When you think it’s all over. Think again!
When I was younger, I would often forget about the idea that someday, I too will get old and will no longer have the energy or time to do the things that I’ve always wanted for myself. I would waste it worrying about what the other kids in school would think about me or not being able to afford the latest video game that I’ve really wanted to play.
Yet it’s not until now as an older and mature man that I wonder where all the time has gone. I still wonder what I could have done had I focused on the things that I think about now. Where would I be right now had I started sooner?
My limiting belief
Being older, I have this notion that I’m too old to make changes in my life and that approaching my thirties would mean that I would no longer have the freedom and time to do what I should have done in my teens and twenties due to increased responsibilities. And it’s not until I speak to my family members who are, of course, a lot older and wiser than me where I’m reminded that it’s never too late to turn things around.
In looking at statistics, it’s estimated that an average human lifespan lasts up to the age of 75-80. This would mean that I have approximately lived 1/3 of my life already. Assuming I would live that long, I still essentially have another 2/3 to go.
The question of whether I’ve lived the first third of my life productively is really dependent of my life’s purpose. Did I know what I wanted back then? not likely, but I can say for sure that it was a learning experience all the same
The lesson learned
Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned throughout my 28 years on this earth, is that a person’s wants and needs are rarely ever constant…
With that in mind, what can a person do to turn their life around despite our wants changing and is there even such a thing?
As I’ve studied and researched human behaviour, I’ve come to realize that what tends to motivate us is the drive to want things that are difficult to attain. It’s what gives us satisfaction and confidence within ourselves since we worked hard for it. And once we achieve it, we set more lofty goals and challenges for ourselves, which are never-ending.
The most interesting part of this understanding is that the things we tend to achieve in our lives eventually become the norm, which makes us forget about its value and overlook the hardships that we put into attaining it in the first place.
Looking at this in perspective, it becomes clear that in order to feel satisfied with your life and to help yourself move forward is to take into account 3 crucial things –
1) Never judge your past by your present standards
When I look back at how I was in the past, I was a completely different person. I was inexperienced, not too sure about what I wanted and unaware of the life ahead of me. Because of this fact, my past issues were dependent on my experiences in the past. If I were to go back to the past as i am today, I’m pretty sure that those challenges wouldn’t be challenges at all, but merely daily activities. It, therefore, stands to reason that the only way to get over our past is to understand that the past was a different phase of life, which we all had to go through in order to become who we are today.
2) Always move forward with no regrets
Being quite ambitious, I occasionally have to remind myself that life is meant to be lived, regardless of whether we do the right or wrong things. Nobody’s perfect and are meant to make mistakes in life in order to grow and evolve. In terms of myself, it’s always been a problem trying to keep in mind the fact that I can only try my best in my life and that as long as I continue moving forward with no fear, things will eventually work out for the better.
3) It’s really never too late
So the question is, is it ever too late? I would say as long as we’re still alive and well. We still have the time and the opportunity to live the kind of life we’ve always wanted for ourselves. The biggest misnomer is the belief that we all have a ‘sell-by date’ and a time and place for things when the reality is. It is we who dictate how to live the life we really want.
