Tag: wisdom
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Don’t Forget to Appreciate How Far You’ve Come
“Remember how far you’ve come, not how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be.” ~Rick Warren
We’re always talking about how we should live in the now and “be present.” We shame ourselves for looking back at the past or into the future, thinking that we shouldn’t look too far ahead or worry about what’s to come, and we shouldn’t get too caught up in events that have already happened. We want to be focused on being the best person we can be right now.
We often forget, though, that it’s possible to look at our past with love, not ruminating in it but appreciating it. We’re often so focused on living in the present that we forget to be mindful of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come.
You could say that I’m a bit of a productivity addict. I love doing things that are beneficial to me in some way. I love the feeling of doing something positive or productive for myself, whether it’s squeezing in that extra thirty-minute yoga practice or ten-minute meditation, or listening to podcasts or reading the news instead of watching TV. I get so caught up with being a “better version of me” that I forget to appreciate my current version.
Last week when I was walking to work, listening to lines to practice for an audition, I felt this sense of pride.
I had always wanted to be an actress growing up. It was my dream to be able to transform into a different character and tell a story through film or television. I wasn’t where I wanted to be in my career, but how cool was it that I was actually doing it? I was going to auditions and training with teachers and acting—something that I had dreamed of since I was a kid.
This realization then snowballed into this moment where I looked at my life and said to myself, “Wow, I’ve done all these things and I’m living a life I’ve always wanted.”
I began to list in my mind the things I have accomplished: I moved away from my home city, a place I hated; I’ve traveled to many different countries and even seen the pyramids; I went back to school and pursued a career in the arts; I continue to work toward making my childhood dreams come true…
I realized that I sometimes get so caught up with my big dreams, like being a published author or working actress that I forget to recognize all the little dreams I’ve made come true!
Even writing this I feel a bit embarrassed. A lot of the times it can feel like we’re bragging or that we don’t have a right to be proud of the things we’ve done. Maybe we have this feeling that we shouldn’t be proud of the things we’ve accomplished because we aren’t where we want to be.
But for a daughter of a single mother who moved to Canada as a Vietnamese refugee, I’ve come far, and it’s important to recognize that.
I recently said this out loud to my therapist, but it was different from how it felt in my mind. I had said it to myself with pride, but it didn’t really settle in how big that feeling was, to recognize my own journey and how far I’ve come.
When I said to my therapist, I was also speaking it to my deeper self. I felt it in my soul.
I said it to my younger self—the preteen, bullied girl who rode the train back and forth to avoid school. I said it to my early twenties, addicted self, and I said it to my current self: look at the things you’ve made happen.
When we speak to our deeper selves and feel this connection with our past, this recognition of our journey, it can be groundbreaking. I had never felt that proud of myself, or that impressed with myself before. I cried and felt this amazing gratitude for my life, my own resilience, and most of all, myself.
And again, it can feel so weird to go there, to try to find something to be proud of or to just be proud of where we are. So, how about we do that check-in with ourselves?
How about we look at the past to appreciate it? How about we appreciate our own journeys? Our own resilience? How about we look at the places we’ve been, the relationships we’ve formed, the things we’ve achieved, not with regret or the longing of “if only” or “what ifs” or “I wish I was still there,” but “Wow, I did that? That’s where I used to be? That’s pretty cool.”
We can get so caught up looking at where we should be, where we aren’t, and where others are in comparison that we forget to appreciate where we’ve been and where we’ve come from.
This was the first time it really hit me how big this is, and how important it is to celebrate my progress. I felt like I had a true sense of perspective on life as a whole, from the triumphs to the failures, from obstacles to mistakes to perfect coincidences.
It’s amazing that we’re all living and growing, trying to be the best we can be and moving forward every day. It’s a beautiful thing to be mindful of the present, but don’t forget to honor yourself, your past, and how far you’ve come. Odds are, it’s further than you think.
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The Little Things in Life Are the Ones That Matter Most
“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” ~Muhammad Ali
I followed a little boy in Walmart today. He didn’t look like my son and yet I trailed him and his mother all over the store. I curled my fingers around the shopping cart so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and touch him.
He didn’t walk with Brendan’s bounce or jerk his head back, trying to slide his glasses back onto his nose. He didn’t have his sarcastic smile or those tiny freckles scattered across his cheeks.
But he had the same cowlick sprouting from the back of his head. I wheeled my cart around and followed this little boy who looked nothing like my son. I itched to brush this boy’s hair, just like I did before Brendan grew too old and wiggled away.
I used to smooth his spikes down and then laugh when they sprang back up, no matter how much gel I used. By the time he became a teenager, he gave up trying to tame them and left it messy and wild.
And now, I’ll never get a chance to touch his hair again. My son died in an accident a week before his first day of high school.
I followed this little boy through the aisles, zigzagging across the store. He spent a long time debating which Lego set to buy. I knew the perfect one, the Star Wars battleship, but I said nothing.
A few minutes later, he and his mother walked out of the store while I stood there, that hollow feeling gnawing me from the inside. I’d learned to steel myself when I saw Brendan’s friends at the high school or celebrated his cousin’s sixteenth birthday, but I didn’t expect something so small as a wisp of hair to make me stumble.
That boy’s hair was my pebble.
You’re never sure what tiny thing will make you stumble. A few months after Brendan died, my husband went to a funeral. It was for his friend’s grandmother, a sad passing, but not tragic like losing a fifteen year old son.
We both feared it would be too much for him. He prepared himself to see the coffin, to hear the sobs, to smell the roses and carnations in the room.
“None of that bothered me,” he told me later. “I was fine. But then I went into the bathroom.”
He stopped and shook his head. “I dried my hands on the air dryer and all I could see was that first time Brendan used one of them. I think he was four and he loved it. Again, he said, over and over. He kept washing his hands just so he could dry them again.”
It wasn’t the tears of the mourners or the wooden casket covered in flowers that made him break down. It was the memory of Brendan laughing while watching the skin on his hand bubble and dance. Michael had steeled himself against the mountain, but it was the pebble that brought him down.
A tiny pebble will forever make us stumble.
And yet, it’s that same pebble that fills us with the sound of Brendan’s laughter. There will be days when I follow a little boy and his hair, limping in pain. But there will also be days when I’ll smile, my fingers warm with the memory of smoothing down Brendan’s wild and messy hair.
Life is made up of these moments. Joy and heartache are woven into a tapestry of love. There are day when I want to pull on the threads of pain, but I know I risk unraveling it all.
After Brendan’s accident, icy shock seeped inside me and froze my memories. I couldn’t remember his favorite foods or the nickname he called our dog. I couldn’t even say what we’d had for dinner on our last night together.
But my daughter Lizzie remembered the special nachos he’d made after dinner that night. “He called them victory nachos,” she said and I smiled, picturing him slicing salami into perfect strips. He’d sprinkled them on top and dove into the pile, eating only one chip at a time.
And Zack remembered the way he and his brother would lie on their backs on the trampoline, waiting until the sky grew dark. They’d search for the first star to twinkle in the sky and then close their eyes and wish that pigs could fly.
We shared our memories in a notebook we left on the kitchen counter. The pages filled up, but not with big highlights like our vacation to Disney World. We wrote about the ordinary moments that are so easy to take for granted.
Like the marathon Monopoly games in our basement and how Brendan always tried to get Park Avenue, even if he bankrupted himself. And the hours Brendan and Michael spent sitting by the firepit they’d built out of bricks. Or the coupon he made me when he was fourteen, inviting me on a bookstore date.
I still have the slip of paper with his messy words scrawled on it, but what I cherish more is the memory of him hovering by my side, his eyes watching mine as I read his invitation. He’d seen me cry that morning and was desperate to make me smile again.
This is how love endures. We gather tiny moments and string them together, like beads in a never-ending necklace. And yet, it took the loss of my son to make me realize the little things in life are the ones that matter the most.
Our family life was a whirlwind of track meets and baseball practice and business meetings. In the chaos, it was far too easy to let those moments slip away. We carved out time for big vacations, but forgot to treasure the tickle fights late at night.
Don’t wait for a loss to make you realize what you’re missing right now. Push away the distractions that will always be there and hold onto your loved ones and the everyday memories you make together.
I still keep a notebook on my counter. I write down the piano song Zack played on my birthday or the way my daughter giggles when I touch her knee.
And I pick up pebbles on my walks. I slip them into my pocket, its gentle weight a reminder to cherish the smallest moments in life.
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You Aren’t Stuck in Life: Commit to Change and Get Started
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” ~Mark Twain
We all have big dreams, big goals, and big ideas on what we think our life should look like, or how we think life will end up.
Some of us meticulously plan out our lives, envisioning and letting ourselves daydream as we think about all the stuff we’d love to accomplish. I’d wager that our plans include some pretty big things in life that would make us feel pretty proud.
The problem is, a lot of us have trouble reaching the potential we’ve set for ourselves. Time kind of flies by, and we end up looking back and wondering what went wrong.
Well, one reason stands out like a sore thumb: We never really get started doing the things we truly want to do. We’re all guilty of it, and that includes me.
I’ve cooked up dozens (literally dozens) of ideas or things I wanted to try over the years. How many did I actually try? Far less than dozens; let’s just say the ratio isn’t exactly working in my favor.
Now, as time has gone by, I’ve been able to explore more of them. But as you know, some of them got shelved for good. I probably don’t even remember half of the things I wanted to try and never did.
Why did I not try? What was the reasoning behind it? Why did I lack the forward motion necessary to at least attempt something and see if it sticks? I, like you, are fully aware that not everything we do will end up being a calling in life. But you won’t know until you give it a shot.
To help you better understand this idea pertaining to a lack of motion, one must take a step back and realize that life, in a very big nutshell, is a series of decisions and actions. These two components are crucial for our self-growth and success in life and unfortunately are not mutually exclusive.
Without making a decision and following it up with action, we could spend our entire lives stuck in the exact same place.
If you make a decision but don’t take any action, not much will happen. On the other hand, if you take a bunch of actions without any decisions driving them, you’ll aimlessly float around.
Being stuck in the same place or floating around aimlessly sounds torturous, doesn’t it? It is, and a lot of people must be living real-life nightmares. I had to wake up from my own years ago.
Good or bad, where you are in life at this very moment is a reflection of all the past choices you’ve made. Some of us will read that and smile, maybe even give ourselves a little nod of appreciation if it’s good. On the other hand, a fair number of us will probably have a hard time digesting it.
If you aren’t quite where you thought you’d be, I’d like to start by just saying that it’s perfectly okay. Most of us aren’t really where we thought we’d be, and we’re still giving it our best shot.
There are generally two reasons you aren’t at your “ideal” place. A small chance is that life gave you an obstacle course with things completely out of your control; in other words, life got in the way temporarily. But there’s a bigger possibility you aren’t where you thought you’d be: you just flat out didn’t pursue something. And it was likely out of fear.
In other words, you didn’t really ever get started.
The Good And The Bad News
Let’s start with the bad news: You never got started, and now you’ve wasted some valuable time moving toward your goals. Your life isn’t really playing out like you thought it would, and you feel somewhat stuck with your current habits, lifestyle, relationships, career, and other things.
Pause for a moment and take a deep breath, as this might have hit closer to home than you’d prefer.
Good, you’re still with me.
Now let’s transition to the good news, because it’s actually really good:
You’re never stuck, and while the best time to start something was yesterday, the next best time is now.
You, yes you, have the ability to create the life you want, but it requires you to make moves. And while you may have fallen short previously, it doesn’t mean you will fall short going forward.
Here’s the bottom line: your past does not dictate your future. Your past habits and lifestyle do not have to determine your lot in life.
The Idea Behind Starting
You’ve probably heard the quote “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Well, it sure is true. Because really, is anything built in a day?
Was your house fully built on top of a piece of land in a day? Was that skyscraper completely erected in a day? Did you apply for, interview, and start working at your job in the span of twenty-four hours?
Things take time to build. Let’s say you’ve been wanting to switch careers because your soul has been sucked completely dry. You planted the career switching seed a while ago, and you’ve been letting it marinate for far too long.
Yet you haven’t made any moves, and in the meantime, nothing has changed. Does this sound familiar? I found myself in this exact position years ago. I was miserable at a job I didn’t enjoy. I wanted to change, but I got scared of the unknown and didn’t make any changes.
Years passed by before I got a kick in the pants and decided to take a change. It took getting laid off, but it was the best thing that happened to me. I decided enough was enough. It was time to ultimately change my entire career, and also start exploring other smaller avenues on the side.
But unfortunately, I didn’t really know the one thing I needed to do professionally in order to be more fulfilled. I knew what I didn’t want to do (hello old career), but I also didn’t know what I wanted to do.
I began formulating. Writing goals. Crafting some business plans. Attending meetups and networking around areas I found interesting. It was through this meetup that I came across a three-month program being offered in a particular field that I had once tinkered with in high school, but walked away from.
And voila, I am now in my new career. You can put the pieces together, but I took a leap and joined the program. Fear and all. I was scared, but now I am in a field that is 180 degrees from my previous one. And all it took was attending a meetup. Funny how life works.
Self-doubt and fear are the two biggest barriers in our quest to make moves. A third, and less talked about one, is pure overwhelm: seeing where you are and looking where you want to go leaves you exasperated.
This is where movement comes into play. You take steps, however small, toward your visions and goals. You make sure you’re moving forward.
And here’s the cool thing: The force that you apply, in other words the actions you take, can be extremely small and still produce positive results. This is the idea of micro-movement.
What does this mean? If you’re scared to make a move because you’re overwhelmed by the end result of where you think you need to go, it’s really important to realize one big thing: your collection of small steps equals big results.
No one takes a leap of faith and accomplishes life’s biggest goals in the same breath. Life rewards those who take consistent, measurable action, while enjoying a dose of patience and commitment.
Putting All The Pieces Together
Most people have an idea of some higher-level goals they’d love to accomplish in their lives. Be it personal, health, finances, career, relationships, or all five, every single one of us has fallen victim to overwhelm and the paralyzing nature of fear.
But a few things are happening in your favor.
Namely, the universe is here to aid you in your dreams and desires if you let it.
It just requires a few things:
- A decision made internally to change
- A desire to take the steps required
- A realization that micro-movements forward are perfectly normal
- Actually making moves
- A dose of patience and commitment
Then, the laws of motion will help you take care of the rest because you’ll have built movement and momentum.
You aren’t stuck in life. You are capable of making a lot of power moves.
The key is just getting started.
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Where My Social Awkwardness Came From and How I’m Getting Past It
“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known…” – Brene Brown
I’ve recently become increasingly aware of my social awkwardness. In fact, my awareness of it sharpened quite suddenly one day as I was innocently talking to a colleague about work-related matters. When I managed to provide a possible solution to her dilemma, she was full of praise for me.
To make matters worse, she looked me in the eye and told me, “You’re simply wonderful!” Then she remembered a previous comment I’d made about feeling that I did not quite fit in to my workplace, and she added, “I just want to let you know that we all value you in our team. We love you.”
The effect on me was immediate. I went into a panicky and self-conscious flap and fired back with one self-deprecation after another to deflect such exposing attention on me. I could tell that my colleague looked surprised at my reaction, so I managed to stammer out my thanks.
At another time, I was speaking to another colleague about a project I was doing when he suddenly revealed that his marriage was struggling. Again, I had the same cold, panicked feeling, only it was much more intense than the first encounter. I think I froze then.
These encounters brought up other memories in my personal and professional life where I had a similar felt sense of cold panic that foreshadowed a socially awkward interaction. Now that I was doing an actual tally of how many times I’d felt this social awkwardness, I was aghast at how frequently these occurred for me.
So why was I beset by it? Surely I was not born with it. My young niece and nephew are testament to that, as they lack any social awkwardness or self-consciousness whatsoever. Or as my brother observed, “Look at them! They’re shameless!”
Could this mean that I picked up my social awkwardness (and self-consciousness) somewhere along the way? If that were true, then I have hope of becoming more comfortable in my own skin, because it is not hardwired into me. I might even someday achieve shamelessness.
Getting Under My Own Skin
I’ve since set out to learn more about my social awkwardness because I sensed deeply that merely plastering it over with manufactured shamelessness would not work. Shamelessness had to come naturally, and I sensed that social awkwardness was in its way.
I started by exploring how my body carried (and still carries) social awkwardness and self-consciousness. Looking back, I see that my responses to people happened like a bodily reflex, without conscious thought. So I looked out for those times when I was interacting with people that brought up the bodily reflex.
This is what I discovered over time: The body-feeling of my social awkwardness had layers. In my journal I described it as a cold panic on the surface with a slippery feeling underneath. It feels like a melon seed, hard to grasp. Why slippery? The words “I slip away” fit this feeling. Why was there a necessity for me to slip away?
Yes, because I was overwhelmed by the sheer raw and undisguised nature of these personal encounters. Social awkwardness is, at heart, the fear of being vulnerable in the face of unmasked intimacy.
When my colleague praised me, it brought me into focus, without my masks or facades or roles. When my other colleague talked about his marriage, it brought his humanity into focus. It also put me in a place where I had to be purely me, uncovered, to meet his humanity.
All this was way too intense for me, and I didn’t know how to respond to it. What would have happened if I showed myself fully to the other person and it was shameful? What if the other person became too needy?
These encounters are not in themselves overwhelming. Rather I am the one being overwhelmed. I feel that I do not have what it takes to be exposed, like I am paper-thin and will burn out in the intense heat of the raw human connection. It is a child-like feeling, like something very young in me has to handle the serious adult-ness of these kinds of connections.
As I focus on this feeling, memories connect. Some of them include the intense and dramatic fights I used to have with my family, and also the nerve-wreaking shouting matches I witnessed among them. Thinking about these episodes even now makes me feel kind of repulsed. The unbridled emotions and the ugly way they are expressed make me recoil.
More so, when I recall myself being emotional, I feel repulsed with myself—more embarrassment and shame. I remember further that for the most part in my younger years, my clumsy attempts to express my strong feelings, or to express myself in general, were usually disregarded at best or met with scorn at worst.
There was a big pervasive sense that these feelings and being “true to oneself” was a bad thing, whether applied to myself or others. No wonder I closed myself off and slipped away.
And straight on the heels of this notion comes a question: What happens if I show myself and my feelings to someone who responds in the exact opposite way? Someone who would welcome my feelings instead of rejecting them? Take them seriously without making a big deal out of them? Would I become more comfortable in opening myself up?
The possibility of this fills me with excitement, although there is also a sense of caution. It says, “Not now, not yet, it’s too much to risk.” I leave it because, for now, this knowledge is enough in itself.
Strangely enough, making these discoveries brought about a series of small releases within me. It was as if I had made a real-time connection to the truth behind my social awkwardness and self-consciousness, and the connection alone allowed these feelings to loosen a little. I felt like I’d opened up a tiny bit more.
What I’ve Learned So Far
I have only begun what I sense to be a fairly long journey of self-discovery, and I would be lying to say that I am now happily shameless. However, I feel empowered by what I’ve learned about the process of self-discovery. I also feel hopeful that I could one day become shameless, because I can find out what I need to get there.
I’ve found that if I interact in a curious way with the real-time feeling of social awkwardness, I can learn fresh information from it. It is the quality of interaction with my feeling, one coming from a position of not-knowing and wanting to discover more, that allows the feeling to change. From its not-knowing stance, the discovery process is pretty scientific.
In fact, I find that this kind of interaction is identical to times when we meet someone new and we interact with them to find out more about them. We are trying in these cases to get underneath the initial encounter with this person, to learn about who they are inside. Just watch children. They do it all the time.
I also feel that these kinds of internal interactions are very crucial in those of us laboring with social awkwardness and self-consciousness. After all, these feelings happen in the context of human interactions, and I believe that the very first of these human interactions is with ourselves. When we are able to be open to ourselves (which is a less risky option than being open with others), we regain the capacity to open up with others.
Try This Out—Interacting with Yourself
If you too have always felt a visceral barrier between yourself and others, and even with your own true feelings, try having these kinds of interactions with the feeling parts of yourself. In this case, it is the parts of yourself that feel socially awkward.
Take a moment to sense how they feel in your body. Then start interacting with them with the attitude of “I wonder what I can discover at this moment.”
I’ve found that it helps to address these feeling parts as “you,” although this is more a matter of personal style. I’ve also found that it helps to be welcoming of all notions, no matter how illogical they might seem. After all, feelings do not need to be logical to make sense.
Here is a list of useful guiding questions you can ask your socially awkward feeling part:
- What do you feel like? How can I describe you?
- What are you connected to? (Gather as many connections as you can.)
- When else have I felt you? What is it about these situations that bring you up?
- What more can I learn from and about you?
- What would make a difference for you?
Take your time, revisit this feeling part often, and learn as much as you can from it. It will start to soften and change then.
Happy self-discovery!
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How I’ve Learned to Fully Appreciate the Little Time I Have on Earth
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” ~Norman Cousins
Recently, my grandfather passed away. His departure was difficult for me but it has also left me with something I’ll keep for the rest of my life—an unlikely lesson about life and gratitude.
I hadn’t seen my grandfather often before he died because I’ve been living abroad for the last couple of years. But I was still fond of him and I warmly remembered the days we had spent together when I was young. So his passing was a shock and a tragedy for me. I felt the grief of losing someone close for the first time.
Yet, amid all the pain, some other feeling started to come up: a sense of gratitude. I began to feel grateful that I got the chance to say goodbye to him in person. I felt grateful for having known him and having shared so many good moments with him. And I felt grateful that he was able to live his life and even die the way he wanted.
At first I couldn’t figure out what to make of this weird mix of feelings. I did feel sadness and grief, no doubt. But how could I also experience gratitude? How was I supposed to react? Was it okay for me to feel gratitude or should I only feel sadness?
It took me a little while to give myself permission to just feel the way I felt. And then I realized that I could take this as a parting gift from him. I began to experience, firsthand, that even in the midst of tragedy, there is still hope. And there are things that I could still be grateful for.
Gradually, all those good things that are so easily overlooked became more obvious. The people we love, those daily moments of joy that we let go by unnoticed, the little things that make life easier. I began to appreciate all those things as I turned my attention to what I already had instead of what I thought I needed to become happier.
For my own sake and for the sake of my grandfather, I decided to keep this gratefulness alive and nurture it. Here are the four steps that I’ve been taking since.
1. Starting the day with gratitude
At first, the feeling of grief kept reminding me of my desire to be grateful. As long as my grief was fresh, it was easy to stick to this new intention. But I knew I needed something to keep me going when those strong feelings eventually subside.
That’s why I began to form a daily gratitude routine. It’s the simplest gratitude exercise imaginable and based on an idea that originally came from a positive psychology intervention (a scientifically validated exercise to increase one’s happiness) named three good things.
Every morning before starting my work, I now write down three things I’m grateful for. I usually think of someone or something that makes my life better until a feeling of gratitude arises. And I stay with this feeling for a little while, maybe a minute or two.
At times, it can be hard to connect with this feeling. That’s when I use a little trick that psychologists call mental subtraction. That means I’m not simply thinking about what is good in my life but I’m deliberately imagining it wasn’t there. This makes it much easier to feel grateful.
When we think about how great it is to be able to walk, it can be hard to appreciate. On the other hand, when we think of how much worse life would be if we were paralyzed, it’s easier to experience a sense of gratefulness.
I’m not suggesting we compare ourselves to people who have it worse than us. I don’t think gratitude is the appropriate response to other people’s misery. I’m simply saying that if we imagine our own life without something, we can help our brain see and appreciate it more.
2. Enjoying the present
A blow like the death of a loved one often makes people reflect on their lives. This was also true for me. I couldn’t help but notice how many of my life’s moments I have wasted.
There were so many evenings I spent alone instead of calling a friend to grab dinner. So many conversations when I didn’t listen properly in order to get to what I wanted to say. And so many unused opportunities to say I love you to my family.
But the past is gone, what’s left is to enjoy this very moment. Right now, I am grateful. I’m not in pain and I’m safe, I have enough to eat and a roof over my head. And I don’t have to fear any of this will be taken away from me any time soon. So this moment really offers everything to be enjoyed. It’s a fact that’s true for most moments.
Of course, being fully present for every moment is an impossible ideal (unless you’re an enlightened person, I guess). But aspiring toward more presence is something that we all can do.
To help me bring more awareness to my moments, I started to use an app that rings a mindfulness bell once every hour. It serves as a reminder to pause for a few seconds and simply enjoy life as it is. Every time the bell rings is an opportunity to be present.
3. Saying thank you
Not just moments of joy go by unnoticed; so do opportunities to say thank you. We overlook the kindness of the people closest to us because we take it for granted. Yet there are so many small acts of kindness that we could be grateful for.
In my case, it had never occurred to me to express my gratitude toward my grandfather. In fact, I haven’t really felt much gratitude toward him at all, because I never truly thought about all the sacrifices he’d made to provide for his children and grandchildren. It only dawned on me recently as I’ve thought (and read) about his life.
It’s likely that all of us have a person like this in our lives, or several people who have influenced our lives in a positive way who we’ve never properly thanked. There’s another positive psychology intervention that aims to remedy this situation. It’s writing a gratitude letter.
The exercise goes like this: You think of a person who’s had a positive impact in your life and then write a letter that tells them what they did and how it has affected you for the better. The letter can take any form, but the basic idea is to write as if you’d deliver it at the end.
Even though we don’t necessarily need science to tell us whether or not we’re happier after writing a gratitude letter, it’s good to know that research shows that this is one of the most powerful happiness exercises out there. I have to admit that I haven’t yet written a gratitude letter myself. But it’s next on my list. I don’t want to miss another opportunity to say thank you to the people I love.
4. Savoring good memories
There’s one more ingredient for gratefulness and it is hidden in our past. It’s those wonderful memories of joy and love that we carry around with us. Some of those memories might even seem forgotten, but that’s exactly why it’s so important to bring them back to life.
Looking through old photo albums and reminiscing with childhood friends about growing up are great ways to do that. Similarly, I’m glad that I’ve heard so many stories about my grandfather. They provide something to remember him by, and they’ve brought me closer to him and the rest of my family. Besides, it’s comforting to be able to keep him alive in my memories.
I now keep a picture of him at my desk, and he’s smiling back at me as I’m writing this post. And occasionally, when I feel bad, I remember those long gone days together—driving around in his car, walking in the woods, visiting his friends. Because sometimes, especially when life is difficult, it can seem that all we have left are some good memories of the past.
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I believe doing these four things regularly helps us appreciate how precious our little time on earth is. Of course, gratitude doesn’t inoculate us against feeling bad at all times, and it sure as hell doesn’t take away the grief. But it can be a powerful practice to help us live life fully while we have the chance—and to keep those alive who we have lost.
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Forget What Other People Expect and Do What’s Right for You
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.“ – Steve Jobs
When we come to this world, we know nothing. We are all products of the societies that raised us and shaped our belief system with things labeled good or bad, right or wrong, normal or abnormal.
I was raised in an Eastern European culture that led me to believe every single woman on Earth must tick off certain boxes.
During the time I was single, especially once I turned thirty, many people started to wonder “what was wrong with me” and why I couldn’t find that illusionary person that was supposed to be “The One.” The prince on the white horse who was supposed to make me forever happy. I was perceived as smart, healthy, funny, and beautiful, so “why I was single?”
I used to think about my biological clock ticking, and the societal pressure to marry felt high, as if a woman without a romantic partner were unlovable, miserable by default, or incomplete.
I think asking single people when they are getting married is rude and unfair. No one asks married people when they are getting divorced.
I met my husband four years ago, many years after I was expected to marry. At the time, we were two Romanians living and working in Asia, within the same company but in two different countries. I was in China; he was in South Korea.
Our relationship started as a beautiful, genuine friendship. After three dinners in Shanghai and many long telephone conversations that felt like a deep, soulful connection, he proposed. I will never forget that day. It came like thunder. Totally unexpected. Surreal. A miracle of love.
I was thirty-five and very clear on what I wanted from a romantic relationship. My wish was to feel loved, supported, cherished, and appreciated. I wanted a partner—a lover and a friend—not to complete me, because I was already feeling whole and complete. I wanted to spend my precious time with someone I could share new life experiences with while building a solid foundation together.
Once we got married, some people started to ask me about pregnancy plans. Some ask this question without even thinking that some women can’t conceive, or just don’t want to have children. In fact, it’s nobody’s business.
Motherhood is not for everyone, and every woman has the right to her own choices. Having children is not a game to play; it’s the most difficult job in the world, and it has to come as a conscious decision, not an obligation or another box to tick. Some people adopt, and some don’t. Some women make amazing aunts, friends, caregivers, or mentors. There are various ways to give, nurture, and be of service.
I know women who’ve been advised to have a second child right after delivering their first baby, as if a mother should not act “selfish” and “only think of herself.” To some people, part of being a good mom is providing the first born with brothers or sisters.
Why so much pressure? In our lives, who makes the rules?
Someone recently suggested that I hurry up and have a child now, as I’m still young enough to conceive. “What if you end up alone when you’re old?” they asked. “Who’s going to take care of you if you get sick?”
But here’s what I think: I would never decide to have a child out of fear. It’s not a child’s job to complete their parent or make them happy, just as it isn’t our partners’ job. Children are meant to come to life for themselves, not to fill a void or make us feel whole and complete. Happiness is a personal responsibility, with or without children. But not everyone sees it this way.
So many people live their precious years ticking boxes or following norms imposed on them by others, trying to fulfill other people’s requirements and expectations. I find this heartbreaking. Some do not go for their dreams because they feel afraid or guilty. They wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone, especially their dear ones.
In reality, we can’t disappoint anyone. People disappoint themselves with the expectations they set for whom they want us to be, or what they want us to do. People with no agenda cannot get disappointed, nor can they get involved in drama. They accept and love us unconditionally, as we are.
I wouldn’t want anyone to enter co-dependent romantic relationships with someone out of pressure.
I wouldn’t want anyone to do a job they dislike or even hate because that’s what someone in their family wanted for them. Or more precisely, their family member wanted that for themselves.
Descartes was right: by nature, we are all “social animals.” No matter our gender, race, age, or social status, we all have a basic human need to feel seen, heard, liked, appreciated, and loved. Most of us need to belong to particular groups or communities of like-minded people and feel socially accepted. There’s nothing wrong with that.
The problem occurs when we are not able to satisfy some of our human desires by ourselves, using others as a source of happiness, an instrument for validation, or a means to avoid ourselves.
I’ve been there myself in the past. I can recall many situations when I did things I didn’t really want to do to please others, like going to a movie with someone on a Sunday when my body wanted to stay home and take a good nap.
I was a master of people pleasing and, to be honest, it wasn’t always because I wanted to make everyone happy. The truth is that I wanted people to like and approve of me. I expected them to give me the things I wasn’t giving myself: love, time, care, and attention.
Again, being loved is a human need. However, being needy for love is something different. When we have a harmonic relationship with ourselves, we don’t need to spend time with others to fill a void in ourselves, but rather to feel a sense of connection and belonging. And we don’t need to make choices just to get their approval. We’re able to do what’s right for us, and accept that may or may not approve, and that’s okay.
You are the sum of your choices. Do whatever feels right for you. You don’t owe anyone any explanations for the way you choose to live your precious years, and with whom. Your time is your life, and it’s never coming back.
Spend your life with people who bring the best in you, who support you and accept you just the way you are. Relationships in which you need to pretend are toxic. If you don’t feel at ease with people, don’t try to change yourself; change the people you surround yourself with.
Mind your own journey and sing your own song. If it sounds like something you “should” do, don’t do it. Your needs matter. Don’t let anyone else write your story. Your life is about you, and you deserve to be happy. The world doesn’t need more counterfeit people. The world needs you to be you.
