There are days when I wake up and I just wish I
could start a completely new life. I don’t know if it’s because I want to
escape things with which I am unhappy in my life or if it’s because I want to
have more than what I have. When I have peace in mind, I accept the life I have
and I feel better being myself. It’s not easy to do so but I tell myself that
this is the way to go if I want to be happy. I've said this several times in my
previous posts: nobody would be happy living a life made of a routine. If
everything would be easy in life, we’d complain that there’s no challenge. If
everything would be too hard to achieve, we’d give up and still complain about
it. The same applies to life: you can’t appreciate the good things in life
without the bad ones.
I am definitely not a great example of dealing
with struggles because I did let my bad experiences define me for a long period
of time in the past. However, I will confess one thing: I did face my struggles
and sacrificed as much as I could just to achieve the success I believed in.
Don’t misunderstand me here. I am not saying that I loved going through pain
because I indeed went through my share of pain during my struggles. Sacrificing
my short term wishes to achieve a long term goal was not painful. Dealing with
life’s unexpected situations, usually the bad ones, always put my confidence
down and I never saw a winner in myself. Thank goodness, things have changed
today and I finally understand the lessons I was supposed to get out of my
struggles.
There are numerous
situations of struggles in life that affect us such as good friends turning
into strangers, failing an important exam, dealing with unemployment, dealing
with a physical disease, getting into depression, facing a death of someone
dear to us. The latter affect us either mentally or emotionally or both ways.
These are our real testing times. Whatever struggle you face, there are three
possibilities ahead of you: run away from it, stand still and do nothing, or
move on. From my personal observations, I think the real winners are those who
are patient and who have more a peaceful mind. It’s the only way to let your
brain think how to move forward from where you are. It’s a new approach for me
as well and I must say that I am gradually learning to be patient, something
that I've been constantly reminding myself over the years and hadn't worked up
until recently.
It’s tough to fill
your mind with positive thoughts when you are going through struggles but it’s
probably the best way to push that entire negative environment away from you.
Speaking of myself, I often reminded myself that I deserve a better life than
the hard times I was going through. When I think about it today, I actually
feel my thinking was right because sometimes, the bad days are there to remind
you that you have good ones to look forward to. This logic didn't exist in my
mind before but now that I try to make connections between my life’s events, it
feels like I solved a puzzle! I don’t know the types of struggles you've all
been through but I want to be the one reassuring you that struggles are there
to make you realize how strong you are for dealing with them. You’re being
tested on how you’ll overcome them.
In order to gain
something better, you must give up something. That’s a sacrifice. I think we,
all the human beings, are always tempted in getting more but the real challenge
is what are you ready to let go to achieve something new? You can achieve
anything you want but you can’t have everything. You have to make sacrifices in
life because this way you’ll appreciate what you've got more than feeling sad
over what you've let go. As an example, I can share the one of sacrificing your
short term desires to achieve a long term goal. You've probably heard of that
one? How often your parents may have repeated this to you: if you want to make big
purchase, start saving money and stop wasting on your little wishes. It’s a
very typical example but you can probably relate to it. When you actually end
up making your big purchase, how satisfied are you? And do you look back at
what you've let go or do you enjoy the experience you get from achieving your
goal? The same applies to different goals you set in life.
One of the things we
all need to learn is to let go so that new opportunities come up. Each one of
us aspires to get a better life if it’s easy but to allow new opportunities to
knock on your door, you must be ready to start sacrificing. In my short lived
life of 25 years, I was lucky to experience rewards after sacrificing many
short term desires. However, I think the biggest sacrifice I had to make is to
let go of the good people that were there once to make me smile. It’s all part
of life and I can’t deny the fact that as I made sacrifices, things did get
better for me with time. My message to you today is to keep in mind that what
you have is with you for a relative time, nothing or nobody will stay with you
forever so learn to detach yourself from all of that so that you truly feel the
happiness from achieving new goals. Never be afraid to
start over, it's a new chance to rebuild what you want.
Success is hard to define. Most of us might refer
it to the outcome after having achieved our goals. That’s indeed what it means
to me; however I relate success more to a feeling inside of me. When you set
new goals for yourself, success is not always guaranteed to you. You could be
dealing with failure too but as you know there are always lessons resulting
from failures. Success is more about how you feel about yourself after having
achieved your goals and how you behave with people around you. Getting successful
usually results in bringing a positive change in your life and allows you to
grow and believe more in yourself and set up new goals in the future. I’ll
share a personal observation here. I've been setting a lot of goals for myself
up until now in life. As I accomplish my goals, I realize that this journey of
success doesn't stop here, I still need to keep going and aim a higher target.
It’s strange but that’s really how I feel. I am definitely able to feel the
excitement, the joy and the peace at the time I get what I want. But after some
time, the thought of taking new chances hits me.
There’s one more thing I want to remind you about
success. I believe none of you must be living completely alone, i.e. without
family and/or friends. Apart from dealing with struggles and making sacrifices,
don’t forget about your dear ones who were there to encourage you. Success is a
happy thing, share it with your loved ones. Let them know that they had a hand
in helping you grow in this journey and let them feel the pride of being part
of your life. The reason why I am saying this is because beside how I feel
about my success, I genuinely care about how my loved ones feel about me
achieving my goals. Sometimes, my success is the reason for them to believe in
hard work and hope for their best. Don’t take your success for granted. Share
the experience with those who care for you as this will enrich your experience
of success.
I hope by now I have convinced you that struggles
are part of your life for a reason, making sacrifices is important to value the
new life you get and your success will be the result of how you overcome your
struggles and how much you’re ready to let go.
Don’t dishearten yourself when obstacles are on your way. Your bad times
are there to point you toward something better and patience is what will take
you there. Feel the emotions, know the difference between being sad for letting
go of what you’re used to and being happy to get new opportunities. Believe
that your present is the best you've got from life so far, and as the future
unfolds, you will meet with unexpected success.
