20 years and still learning...

=emote mode on=
=date: 010909. Two days before my birthday=

What have I learned for the past 20 years of my life?

1. Life is, indeed, full of surprises.

You can never tell what will happen no matter how you try to plan your life. One minute you think everything is going the way you wanted it, the next you will be surprised that its not going anywhere at all. You may be the happiest person in the world right now and then be the most miserable tomorrow. Nothing in life is predictable. Everything is uncertain.

There is no manual that will tell you how to live your life so you would be successful and happy, you can only take a step and move forward whether you like it or not and hope that things would go well for you.

2. Never say that you know somebody.

People, like the earth, undergoes changes and sometimes they simply change for the worst. You can never say that you really know somebody, not even your parents or your siblings. I guess, not even yourself. The moment you think you know the people around you, they change and become somebody else.

I agree with Karen Cushman in her book Catherine, called Birdy, when she wrote that people are like onions. We are made up of layers of personality. Each layers resembles our good and bad quality that we often doesn't realize that we have.

Humans are, simply, complex beings.

3. Life is a never ending discovery.

Everyday we discover and learn something new. The world is full of mysteries unfolding before us day after day, you just have to open your eyes wide enough to notice them.

4. The people you love are the ones that could hurt you the most.

Its different when somebody you don't care for hurts you. It doesn't matter what others say about you but its a different matter when its the people you love most. The people you love leaves a kind of pain that knocks your senses and leaves you gasping for awhile.

5. "The ones we cannot save are those people we love the most"

I forgot who said this but this is one of the things I've learned in my life. We cannot save those we love, we cannot protect them from things that could hurt them. Maybe that is why I wanted to become a soldier, so I could console myself by saving those that I can.

I think I know why we cannot save those people we care so much for. I think it is because we cared so much for them that we close our eyes and pretend that they are better when they are not. We don't want them to get hurt or be harmed that is why sometimes we force ourselves to believe that everything is fine with them even if at the back of our minds we know its not.

6. Not all questions can be answered with "gravity" or problems solved by Pythagoras.

Meaning? Not everything in this world can be solved by the power of thinking. Irrational it may be, but sometimes you have to use your heart to know the answer that the mind cannot give.

7. Nothing goes as planned.

And it does not only apply in activities. You may spend your life planning your life carefully but nothing will go as planned. There will always be hitch.

8. Never trust 100%.

Trust the people around you but not too much. Share them your life but not too much. I got hurt when I gave too much.

9. Love others, but love yourself more.

Bad? No. Don't give your love too much because you'll get hurt if you do.

10. "To thine self, be true"

Hamlet was right, you have to be true to yourself. Don't even bother pretending because not everybody will like you anyway. Somebody is bound to hate you no matter what you do. Don't even try to impress people, its a waste of time. you just have to be yourself and be thankful for those who accepted you despite your complexity.

11. Don't depend your life to the people around you.

I exist for the people around me but not because of the people around me. As I've said, and have always experienced, people come and go. If you only exist because of them, what will happen if they leave?

12. Crying can never solve a problem.

It may make you feel better but you can't do any other thing with it. You may cry but only to express yourself. Crying is not a cowardly thing to do but its not the most intelligent thing to do either. Cry if you must but remember that your tears won't solve your problems for you.

13. Bad can always go worse.

And I don't think I have to elaborate more on this.

14. The most important things are never taught in schools.

x=x/y+x can never tell you how to deal with the real world. They never teach us the formula of life. Schools never really teaches us about life.

15. We are never who we think we are.

Our perceptions of ourselves are not really accurate. We think we are this but we are never really like that. I guess the people who knows as better are those who doesn't know us because they are the ones who sees us without prejudice.


there are more but I don't think a day is enough to list everything down...