Grateful for what you have.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is that your family is safe, you have food to eat and you are grateful for what you have.

15 Life Lessons You Don’t Have To Learn The Hard Way

We grow up watching our parents. Watching their every move. Sometimes we look at their accomplishments and hope to be just like them, sometimes we look at their mistakes and hope to be nothing like them. While it’s true, we do learn from the people around us… some things you have to experience for yourself in order to learn from them.

HERE ARE 15 LIFE LESSONS YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEARN THE HARD WAY

1. How you allow yourself to be treated, is the way people will treat you.

If you let that person walk all over you, again and again, never expect them to change in any way. They’ll keep walking on you until you stand up and ask for respect. They probably won’t like that too much, but you’ll feel a hell of a lot better once the next person comes along and looks at you and sees something other than some idiot they can take advantage of.

2. You’re going to get your heart broken. Again, and again, and just when you think there’s no way you can take it anymore, again.

It will come from the boy you expected, from the person who was your best friend, from the girl you thought you loved. You will regret it, you will cry, you will hate yourself and hate you for it. Consider all the people who hurt you as lessons learned.

3. Keep positive people around you.

Only people who want the best for you should be part of your “group”. If someone does not enhance your life, give up them immediately. It does not matter if you’ve known them for 20 years. If they are not bringing you up, they are dragging you down. Cut them out of your life and watch how far you rise. You are better off alone than with a negative person.

4. Stop trying to act like you’re okay when you’re not.

This is like letting someone else plant a ticking time bomb inside your head. You never know when it’s going to explode, and after the first time you burst into tears in your manager’s office at work, you’ll realize that all of that emotion turns to poison the longer you let it build up.

5. Some people are always going to be cruel, but that doesn’t mean you have to be too.

You do not always see others as competitors and your life becomes much easier if you realize that. Instead, look at other people who are succeeding as potential allies, because if we are honest, we are all in the same team here. Kill them with kindness, even if it seems to be the most difficult thing on the planet. If you are friendly, sweet and kind, they can not say bad things about you anymore.

6. The last place you should turn to when trying to get over a difficult breakup is the arms of a stranger.

Believe me, if you embrace someone who is not the person you really want, you will not feel better. You will spend all this time comparing this person you’re trying way too hard to convince yourself that you’re into, to the one who broke your heart. And that’s not fair to you or them. Do not do it.

7. Stop comparing your life to the lives of those you follow on social media.

You can’t compare your lowest moments to the highlights of their lives. It doesn’t work like that and I promise no matter how perfect their pictures are, they have just as many problems as you do. Stop feeling “damaged” because you’re letting social media convince you that you’ll never be good enough. Shut your phone off, appreciate the good things about your life and don’t get so wrapped up in something that’s superficial anyway.

8. Take 100% responsibility for your life.

Don’t make any excuses for why things aren’t working out for you or why you aren’t where you want to be. You are the only person who is in charge of your life. Don’t waste a moment blaming others as that’s just a waste of time. If you want to change your life, it’s up to you and no one else.

9. Confidence isn’t usually something that comes naturally.

You truly do have to fake it until it’s real. So square your shoulders, take pride in how you look, and the body you have. If you do this for long, it eventually builds a sort of infectious self-esteem. Even if you don’t always love everything about yourself, you are good enough. Knowing that will make it easier.

10. You can’t date your best friend unless you are fully prepared to lose their friendship if things don’t work out.

I don’t care who you are, it’s not possible to go right back to being best friends after a breakup, even if you end things on the best of terms. There will be feelings and tears and everything gets messy. It’s awkward and it’ll make you miss them. Tread carefully.

11. It is impossible to control every aspect of your life, and if you try, you will self-destruct.

Sometimes you just have to let your life come to you and get along with what you are given. Stand firm in your convictions, morals, and dreams, but do not try to control everything in your life because stress is a very toxic thing. It can make you physically sick. Take it from someone who knows – take care of yourself.

12. You will lose friends. Lots of them.

They will change, you also will change, you will fight, you will grow apart. The people by your side when you enter high school will not be the same people you spend every second with in college.  Don’t hold too tightly to temporary people. If they were meant to be permanent, they would be.

13. You can’t change the past, and trying to rewrite it will only get you in trouble.

Accept what has happened to you, because if you do not, they then become things that people who want to hurt you can very easily use against you. And there is nothing worse than someone going back and reopening the wound of a painful memory whenever they feel the need to make you feel inferior.

14. If you don’t stand true to yourself and become your own person, you will get lost in the shuffle.

Even though everyone will tell you differently with judgmental remarks and snide looks, it’s better to stand out than to fit in. No one truly fits in, it’s all an act. Don’t give in to it, don’t subscribe to the ways of those who aren’t confident enough to be 1 in a million, and don’t ever let them convince you that you can’t be yourself.

15. The answer to all of your questions is not at the bottom of that bottle of cheap raspberry flavored vodka.

No amount of liquor you’re not supposed to have is going to fill the hole in your heart, and when you’re laying on the bathroom floor in what’s-his-face’s basement, dizzy and sick to your stomach, you’ll realize that those fourteen shots didn’t make your problems any easier to solve.
Source: theodysseyonline.com