3 Life Lessons From an Eternal Student of Life
“Would you be interested in participating in a Life Lesson Series effort where we ask bloggers to write a wish list of things they wish they had known earlier in life?”
Farnoosh from Prolific Living emailed me this kind invitation in July 2010 .
Of course I wanted to participate. It’s my policy to always take part in everything I’m invited to do on the blogosphere and this sounded like a classic topic with a classy team of collaborators.
But I did nothing.
In October 2010 Farnoosh emailed me again. Same request and top marks to Farnoosh for persistence. Abubakar Jamil, the kind man who started the whole Life Lessons series personally invited me too.
“Yes!” I thought, “I really want to do that Life Lessons series.”
But still I did nothing.
It’s now March 2011 and I still haven’t done it. Here’s why.
Writing Life Lessons Implies I Understand Life
I often feel like I’ve learnt nothing in my life.
Sure, I can conjugate irregular french verbs, give birth to 11lb babies on the living room floor, hitchhike alone in Turkey or write a thesis called Adventures in Education: the Quest to Provide Effective University Courses Online. But those aren’t life lessons are they?
Life lessons are about the deep stuff, the meaningful, important stuff that we find out from our grannies or between the covers of books by Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama or Paulo Coelho.
Life Lessons are Hard, Joking Around is Easier
Life lessons are profound and it’s so much easier to stick to the trivial issues. Like pointing out that’s not Farnoosh in the picture above.
Joking aside, what do I have to share or teach people about life?
Yes, I count myself successful and happy, and I’m blessed to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. But when it comes to worldly wisdom I’m not sure what I have to offer.
So my natural timidity threatened to sabotage this lovely opportunity and writing exercise. This incident in itself has been a life lesson for me and today I’m renouncing timidity and giving fear the proverbial finger again.
Today I’m shoving my perfectionist tendencies to one side and just writing because that’s what I do, it’s what I love and all I really know.
3 Life Lessons From an Eternal Student of Life
If there were only three life lessons I could pass on they would be:
1. Love yourself
Love yourself has become a cliche because so many of us struggle with it.
Not that I hate myself but the message I want to pass on is to stop comparing yourself to other people and be confident in your skin and in the way you think. Be happy with what you’ve got, not what you don’t have. It’s so simple yet so hard but with practice you can do it.
You only have to watch the news or read a newspaper to see the amount of suffering and unhappiness in the world. But we can’t save the world, we can only save ourselves and focusing on our own personal happiness is the best way to start. So I’d like it if we all treat ourselves with the same love and kindness other people show us.
2. Mistakes are divine
Just make mistakes and keep making them.
Too err is human, to forgive divine. So goes the old saying but in keeping with loving ourselves it’s our self we have to forgive for making mistakes and forgive many times over.
I read everywhere that it’s great to make mistakes, learn from them and move on. But life isn’t like that and I often find that I repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
Sometimes I despair that I’ll ever get something right but I need to remember there is no right. There is no perfect way of doing what I’m doing because it has never been done before and it will never be done again.
Mistakes really are divine. They show we’re experimenting, trying new things, pushing the boundaries and learning. Let’s start celebrating our mistakes as stepping stones on the path to a life lived to the full.
3. Believe in yourself
Because we do all have something to offer and often we don’t even realise it ourselves. If we can only love ourselves and give ourselves permission to start making mistakes then confidence will grow from that. And from our mistakes spring successes and more confidence.
Of course confidence ebbs and flows. Some days I feel utterly invincible, convinced that I can save the world and hell bent on doing so. Other days I just want to keep a low profile, potter along with my daily life and hope no one tries to pull me away from it.
But life is about pushing yourself and doing stuff that scares you – grabbing a microphone at your local market and giving an impromptu speech as I did two weeks ago or writing a blog post which pushes you out of your comfort zone.
The Eternal Student of Life
Maybe my life lessons aren’t as profound as I wish. But they are the truth as it comes to me today and that’s the best I can do.
Many thanks to Farnoosh and Abubakar for the invitation and patience.
Maybe there are no life lessons? Only an eternal quest for personal happiness, a string of mistakes and the ultimate realisation that all we can do it keep on doing the best we can.
What do you think?
Photo credit: Josh Pesavento
In July 2010 Farnoosh from Prolific Living emailed me asking:
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Good list but is number one not the same as number three?
Can we believe in ourselves if we don’t love ourselves?
I would add learn to say no!! Sometimes if you are a yes person, you find yourself with no time to do what you want to do. You find yourself being leaned on by all negative people around you and they sap your energy.
Hi Natalie, thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment:) Great points and the short answer is maybe they are the same. But I think the first step is self-acceptance then self-confidence follows. They don’t come along at the same time. Love what you say about saying no. Definitely a great lesson there and like any it takes practice:)
Pleased you flipped the bird to timidity and fear! Great post. I absolutely think your life lessons are deep and meaningful – hope that doesn’t make you a granny!
I’m still working on all three myself so thanks for the reminder.
To answer your question, I think there are life lessons but like lots of good advice and opportunities for learning in our younger years, we’re not always open to the lesson. Life lessons are hard because they’re about us.
Thanks for sharing Granny Annabel ;)
Hi Suellen, just let me put my knitting away dear:) Ah yes, we are all still learning and working on them all the time. At least those of us who are continuing to grow and striving to improve ourselves. I’m definitely not saying I’ve mastered it, just that those are the 3 main things to work on. Thank you for sharing too.
It’s a really interesting conversation, Annabel. Reflecting on your question, I guess I have only really come up with one life lesson that ever meant anything too me – and that is to simply BE – and act from a space of being i.e. living in the present moment; love in the present moment; receive life in the present moment; honour the present moment. It’s not even really a lesson – more like a decision. I’ve stop seeking to master life and started to let life master me. Does that make any sense? :)
Hi Robin, ah, being ever present is a hard lesson to learn. Especially for a perennial fidget like me. But yes, it makes sense completely. I do believe we get wiser as we get older. All that rushing and seeking we did when we were younger becomes less important and it’s wonderful to learn from your evolution. Thank you.
Annabel,
These are three core life lessons. You really went directly to the hot spot! But who says we can’t save the world? Of course, we can. Just ask the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, or Nelson Mandela. Just ask the people in Egypt. But I agree, saving yourself is one important part of saving the world! Hugs.
Hi Sandra, thank you! Yes, only when we’ve saved or learned to love ourselves can we get onto helping other people and that’s when it really gets fun. Don’t worry, still on a mission to save the world one blog at a time;) Glad to have you on board!
Isn’t profundity just when someone else said something that you didn’t think of yourself?? So we often don’t state our thoughts because to us they’re ordinary – even though others may find them profound.
I found the ‘Eternal Student of Life’ concept a life lesson in itself into which your three dot points fit neatly.
Have a great day up there in paradise (I’m speaking geographically, not karmically)!!
Hi Red, thank you, that’s beautiful. I really an Eternal Student of Life! I can’t stop learning and wanting to know how, why and what. People are fascinating and we’re so lucky to be alive wether we live in Paradise or not;)
Annabel,
That is a lovely post my friend and profound lessons. We learn lessons everyday and we don’t have to be Wayne Dyer or Deepak Chopra to share them with others. We can share them in our own way, like you did.
I really wish you’d have written it before March so I could include it the Life Lessons eBook, but maybe that’s a lesson for both of us.
Anyway, I enjoyed reading it and thank you so much for finally writing it. :)
Hi Abubakar, another lesson learned – you snooze you loose:) But trust me I’m in that book in spirit – maybe for the 2nd edition:) Many thanks for inspiring me and for creating a movement of life lessons in the blogosphere. It’s fantastic.
From this post, I really gained a much deeper appreciation of you and where you are coming from Annabel. I respect your willingness to put it out in the blogosphere and share those ‘things’ which society and our own confidence (or lack of) encourages us to pretend we don’t experience or, at times, suffer from.
I believe you’ve hit three very hot buttons and turned them into life lessons.
My mum once said to me that we will continue to make the same mistakes until the lesson is learned. That sucks but it makes sense at one level!
Hi Sally, thank you for commenting and caring. I guess everyone struggles with confidence and other issues but I just want to show that you don’t have to let that hold you back. Your mum’s insights are true and I guess some lessons are harder to learn than others. The good news is that we are learning and growing:)
I think your life lessons are spot on Annabel!
What makes these lessons valuable is not only the good they have brought you; but the inspiration they bring us, too.
Thanks for sharing,
Alex
Hi Alex, thank you! Now that’s the kind of win win I love:)
It’s lovely to know I don’t look like that chimp, although you can compare me to a gorilla any day – I adore those creatures.
Dear Annabel, better late than never and thank you for indulging us in your viewpoint. We are proud that you took the fearless approach at long last and shared these heartwarming thoughts with all of us.
Hi Farnoosh, hehe, thank you for inspiring me and never giving up on me:) It would have been so much easier to spend the whole post on monkey business and comparing you to an ape but you pushed me further! Thank you Farnoosh:)
PS. Totally agree, apes are awesome and I know they have some great life lessons to teach us too… might be another post in that:)
Hi Annabel,
Very precious points you have mentioned about life here. The thing that is close to my heart is #2. I can say that I have learned countless stuff by making mistakes.
And, I strongly believe that life is like “everyday school” where we learn *everyday* from our mistakes. Mistakes shape and mold us. They teach us all the after effects of doing something the wrong way and then the right way.
I really enjoy the part about learning from my mistakes in my life.
Cheers,
Jane.
Hi Jane, thank you. So great you’ve learned this lesson and see your mistakes as mistakes and stick to your master plan anyway:)
Hi Annabel ~ I’m a big fan of keeping it simple, and I love that you boiled it down to loving, forgiving and believing in yourself. When I nurture that foundation in myself then everything else flows. What motivates me most though, is the life lesson you’ve shared with your experience as a blogger with opportunity and procrastination. In life {and blogging} it’s never too late to do something good… begin anywhere. Thanks for the inspiring thoughts!
Sue
Hi Sue, you’ve made it even simpler there. Thank you. I totally agree, those threee things: loving, forgiving and believing in yourself are the key life lessons here:) And surely global too. Yes, it’s never too late and also if something is niggling you tackle it sooner rather than later. That’s what I’ll try to do next time:) Hadn’t really got this filed under procrastination but maybe it was….. there’s always some excuse for it but procrastination definitely came out the loser in the end:)
Hi Annabel,
I’m glad you stopped procrastinating and decided to share your life lessons with us. Clearly your lessons resonated with a lot of people. What I really appreciate is your truthfulness in describing your experiences. You are right that even though we learn far more from our mistakes than from getting things right, some of those mistakes do have painful consequences that we have to then work through.
I repeat the same kinds of mistakes, but each time I circle around the same issue it’s at a slightly different level and I handle it more effectively than the previous time. One of the best life lessons I’ve learned is that personal and spiritual growth is on a spiral rather than linear path. That insight alone has saved me a ton of energy as I no longer berate myself for making the “same” mistakes.
A second lesson I’ve learned is that we give far too much of our autonomy away when we defer to “the experts” and look only outside of ourselves for wisdom and learning. Related to that lesson is the realization that we are all blessed with a bottomless well-spring of inner wisdom and truth anytime we choose to tune in and listen to it. Among other things, my experience has been that when we listen to our inner wisdom, we are less driven by fear, more connected with others through a place of empathy and compassion, and more able to make a positive difference in the world.
A third lesson I’ve learned is that we are mostly only presented with the end result of a movement like Gandhi’s movement to free India or Mandela’s fight to end apartheid, so we forget that saving the world or making a positive difference occurs one small action at a time and builds into a movement as more and more like minded people choose to act in ways that bring about desired changes. As Mother Theresa said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Don’t underestimate the power of those small things to make great changes.
Well that’s my 3 cents’ worth of observations or “life lessons”. I’d better wrap this up before it turns into a not so small essay. Have a wonderful day.
Hi Sue, well you’ve written a wonderful comment there. In fact almost a blog post and you have so much wisdom to share. Thank you so much.
Re “I’ve learned is that personal and spiritual growth is on a spiral rather than linear path” yes, I find progress is a bumpy graph with plenty of troughs:) Love the reminder to seek our own answers and take responsibility for doing what’s right for us. Your final reminder is gold too. How long did those people struggle to get their message heard before anyone knew who they was? Little by little is the only way:)
Love your honesty!!! French Verbs, 11 pound babies on the living room floor (been there done that!!!), hitchhiking… are all life skills. Life skills are nothing like Life Lessons!!! Life lessons tend to be those cliches your mother warned you about when you were a kid and you thought – yea right!!! Turns out they come on little cat feet… we trip and trip and trip over the same old thing and then eventually discover “aha moment” that we have been learning a life lesson. The life lesson I wish I’d learnt: “It’s ok to take a break” I just don’t get that one!!! But I wish I did!!!
Hi Se7en, aha, I see the difference between life skills and life lessons:) Interesting and true. You too with the 11lb baby on the floor. Ouch! The taking a break thing. Hmmm, sometimes we feel like we have to keep going because if we didn’t the world would fall apart. But then we take a break and the world still keeps turning and we wish we’d done it sooner. You should take a break immediately – lol – more breaks needed on doctor’s orders:)
mmmmm I’m obviously going to congratulate you on the three life lessons that you’ve picked. Although I think that I’d mix one and three together and add the one thing that I think no one learns until they’ve made a least one major mistake. So here it is:
3. Make sure your love is something worth having
Invest your time and energy in the people that you care about. By all means, believe in yourself, but when you see someone else struggling, do something to lift them up. You know how much better you feel, how your confidence grows, whenever someone pays you a compliment. Give as much as you can to the people you love. Your life will be better for it.
Hi Jax, great to see your smiley face here. That is a beautiful lesson and I really feel as if I do it. Totally agree. Thank you and thanks for doing it to me:)
Hi Annabel,
Once again you have inspired me with your honest insights.
Two lessons I’ve learned along the way are:
1) Do not burn bridges and get closure
Whenever possible, get proper closure if you are ending a relationship, be it professional or personal. Agree to disagree in a respectful way, after all there is a person with feelings at the other end of the conversation, and move on. You’d be surprised when you may need a reference from an old boss or run into an old acquaintance later in life. It is a very small world. Along this line of thinking, it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about finding an equitable partnership and goodwill towards others.
2)Don’t lose your identity, dreams or let others self-interests come first!
We all want to be the perfect partner, mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, employee, volunteer, etc. Remember not to get lost in all of your roles. Listen to your inner voice, and be true to yourself, your beliefs, and most importantly, your dreams. Take a little time for yourself everyday to nurture yourself. No matter how hard you try, there is no pleasing everybody all the time. Share your dreams only with like-minded and supportive family and friends. I used to let certain elder family members take the wind out of my sails if they didn’t ‘approve’ my decisions or dreams. I know that they do care about me, but realized that their discouragement came from their own fears, self-interests and sense of reality, sadly it really had little to do with my happiness and what was best for me and my family. (This category somewhat echoes ‘Love yourself’, and ‘Say no!’ above.) Remember that you are responsible for your own happiness first and foremost!
Keep up the great blogging Annabel.
Sincerely,
Stephanie
Hi Stephanie, wow, you’ve written a blog post right here with some fabulous lessons to share. I so get no. 2. I think I’m on top of that now but it’s easy to lose track of who you are when you become a mum.
“Remember that you are responsible for your own happiness first and foremost!” This is the greatest life lesson of all.
Thank you so much for being inspiring and being inspired to share that with us here:) It’s brilliant having you on the team!
Annabel, you took the thoughts right out of my head, only made them more articulate and succinct than I ever could. These lessons take some of us a good forty years to learn — the hardest one for me was to stop comparing everything I did to the best,”I’ll never be as good a writer as Shakespeare, or as excellent a photographer as Steiglitz, so why bother?”. Problem with life lessons is that we can hear them over and over again, but we truly have to learn them for ourselves….sigh. Lesson 4. life’s a bitch, but if you hang on and listen, you’ll get to the good part. I’d bet you have many other lessons to share…that’s what happens when a thinking person lives on the planet for long enough!
Hi Molly, aw, thanks, blushing:) I do that too, comparing myself to the best. I think it’s good to aim high but not if it’s so hard that it makes you give up before you get going.
In fact I often think I’ll never be as good as Molly (nevermind Shakespeare!) but lately that doesn’t bother me so much. I’ve realised that I can only be the best writer I can be and that hanging out with other great writers – there are so many – makes me want to improve and get better. So that’s what I’m going to do. I hope you will too!
Won’t it be great when we are really grannies and can share our eternal wisdom shamelessly:)
Molly, that’s a super elaboration of Annabel’s point about living for yourself and noone else. Even Shakey himself was persecuted by self-doubt, which goes to show that you’ll never be as perfect as your self-saboteur requires you to be.
Loving yourself, living the way that pleases you and being the best you can be for others is the manifesto we all need to sign up to. The trouble is the noise and the clutter of a choice-ridden lifestyle often steers us of course.
But thankfully we have people like yourself and Annabel to help give us a prod back in the right direction.
Inspirational post, AC. I have spread this baby far and wide!
Annabel, Congrats on taking up Farnoosh’s request/challenge to write about your life lessons. I particularly liked the second one, Mistakes Are Divine. This is an important lesson that a lot of people don’t take into account. You find a lot written about loving yourself and believing in yourself, but not about making mistakes, and how you can learn from them, and go on to try again with better results. Many times, I’ve had self-recriminations about all the mistakes I have made in my life – and I’m at an age where I can truly assess them and their results. More and more, I’m realizing that many were not mistakes, or that they actually led to making much better decisions. It’s not a matter of shrugging off our mistakes but rather, using them as learning experiences.
Hi Penelope, lovely to hear from you. Re:
“It’s not a matter of shrugging off our mistakes but rather, using them as learning experiences.” Here here! And here’s to many more amazing blunders still to come:)
I love Sue’s comment above: “Don’t underestimate the power of those small things to make great changes.” Great reminder that chip chipping away (ie constant daily action) is what creates those “overnight” success stories ;)
I’d add to your #2 Make mistakes and learn from them yes – but also acknowledge when you have done something right!
We’re all to quick to notice when things don’t go according to plan, but when they do – you don’t notice them!
There’s only one lesson I’d impart and that is to listen to your heart – and follow it – I guess its having faith in yourself – but the inner ‘us’ does know best and has never failed me yet!
Hi Linda, that’s great advice. I’m terrible about berating myself for mistakes without celebrating the successes:) Thank you. And yes, I agree intuition is the best.
So Annabel,
I do love feeling like I know you more and more. Why do we all worry about stuff? One thing my husband helps me with is to not care as much about what people think. Sometimes I’d like to be more like him, but then I’m like you.I want to do things, “just right.” There is one thing wonderful about old people, (I’m not quite there yet, I hope!) They just say, “Who cares.” That’s one advantage of growing old, minus the wrinkles.
Hi GutsyWriter, thanks for being a faithful reader:) It’s always fantastic to see you here. Yes, thankfully growing old certainly has its fringe benefits:)
Life lessons – keep on keeping on, live, love and be loved.
xx
:) 4 good ones there Cate. So simple.
Wow Annabel, I love the simplicity you have shown us here. It struck a chord with me because lately I have been exploring the concept of everything being possible if we just BE… It has been an interesting and blissful adventure (I am such a DOer normally!!) I’m starting to see how simple life truly is when I ‘just’ BE… such a powerful energy of possibility arises… and so much more peaceful knowing arrives too… YUM!
Hi Lisa, thanks so much for swinging by and leaving us a comment. Just BE! It sounds marvelous, I need lessons in that. I’ve been chasing my tail and definitely need to stop and just be sometimes.
But I quite like working intensely for a while then doing nothing – apart from being – for a while. That balance (well, stop/start approach!) seems to work for me.
Your Bliss Tribe sounds brilliant. I definitely want to be part of that!
You speak your truth marvelously, Annabel. Indeed, “Mistakes are divine”… I love that. We would all do well to consider all mistakes as ‘miss-takes’ (all failures as feedback), so that we can make successful re-takes. We must give ourselves permission to make as many miss-takes as it takes to get to where we’re going.
For some reason it took me yonks to get around to reading this email…The weird thing is I think that this is one of the best, most insightful, intelligent pieces you have ever written…I love it! It was laugh-out-loud funny in a couple of places! It is also one of the books I almost (nearly, could have, should have) written. It was called ‘Things I wished I had known at 21’. I started to write it but came to the same conclusion as you and found it hard to find a way to put these experiences into life lessons. I have experienced many things…but the more I experience the less I seem to know. Which apparently is great when it comes to having your cup empty for new knowledge to be bestowed on you! But you hit it on the head…it boils down to the simple fact….I should have loved myself more and forgiven easier!
Hi Teresa, I love this line: “the more I experience the less I seem to know” it feels like that to me too but I think that’s much better than those who think they know everything but actually lack wisdom.
No shoulds – you can love yourself more and forgive yourself more easily. Start now! And there’s another rule: no regrets;) Ever.
Life lessons are so important; when we don’t learn from them, they still come back in our life until we have learned the lesson. Life lessons make us spring forth into greater and deeper things. Even if we fail in the lesson, we are learning. Thank you!
Its been stated that No. 1 and No. 3 are the same. That is a wonderful in this case.
Loving your self sounds so simple that I think most of us (me included) have lied to ourselves about it for years. It has been just recently with a move to Hawaii and my 47 years that I’ve actually started doing it.
It’s huge! A lesson we all need to pay great attention to.
Aloha wags!
I am realy inspired by your views and jump to give my opinion about these 3 impotant lessons of life. These lessons we find in our daily routine events as well.I will take one by one.
1. love your self. It is good and provides you confidence about your self.Along with it if you love others to it will enhance its effects and you feel confidence in others too. So if we say Love others as wel as your self.
2.Mistakes are devine. No doubt but if one a sting from a same hole it will enlarge the hole , I mean losses will be more. If we commit a mistake then we should try not to repeat the same mistake. This we can achieve from the experts , history or ancestors. So I suggest Do not be afraid of mistakes but donot repeat it.
3.Confidence. It comes with experience but while we make repeated mistakes it is lowere so one should try to have less mistakes.
Thank you so much for inspiring me to write.