5 Powerful Realities This Year Surprisingly Taught Me
One for sure is that life isn’t rainbows and sunshine. And it will never be. After one struggle comes the next. After one mountain, comes the other. After one storm, rains the next. It will never be perfect and free like how we pictured it in our expectations. There will always be a struggle, and it is up to us to find joy in each chaos. To find faith in each hopelessness and to find strength to overcome. Because if we do not help ourselves overcome, that’s when we lose. That’s when life gets tougher than it already is. I know it may sound lousy, but it’s true. Life is how we see it. Life will always be filled with goodness and evil, with calmness and trouble, with love and hatred, with stormy and sunny days — all at once. It is within us to find our balance. It is within us to see the side we prefer, the good side. It’s our choice, our life is our choice. So let’s choose to overcome.
Second is that, nothing anyone says really matters. Cut the doubters and the unbelievers. This is your life and you can’t always depend on how they see you or what they think about you. What I learned is that, you don’t shape yourself for people who doesn’t give real concern about you. Their approval is nothing, honey. Believe me. One day, you’ll wake up and you’ll see how they are with their choices and you’ll be grateful you didn’t let them influence you. You are what you make out of your life. And I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but you really have to stay away from toxic people. Instead, be with people who inspire you. People who encourage you, and build you up. You can’t grow in a garden of dead flowers. You can’t grow in a garden that continuously plucks you off your root. Be with people who listen to your dreams and push you to pursue your plans. Be with people who give well-rounded advice, people who truly care about your future. People who actually care about where you’re going.
Third is that you have to keep moving forward. No matter how great the setback is, how disappointing your failures are, you have to rise despite it all. And it doesn’t matter how ugly last year was or how many attempts weren’t successful, it’s all in the past. You can’t possibly allow that to haunt you for the years to come. You have to rise higher. Be taller than your worries and fears. Chase your desires relentlessly. Don’t ever let anything stop you from going after all the things you’ve always wanted. Okay is good, yes. And there are days when it felt fine to settle for okay like an okay career or an okay relationship. But there are days wherein you have to go big. Go extremely big, those are the days you don’t settle at all. Those are the days you keep pushing forward, days you keep striving, days you keep doing your best to achieve all that you ever dream of. Because it can happen, and it will happen as long as you believe, as long as you allow yourself to keep moving forward.
Fourth is that practically everything is a choice, your choice. You stay in a relationship for too long, that’s your choice. You allow people to belittle you, that’s your choice. You allow complacency to take place in your life, that’s your choice. Because frankly, you can always get up and move out of a relationship where love and respect is no longer available. You can walk out the door and look for something better, someone who actually deserves all the goodness and beauty you can offer. Oh and honey, you can speak your mind. You can be loud and hard if you want to. You can make them stop belittling you. You can show them what you can do, you can make them see the magnitude of your talents and you can stop caring about what they think of you. And also, you can quit that job. You can shut down a life of complacency. You are capable of more, and you know that. You just have to choose it. Choose yourself.
Lastly, love. Love sparks up kindness. Love triggers forgiveness. Love kindles gratefulness. Love, as cliche as it sounds, makes life a little sunnier, a little more colorful. Love, may or may not make sense to all of us, but it’s important. And it is hard work. Loving ourselves, loving people, especially those who aren’t easy to love… It’s all hard work. But we’ve got to keep trying. Every single day, we’ve got to keep loving ourselves, despite our flaws and all the horrible things our demons tell about us. We have to love ourselves the way we deserve to be loved. And we have to love those around us, no matter how difficult people can get. No matter how impossible they are to deal with. Love can do amazing things if we allow it.
Remember that. 
