Tag: experience

There’s not just “one” right way of doing things

If you find yourself stressing over making a decision, realize three things…

1) There are almost always multiple “right” ways of doing things. One way may provide the best results, but many factors help make an outcome better/worse. Don’t waste time or energy stressing yourself out deciding between two (or more) good choices.

2) We can never 100% know which action will lead to the best possible outcome. All you can do is try your best and make what appears to be the smartest decision with the information you currently have. Hindsight is 20/20. So if you find out that the decision you opted against might not have been the best, that’s ok. Just keep that in mind for future experiences.

3) Chances are, this choice will not change the outcome of your life. Yes, little decisions stack on top of each other and can lead to a snowball effect (good or bad), but if you mess up this one time, you likely won’t even remember it in a year (let alone next month or maybe even next week).

Are you really living?

Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.

Are you living your life to the fullest? Are there things that you wish to do “one day”?

Why not make that day today? Don’t wait until you are old to truly and fully experience life. Maybe you won’t be able to enjoy it because of your health. Or maybe you’ll find out that you love it, and you wish you would’ve had more time to be able to enjoy doing that activity.

Don’t let fear hold you back. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and encourage you, read uplifting things, watch inspiring videos, and then go do it! Actually experience it for yourself by doing it, not just reading, watching, or hearing about it.

Courage and bravery

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela

Everyone experiences fear. Many times, we fear what we don’t understand. We make something out to be far worse in our minds than what it will actually be like in reality. But, usually, things aren’t as bad as we make them out to be. Most of the time, the thing we feared turns out to be just a small bump in the road, but once we’ve driven over it and experienced it a few times, we hardly even notice it.

Brave men and women still experience fear. But the difference between them and cowardly men and women is that they are willing to face their fears. They will try to conquer their fears. And they realize that most actions we take in life, even if we fail miserably, will not cause us irreparable harm. If we try something and fail, or if we look dumb, that’s part of the process of getting better. But if you never try anything at all, you’ll always be afraid.

On trying new things…

If there is something that you heard about, but don’t know what it is, look it up.

If there is a vegetable that you’ve seen but never tried, buy it and look up a recipe on how to cook it.

If a friend asks you to go to some new place/event and you’ve never experienced anything like it before, go for it.

Do not be afraid of trying new things. Most of the time, the economic cost is minimal. But to live a life to the fullest by experiencing as much of what it has to offer as possible? That’s invaluable.

College or no?

The college/university you go to does not create success. In fact, even knowledge alone does not cause success. It is the application of your knowledge on a consistent basis that creates success. How you obtain that knowledge could be in a classroom, it might be from a book you read, someone you talked with who has done it before, or your own experiences. Just because you go to “higher education” doesn’t mean that you’re actually more educated than those who don’t attend college.

Sometimes, going to university/college is a requirement for specific professions. But for many other professions (I would even argue that maybe for a slight majority), I think classes tailored to a specific group of skills would be better suited to help individuals trying to get into that field. That’s not to say that I think college is bad or that I would take back my experience at all. BUT I do believe that we need to harp on options for young adults. Why go deeply into debt for a degree that may or may not help you?