10 Painfully Obvious Truths Everyone Forgets Too Soon

1.  The average human life is relatively short.

We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know.  It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step.  You expected there to be one more stair than there is, and so you find yourself off balance for a moment, before your mind shifts back to the present moment and how the world really is. LIVE your life TODAY!  Don’t ignore death, but don’t be afraid of it either.  Be afraid of a life you never lived because you were too afraid to take action.  Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside you while you’re still alive.  Be bold.  Be courageous.  Be scared to death, and then take the next step anyway.

2.  You will only ever live the life you create for yourself.

Your life is yours alone.  Others can try to persuade you, but they can’t decide for you.  They can walk with you, but not in your shoes.  So make sure the path you decide to walk aligns with your own intuition and desires, and don’t be scared to switch paths or pave a new one when it makes sense.
Remember, it’s always better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than the top of the one you don’t.  Be productive and patient.  And realize that patience is not about waiting, but the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard for what you believe in.  This is your life, and it is made up entirely of your choices.  May your actions speak louder than your words.  May your life preach louder than your lips.  May your success be your noise in the end. And if life only teaches you one thing, let it be that taking a passionate leap is always worth it.  Even if you have no idea where you’re going to land, be brave enough to step up to the edge of the unknown, and listen to your heart.

3.  Being busy does NOT mean being productive.

Busyness isn’t a virtue, nor is it something to respect.  Though we all have seasons of crazy schedules, very few of us have a legitimate need to be busy ALL the time.  We simply don’t know how to live within our means, prioritize properly, and say no when we should. Being busy rarely equates to productivity these days.  Just take a quick look around.  Busy people outnumber productive people by a wide margin.  Busy people are rushing all over the place, and running late half of the time.  They’re heading to work, conferences, meetings, social engagements, etc.  They barely have enough free time for family get-togethers and they rarely get enough sleep.  Yet, emails are shooting out of their smart phones like machine gun bullets, and their day planners are jammed to the brim with obligations.  Their busy schedule gives them an elevated sense of importance.  But it’s all an illusion.  They’re like hamsters running on a wheel. Though being busy can make us feel more alive than anything else for a moment, the sensation is not sustainable long term.  We will inevitably, whether tomorrow or on our deathbed, come to wish that we spent less time in the buzz of busyness and more time actually living a purposeful life.

4.  Some kind of failure always occurs before success.

Most mistakes are unavoidable.  Learn to forgive yourself.  It’s not a problem to make them.  It’s only a problem if you never learn from them. If you’re too afraid of failure, you can’t possibly do what needs to be done to be successful.  The solution to this problem is making friends with failure.  You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner?  The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.  Behind every great piece of art is a thousand failed attempts to make it, but these attempts are simply never shown to us. Bottom line:  Just because it’s not happening now, doesn’t mean it never will.  Sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right.

5.  Thinking and doing are two very different things.

Success never comes to look for you while you wait around thinking about it. You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.  Knowledge is basically useless without action.  Good things don’t come to those who wait; they come to those who work on meaningful goals.  Ask yourself what’s really important and then have the courage to build your life around your answer.
And remember, if you wait until you feel 100% ready to begin, you’ll likely be waiting the rest of your life.

6.  You don’t have to wait for an apology to forgive.

Life gets much easier when you learn to accept all the apologies you never got.  The key is to be thankful for every experience – positive or negative.  It’s taking a step back and saying, “Thank you for the lesson.”  It’s realizing that grudges from the past are a perfect waste of today’s happiness, and that holding one is like letting unwanted company live rent free in your head. Forgiveness is a promise – one you want to keep.  When you forgive someone you are making a promise not to hold the unchangeable past against your present self.  It has nothing to do with freeing a criminal of his or her crime, and everything to do with freeing yourself of the burden of being an eternal victim.

7.  Some people are simply the wrong match for you.

You will only ever be as great as the people you surround yourself with, so be brave enough to let go of those who keep bringing you down.  You shouldn’t force connections with people who constantly make you feel less than amazing. If someone makes you feel uncomfortable and insecure every time you’re with them, for whatever reason, they’re probably not close friend material.  If they make you feel like you can’t be yourself, or if they make you “less than” in any way, don’t pursue a connection with them.  If you feel emotionally drained after hanging out with them or get a small hit of anxiety when you are reminded of them, listen to your intuition.  There are so many “right people” for you, who energize you and inspire you to be your best self.  It makes no sense to force it with people who are the wrong match for you.

8.  It’s not other people’s job to love you; it’s yours.

It’s important to be nice to others, but it’s even more important to be nice to yourself.  You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.  So make sure you don’t start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you.  Know your worth, even if they don’t. Today, let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as incomplete as you think you are.  Yes, let someone love you despite all of this, and let that someone be YOU.

9.  What you own is not who YOU are.

Stuff really is just stuff, and it has absolutely no bearing on who you are as a person.  Most of us can make do with much less than we think we need.  That’s a valuable reminder, especially in a hugely consumer-driven culture that focuses more on material things than meaningful connections and experiences. You have to create your own culture.  Don’t watch TV, don’t read every fashion magazine, and don’t consume too much of the evening news.  Find the strength to fill your time with meaningful experiences.  The space and time you are occupying at this very moment is LIFE, and if you’re worrying about Kim Kardashian or Lebron James or some other famous face, then you are disempowered.  You’re giving your life away to marketing and media trickery, which is created by big companies to ultimately motivate you to want to dress a certain way, look a certain way, and be a certain way.  This is tragic, this kind of thinking.  It’s all just Hollywood brainwashing.  What is real is YOU and your friends and your family, your loves, your highs, your hopes, your plans, your fears, etc. Too often we’re told that we’re not important, we’re just peripheral to what is.  “Get a degree, get a job, get a car, get a house, and keep on getting.”  And it’s sad, because someday you’ll wake up and realize you’ve been tricked.  And all you’ll want then is to reclaim your mind by getting it out of the hands of the brainwashers who want to turn you into a drone that buys everything that isn’t needed to impress everyone that isn't important.

10.  Everything changes, every second.

Embrace change and realize it happens for a reason.  It won’t always be obvious at first, but in the end it will be worth it. What you have today may become what you had by tomorrow.  You never know.  Things change, often spontaneously.  People and circumstances come and go.  Life doesn’t stop for anybody.  It moves rapidly and rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds, and happens like this to people every day.  It’s likely happening to someone nearby right now.
Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives.  A seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking Earth.  Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event. And these events are always happening. However good or bad a situation is now, it will change.  That’s the one thing you can count on.  So when life is good, enjoy it.  Don’t go looking for something better every second.  Happiness never comes to those who don’t appreciate what they have while they have it.

25 People: The 1 Thing They Wish They Knew At 25

1. Patti, 51
“You should move to the big city, but there are ‘big cities’ other than New York. You can get the urban experience in a lot of different places, for a lot less money.”
2. John, 34
“Just because you’re young does not mean you have no value in the work place. A lot of people are going to treat you like you’re lucky to have a job, and maybe at first you are, but if you do things well you should be ready to ask for things.”
3. Karen, 45
“Let the little arguments with friends go. Yes, they hurt your feelings, but it doesn’t matter. You probably hurt theirs somewhere along the road and they are letting it go, too. No one is perfect and we’re all a little too sensitive.”
4. Elia, 37
“Don’t worry about what your friends are doing. It’s not just Facebook, we were always worried about whether or not we were maturing as fast as our friends. But it doesn’t matter, their happiness is not your happiness.”
5. Rich, 50
“You have no obligation to keep hanging out with the people you grew up with.”
6. Marcus, 31
“Spending a ton of money on alcohol is just about the dumbest thing you can do with your life. If you’re going to spend money on going out, at least spend it on dinner, because then it’s an experience you remember.”
7. Aisha, 29
“Traveling has to be a priority, if it’s something you want to do. You can’t just say ‘I want to travel’ and hope that you will find the right moment. You don’t just stumble on the right moment, you have to make it and fight for it.”
8. Jerome, 40
“You’re never going to be perfectly happy in a relationship, but you shouldn’t expect to be, especially at that age. There’s too much change that creates natural tension at that point in your life.”
9. Vera, 56
“Don’t settle for anything. It kills you quickly.”
10. Therese, 67
“You’re so, so young.”
11. Charlie, 41
“Dress well, and take care of yourself. Manage your appearance, because it influences other people’s expectations of you, and it lets them know how seriously you take yourself. Always look like you know where you’re going.”
12. Jeanne, 70
“Always look for a good deal. Save your money where you can.”
13. Helen, 33
“Don’t let people tell you who you are, even if you really want to be their friend. If you feel like you are playing a role when you hang out for someone, that means they have more power than you. Don’t let them.”
14. Julia, 49
“Getting married can wait. Build something.”
15. Clara, 45
“Spend more time on kisses, and wait longer to have sex. Let anticipation build.”
16. Mike, 28
“Just remember that pretty much everyone has debt and that it shouldn’t stop you from going for what you want. Don’t kill yourself trying to pay it off as fast as possible.”
17. Sarah, 53
“People care about themselves 99 percent of the time. When you find someone who actually cares about you, hold onto them. It’s very rare to find someone who actually listens when you are telling a story.”
18. Len, 44
“Get out of your hometown. Maybe come back someday, but for now, leave. See something else.”
19. Joy, 48
“Be on time, because there is nothing worse than someone who has a reputation for always being late. It tells people that you don’t care, and it sucks!!”
20. Christophe, 35
“Invest in a good pair of shoes.”
21. Justin, 29
“If someone acts distant and not interested in the first few weeks of dating, don’t pursue it. It just makes you look like an idiot.”
22. Marie, 47
“Your friends don’t know any more than you do. You might look at someone and think that they know exactly what they’re doing, but they’re struggling and living life and making mistakes. They just put on a better show.”
23. Jean, 74
“Always have a clean house and something to eat for when people come over. Make people feel happy in your home.”
24. Annie, 36
“It’s never too early to start thinking about money.”
25. Camille, 29
“You’ve already lost a lot of friends in the past few years because your lives are changing so much, and you’re going to lose more over the next few. But that’s a good thing. If all of your friends stayed the same that would mean that none of you was evolving or doing new things. It hurts to say goodbye to people, but it’s even worse to always stay the same.

strangers

I think one of the saddest things is when two people really get to know each other: their secrets, their fears, their favourite things, what they love, what they hate, literally everything, and then they go back to being strangers. It’s like you have to walk past them and pretend like you never knew them, never even talked to them before, when really, you know everything about them.

Life is too short

1. When your friends ask you to hangout, and you don’t feel like it, don’t go. Don’t ever do things halfway or do something that makes you uncomfortable. With everything, give all of yourself, even the pieces you never knew existed.

2. It is okay to not know. Everyone always despises the phrase, “I don’t know” but no one tells you that it is okay to not know. The becoming is more important than the being, anyways.

3. If someone ever makes you feel less, in any way, you have every right to walk away. You have every right to cut out toxic people in your life. To close the door on people who make you feel bad about who you are or what you stand for. Friends don’t tear down, they build up.

4. Loss is always going to happen. Just like paint will always chip and rain will always fall, loss will always be part of life. No matter how much I don’t like it, or avoid it, it is going to walk my way at several times in my life. Learn to embrace it and learn to get closure.

5. Give yourself a chance. Stop saying, “I don’t think I can” or “But what if I am not able to?” and give yourself a chance. This may be cliche, but try to believe in yourself. When you get older, your knees won’t work the same and you won’t have the best memory, and you are going to wish you’d given yourself a chance years sooner.

6. Fall in love. Don’t be guarded before you fall in love. You could fall in love three times and still not find the right one, but none of it is going to make “the one” matter less. Don’t fall into that idea that your first love has to be your best love. Fall in love as many times as it naturally happens.

7. Firsts are going to be messy. First loves, first kisses, first dates, first failed tests, first college class, first time you drive a car, first time you ride a plane - first times were made to be imperfect. Just because it’s messy and all over the place, doesn’t mean it can’t be good or worthwhile.

8. You want another scoop of ice-cream? Go get it. Get three more scoops of ice-cream if that is what you want. “Fat” is not the opposite of beautiful and it is not the opposite of happy. Don’t let anyone tell you that your body type isn’t beautiful. Beauty is a social construct, create your own, become your own.

9. Let yourself be alone. Loneliness is not a bad thing. It is healthy and normal. Everyone needs to spend a good portion of their life alone. We learn who we are when we are alone; life is less crowded and more clear when we are alone.

10. If you aren’t happy where you are, change it. Quit your job, move, become a vegetarian, get a new hobby, pick up an old hobby, whatever you do - make sure it benefits you. Life is too short to not be alive, to not be passionate, and overflowing.

— Amanda Helm - Ten things I learned before I turned twenty

concrete

"I think she was afraid to love sometimes. I think it scared her. She was the type to like things that were concrete, like the ocean. Something you could point to and know what it was. I think that's why she also struggled with love. She couldn't touch it. She couldn't hold on to it and make sure it never changed."

black parts

when you love someone
that came to you disguised in wholeness you’ll be surprised by the pieces of them that break on your teeth
Their blood will drip down your chin
you’ll taste the bitter copper and discover 
you have to find a different way to love them 
they can’t be chewed and swallowed
made into nourishment to satisfy the lust that rises from your spine
she’s been touched before
you felt a similar burn beneath finger tips 
you have to love soft enough
cautious enough not to duplicate scars
hard enough to convince her she’s not still a victim
you want to always ask her permission 
to make up for all the men who didn’t 
for the man who turned her hymen into a causality of his inferiority and ungodly aggression 
the man who turned her whimper into a repugnant melody
all the men who fucked their way into your day dreams about her 
and you’ll start to wonder if they fucked their way into your home 
they would have already invaded your conversation 
you would have watched her dissolve whenever she speaks of the roughness of men 
watched her skin sear at the thought of those that accused her of lying about all the fire that made battle between her legs
you’ll hate her history enough to want to hate her too
so you won’t have to love the black parts of her 
the parts that were scared off accepting you when you kept throwing yourself whole 
the parts that kept her back to the wall
the parts that won’t let you touch that part
the parts that keep her part drunk and part high so she can only see parts of her bruises 
and part of you who wish you got to her first before she was more piled and woman 
before she had hated every piece of herself that let those men inside her but its too late 
you would have already given pieces of yourself to repair her 
there isn’t much of you anywhere
you would have given her half your pulse 
your heart will beat half a regular for her 
you won’t be sure which scars are yours 
and which ones you share 
you will have no other choice but to love all the parts that she can’t 
to love her
in all her blackness
by then
by then you will need her 
in order to feel whole
despite all of the pieces she’s fallen into 
you need her so you stay and everyday you’re terrified 
you’ve never been here before 
in a place so hostile 
so steaming fresh, flesh wound 
and she’s never been here either 
everything soft and good is foreign 
you will always be part aftermath and unexpected 
there will be days
where she will doubt all the love you have because of all the love that has been siphoned from her hips 
there will be days
when you will look at her naked and what if you’re just like those men 
because your hands and their hands have travelled the same skin
there will be days 
when you hate yourself for it 
and those moments, will be the darkest 
and there will always be darkness where sun has been back porched drunk dead ripped from a person 
there will be holes
where light should be 
you will never give up trying to replace it 
you will cherish the sun that she has left 
to make morning with her every night

The other half of my heart

There is no remedy for memory. Rest in paradise my sweet, dear ah-ma.

I love mine, I love mine, I love mine.