What I've learned.

Life is hard. There’s no question about it.

One can try to find meaning or sense to it in order to make it easier, but one hardly achieves just that.

But, is it supposed to be easy?

And, can one really learn to be better with an easy life?

I don’t believe that at all.

Sure, we all can use some commodities from time to time, as well as have the time to just breathe and relax and maybe fly away (metaphorically speaking), but I think that what happens to us happens for a reason, and we can choose to learn and rise above or to sink like a brick in the ocean.

Hey, I know it’s not easy, I mean, I have talked here about some aspects of my life, a chronic illness that as of today seems to be getting more complicated and ganging up with another one (which one I'm yet to discover), and how that sent me into a spiral of hopelessness and depression and even attempted to take my own life.

My work has been anything but easy, and by the way, my boss came to my house yesterday to burden me with work troubles. LOL!!

Losing my dad, COVID, and money troubles, I mean, it’s enough to make a person lose their mind completely, but, instead, I chose to learn from all of it, and anything that happens now I’ll deal with it using what I’ve learned throughout my life, and have been sharing experiences with my little sister who moved out last year so that she can do better than me, and with my mom and other siblings to try and break vicious circles that have brought nothing but heartache.

Here are some things I’ve learned:

1. Take responsibility for yourself: we can control anybody’s actions but our own. What they do, what they say, what they think is out of our hands. Damm, even the way our words or actions are interpreted by others, is not up to us, even if we have the best intentions at heart.

   In my case, I used to suffer because of what anybody said or thought of me, and I had a whole picture in my head:

   What if I said it wrong? Next time I should keep my mouth shut, I shouldn’t have looked up or down, or frowned…

   I mean, my head would’ve burst if I kept thinking like that. Now, instead of worrying about what others think or say about me, I make a self-review of my actions and take responsibility for them, but I don’t dwell on whether they thought something bad or not, or whether I’m ill-talked by others.

2. Family boundaries: I love my family, I do, and I’d do anything for them, but I had to put my foot down and set boundaries with them.

   Why ? You might ask, and it’s simple. The fact that we are family doesn’t give us the right to meddle in each other’s businesses, make decisions for each other, and do and say whatever we want whenever we want because hey, we are family. Nope, that’s not how it should work, because we each have a separate life, we need to live, the good, the bad, the ugly, and yes, we can share an opinion but not impose it. That’s when bedlam erupts and trouble begins.

   Stand your ground respectfully, reassure the family love, but draw a line.

3. Know what you want: I’ve talked about this. We often think that we have some quota to fill in throughout life. The husband and 3 kids, a full job, the big executive with a 6-figure salary while the house is spotless and all without a hair out of place, and by the time you’re 30.

   Hey, I’m 38, sick, no husband, no kids (thank God), a thankless job with a 3-figure salary, I live with my mom, my house always has something out of place no matter how hard we clean it and I don’t brush my hair.

   Does that mean I’m a failure?

   Absolutely no. I do what I can, I know my limitations but I don’t let that define me, just as I can’t be defined by my current state. I’m doing well with what I have and the choices I’ve made, so I’m not going to go out and tie myself to a life I don’t want and compromise what I believe just to please a person or a social convention. I know who I am and I know what I want, and I stand by it.

4. You own your power: have you ever felt that you are powerless? I have. That feeling that no matter what or when or how, it doesn’t matter, you don’t get to decide.

   Well, in some cases that might be true, but the generality is that you have your power, and if you feel that you don’t have it is because you gave it away.

   This might have a link with the previous points, because nobody, absolutely nobody, not your family, your boyfriend/girlfriend (or both), husband/wife, co-workers, friends, or bosses, nobody should have power over you, on how you act, how you think, and let alone manipulate you into accepting to become something completely opposite to what you want to be.

   Take your power back, claim it, and don’t give it away.

5. Go with the flow: easier said than done, but totally doable.

   Remember the picture I was talking about at the beginning? That sometimes turns into a movie, a motion picture filled with expectations.

   The journey, the time, the objective, and finally the happily ever after, and boom, back to reality and it’s not at all what we expected.

   What hurt most: the actual result or the fact that wasn’t at all how you pictured it?

   I bet it's number two, and it’s ok, it happens a lot. What is important is that you get there, and take the time to learn, your competition is yourself, some take more time than others and that’s ok.

   We fall, we cry, we stand up, shake off the dirt and keep going. The ground it’s not our home folks.

   It’s ok to cry, scream, punch a pillow, let it all out, and then keep going and let it flow.

There you have it and don’t get me wrong, I still have a lot to learn, and I’m still young and have all the time in the world (hopefully) to keep learning if I always remember that there is a lesson to be learned in everything that happens to us and around us.

Eyes and heart wide open are the key folks, eyes and heart wide open.

See you next time.

✨✨Blessings✨✨

rebeysa85

Saturday, March 30th, 2024.