not mean to live your life in spite of hurting others, without care, which lacks empathy and is unhealthy to your own growth as a person.

Every day is a gift. A new opportunity. So many of my days I have wasted lamenting what I did not have. Where I had not been. Or whose love I had lost.

Every day lamenting the unattained and the lost is another day spent standing in the same spot — or worse, regressing. Yes, give yourself time to mentally heal, but don’t spend so much time wallowing that you lose precious time that could be spent nurturing your life.

In closing

There’s a voice inside you that directs you. When you are focused on all the wrong things, or all the wrong people, that voice gets quieted to a mere whisper. The trick for this tip and for the aforementioned tips is to listen to that voice and steer your life down a path of authentic living. Focus on the growth of your character and that, in and of itself, will bring more fruitful relationships to you while keeping you out of those heart-sucking ones that chip away at you.

I wish I’d known. Before worlds of pain. Before I mistakenly let the messages of the world and broken relationships define me as ugly, unlovable, unwanted, and unsuccessful.

It’s not too late to change course. It’s not too late to tell yourself that brokenness and lies from others do not define you.

It’s never too late to get up, wake up, admit who you are and follow your path. It’s not too late.

Thank you for reading this personal essay, which I hope in some way helps to bring clarity to your life. I enjoy writing about my growth experiences and sharing the wisdom I’ve developed along the way. Here are a few other things with deeply personal messages or inspiring messages that you may resonate with on a personal level:

Keeping Positive When the Answer is No (curated in Self) There Is No Place for My Pain (not curated, but I thought it a well-constructed, multi-layered poem) It’s Hard to Write When You’re Down — But you are not alone (curated in Writing and Mental Health) My Days Are a Delicate Dance of Routine Through Pain (Not curated — I’m not sure why. But it is worth a read anyway. A very important message about perseverance and self-encouragement.)

Christina M. Ward 2020