Lessons are easy and hard. The easy ones you seem to gloss over and sometimes don't even recognize there was something more there than the moment. For example, when you run through the yellow light, in a big hurry, and almost get clipped by another car. At the time, it's heart-pounding, scary and you wonder why you were in such a hurry. The next time you get a yellow, chances are you're not going to gun the car to run through it.
Other lessons are "in-your-face" hard lessons. Loss of a family member, loss of a friend, heartbreak of a bad relationship (although sometimes this is a lesson not learned and repeated), bad decisions in the workplace, placing trust in someone who proves untrustworthy are just a handful of these.
Some of us wallow in self-pity when it becomes too overwhelming. Some of us look for the lesson in the experience.
I've done both. There's nothing wrong with wallowing except that it keeps you from learning. Eventually, I get past it... and take the time to look at what's been going on, and what the lesson was in what happened. It's tough. It's often not fun, because you find a flaw in yourself that you have to correct, and it's never fun when you're already self-critical, to find yet another glitch. BUT, and this is a big but (not butt), acknowledging it, recognizing it and dealing with it... eliminates it!
Doesn't mean you might not slip up again, but it makes it less likely.
Ultimately, you feel... better. You feel more self-confident. You feel more in control of your life and you more content with the life you're living.
No one ever said life was easy, but it doesn't have to be as hard as some people make it. It is what it is... and what you make it. There are so many things to enjoy, embrace and marvel... that wasting time with inward anger seems such a shame.
I'm not sure I'm going to learn all the lessons I need to learn in this lifetime, but I'm going to make a real effort to learn as much as possible before I leave this life. I will be the best student of life, that I can be. And I will hopefully equip my son with the same outlook on life.
If you love yourself, not narcissistically, you exude that love and can share it with others. Love comes from learning, growing and doing the hard work to forgive yourself your faults.
Live life one day at a time, and pay attention.
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