Lessons Learned in Life

There’s so many lessons learned in the course of life.

As a perfectionist, I’ve had pretty ridiculous expectations in life.

I thought if you do everything right, everything will go right and nothing bad will ever happen, I have a REALLY hard time with failure. I’ve always been overly prepared for everything as a general rule, and as a result things going right was the rule not the exception, but as I’ve gotten older and experienced more things, its not really working out all that well.

We won’t get into the ridiculousness of the above statement because I know that its ridiculous, but at the end of the day that’s just what my head is silly enough to believe and there’s not a thing I can do about that. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve decided to come about it a different way because…its not all about me.

Learning from our struggles

When I get really hung up on my failures, I know there is a good reason for them. They are the greatest learning opportunities (which is when my brain kicks in and says, well, if you were smarter, more experienced, would have asked more questions, done it right the first time this wouldn’t have happened), not just for me, but for others.  I realized that if I could help others through my struggles, than it would all be worth it. Everyone struggles, some struggle with things like math, science, spelling, or maybe with drawing, writing, reading, crocheting and some even deeper struggles, like those of self-confidence, body image, tempers, and some struggle in more areas than others. It’s all about lessons learned.

Helping Others

Among other things, the meaning of life for me, is to learn, continually improve myself so I leave the world better than I found it, which means I can use those lessons to help others, so they in turn can help others. If we all did everything perfectly, we would never be able to relate with the struggles of others, there would be many missed opportunities for connecting and making new friends. The blogger community is an example that I see this in every day. Every day we connect because of a common problem someone else learned from someone else and it establishes a meaningful connection.

In my personal experience, the things someone else has been struggling with the most, not just because of the situation but because of the embarrassment or damage its done to their self-esteem, have been the biggest help to me. The things that I have struggled with the most are often the things that give me a deeper understanding of life and a new perspective that I can turn around and use to help someone else.

Lessons Learned from Thomas Edison Quotes

Thomas Edison made a huge accomplishment. He gave us the light bulb, bringing light into a dark world. His lessons learned in life apply to us in more than one way. but he also gave us the lesson of the struggle and for many years, people have found determination, acceptance, perseverance and inspiration in his struggle. There is much more to be taught by our struggles than by our accomplishment.

As you start your week just remember: “I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” Thomas Edison

Let me know in the comments, what you think about the meaning behind your struggles and lessons learned.