Here are the most important 15 LESSONS People Learn Too Late in Life and which they wish they learned sooner!
How many of you would love to know the future and absorb now the lessons people learn too late in life?
Since last week, we’ve been thinking: what other knowledge could have an incredibly positive impact into our own lives? and if we did answer that question, we’d be open to sharing it with you guys.
That’s when we came up with this idea. Hopefully, we all have a plenty of years ahead of us so why not learn from those who have walked the road before us, the ones who’ve faced life and are still alive to tell the stories.
How amazing would it be to leverage their knowledge at this point in your life. If you know what they regret the most, the lessons it took decades to learn, maybe, just maybe, you can play it smart and make better choices as of today.
We recommend you grab a sheet of paper and double check yourself if you agree or disagree to the items we’ll be mentioning on this list.
Keep in mind that these lessons are aggregated from people who achieved success and lived the lifestyles most of you are hustling so hard to live.
That’s how this article came to be.
If you don’t feel like reading through the entire thing, we made this video which you can watch instead:
We’re looking at 15 lessons most people usually learn too late in life.
Number 1: Everything is temporary
We even said it in our intro, we think we still have plenty of years ahead of us.
Depending on your age, you’re not even thinking that far ahead, but even you yourself are temporary.
Coping with the idea that everything you do, every person you meet, everything you build.. Is temporary, can be a reality shattering experience.
The family dog is temporary, your relationships are temporary, the items you buy are temporary, nothing really lasts.
It’s one of those things you can only fully grasp when you’ve already seen it happen in your past. We all want to live forever.. We all want to be eternal.
But everything you do, at some point will be gone and people will have forgotten about it.
So might as well go for it! At some point whatever the result, it will be gone and forgotten.
Number 2: Life isn’t fair.
Yeah, you were expecting something else. Sorry to disappoint you with the truth.
The promotion will probably go to someone who’s been smooth talking the boss, despite the fact that you’re more qualified and work harder.
She might like the douchebag more, despite you thinking that you’d be the perfect fit for her.
You’re experiencing life through your own eyes, so you are going to be biased no matter what.
We do not live in a perfect world and even if you did, it wouldn’t care much for you as an individual.
It’s 8 billion of us, the world doesn’t owe you anything. Just because you think you deserve something, doesn’t mean you’re going to get it.
Number 3: Family matters more than friends.
Remember the first item on this list? You can’t choose family, but nobody would be willing to go further for you than them.
Friends are amazing! Have as many real friends as you can get, but family is something special, something most people seem to neglect these days. While friends will be alongside you in the trenches, none of them would really risk themselves for you.
Family is the only one who would really be willing to put you above them. Don’t take that for grated. Talk to your parents while you still have them with you. Talk to your siblings and do not let that relationship cool down.
Spend time with your kids, because they need you more than they need anything else.
Number 4: Others treat you the way you treat yourself, not them.
Isn’t it weird when you realize that someone else’s attitude towards you depends on yourself and not the other person?! The way you present yourself, what you think of yourself, who you are as an individual, these are all in your control.
You can choose to grow, to learn, to improve. You – as an individual – are the sum of your experiences and beliefs. Once you fully accept a different set, the entire perception of the world about you will change.
Think of this small experiment, if you were to move to a new city where nobody ever knew you, wore different clothes, listened to different music, started speaking differently and change your interests, the people you’ll meet there, will accept your new version because this is the reality they encounter first.
Have more respect for yourself, even demand it. Stand up for what you believe and do not let others walk over you. It’s these small things that will hunt you when you get older.
Number 5: The sacrifices you make today will pay dividends in the future.
Many of those who are in the last quarter of their lives look back at the poor choices they’ve made, especially the time that they wasted.
It’s always easier to see where you could’ve done better when you look back to the past.
Many of them agree that with just a bit more strategic plays they could’ve been in a way better position than they find themselves right now.
They all regret not reading more early on and none of them remembers any of the time wasted watching tv.
If they were smarter with their time, they wouldn’t have sacrificed as much as they had.
If you want to know what are the sacrifices people make in order to get rich, you can click in the top right corner. We made an entire video breaking down what it takes and the impact it has on your life.
Number 6: Sacrificing your health for success or wealth isn’t worth it.
It’s weird seeing this one after the previous point, but it’s definitely true.
We have a tendency to always want more and very few people know when to stop.
Money is the most important thing in the world when you don’t have it. Once you get it, it doesn’t matter that much anymore.
Nobody wants to sacrifice their own health in the pursuit of money or success, but very few are willing to make the adjustments necessary in order to protect yourself over the potential gain.
With old age, you’ll look back and think of yourself as a fool for not paying more attention to the one thing which could give you more time with those you love.
Number 7: Fear of embarrassment or criticism stopped you from being who you really are.
You get one shot at life, so.. Might as well go for it!
The main reason most people fail at anything in life is because they don’t even give it a go.
We all find excuses or try to shield our perceived image from what other people might think of us, but in the end, they don’t matter. It’s a choice you have to make yourself:
Who do you want to be?
Will you be yourself, or will you be someone who other people are expecting you to be?
Number 8: Things don’t matter that much.
When you’re young you want things because you see other people having things and you think your life would be better if you had them as well.
Things are just things, they don’t make you who you are. Possessions are raw materials moved from one place to another.
Do you think 10 years from now you’ll care that right now you have the latest iPhone?
We want things because we are being sold on wanting them. Look around you right now, no really, pause the video and look around.
How many things you have around you, which you don’t really need.
You need tools, not things and nobody needs more than a couple essential tools to get the job done.
Number 9: Even the longest night was followed by a morning.
Some things will take longer than 12 hours to pass. Maybe a couple of months or even years, but one thing’s for certain:
No matter how hard it is right now, how dark everything seems, there will come a day when you will feel better.
Even bad times are temporary. This particular mindset will help you push through some of the most difficult bits life will throw at you.
Don’t take this advice lightly!
Number 10: Happiness is a choice and it requires a lot of hard work.
Happiness isn’t something that depends on other people or getting their approval. Happiness is something you experience yourself because your reality is in tone with your expectations.
The good news is, you can choose to be happy!
The bad is that you need to put some effort into it, because as anything worth pursuing it won’t happen by itself – at least not to the degree you’re looking for.
We know some of you are struggling with this and might not think of yourselves as happy, so we made another video called 15 Reasons Why you are Unhappy where we dive into the actionable steps you can take right now to make the switch.
Number 11: This moment right now, this is you being alive, this is your moment
… and it’s passing by the second.
Every “now” is immediately absorbed by the past, how poetic it is?!
When we think of life, we usually look at the entire thing, but rarely realise that it’s moments like this one right now, where you’re watching this video that make up the pieces of it.
Most people learn of the importance of “the moment” too late in life and missed a great deal of opportunities to seize it.
Number 12: Everyone is really out for themselves
Everyone is the hero in their own movie and everyone wants to ride into the sunset with the girl.
We’re all experiencing life in first person view and since you were born you were the most important thing you have ever experiences. You need to protect yourself and prosper!
Guess what: that’s what everybody thinks! It might be hard to accept, but the same way you think of yourself as special, someone else’s thinks the same thing.
We can’t all be the lead in the same movie, so people will try to get that sunset for themselves.
As long as you live, remember this, because it will help you see other people for what they really are: humans, the same as you.
Number 13: Beneath anger is always fear.
As the wise Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
Whenever we suffer, especially for long periods of time, at first we believe it is because of something outside of us?—?something we hate. And if we make it past that emotion, we find below that hate is a rumble of anger, and certainly something we have held onto for far too long.
But beneath all of that is always fear: A fear of loss. A fear of vulnerability. A fear of letting go.
But if you can get to the point of acknowledging the fear, you will see its lighthearted shadow, compassion.
And you will be able to move forward.
Number 14: The world is bigger than you got to experience.
Almost everyone wishes he could’ve have seen more of the world, experienced more and have it reveal more of its secrets.
Our planet is amazing, filled with different people, different cultures, cuisines, architectures, beliefs and visions for the future.
If the whole world is like a book, it would be a shame to only read a couple of pages.
Number 15:A lifetime isn’t very long.
It’s something you never think about when you’re young, because it seems look.
Life is abundant, because we compare the amount of life we’ve lived to the amount of life we think we have left.
Let’s do a little thought experiment shall we?
When you’re in your 20s, you expect to have at least 3 times as much to life as you’ve had so far. But there’s a trap to that.
Let’s say the average person dies at 80 years old. Right off the bat, most people sleep 7 or 8 hours per night, cutting down a third of that. You’re left with 53 years. That’s not that bad is it?
If the average man works for 40 hours a week from 25 to 65, that’s another 10 years gone. But you’re left with 43 which is still not that bad is it?
As of 2016, the average american is taking over 10 hours of screen time per day, this combines social media with meaningless entertainment (like tv shows or sports) alongside news related content. The tv show part is 4.5 hours per day and rising with companies like Netflix fighting more and more for your eyeballs.
This means the average american spends 7 to 8 years of his life, just watching tv.
If you start counting everything that is consuming your time every day like: eating, cleaning, getting dressed, driving and all the other small tasks you’ll be shocked to find out that the average person in a developed country has less than 30 years to live.
If you live in a poorer country, you can easily cut that in half to less than 15 years.
If this doesn’t put your life into perspective, we don’t know what will.
In order to help our community, we’re curious to know Aluxers, what is 1 lesson you wished you had learned sooner? Let us know in the comments!
