5 Ultimate Life Lessons You Must Learn
By: Anand Choudhury
Tags: Happiness, Self, Purpose, Life Lessons, Death

5 Ultimate Life Lessons That Humans Learn Too Late

Photo by Katemangostar from Freepik

Life is not easy, yet it’s not that difficult. There are courses to learn several disciplines, yet there’s no standard manual to learn how to lead our lives. We learn by what we see around us and build perceptions on what we believe to be correct or wrong. We live our lives based on these perceptions as long as it keeps us happy. Self-realisation only happens when we face undesirable and unavoidable situations in our lives that compels us to change our existing belief system and accept the real truth. Until this point, we live life according to society’s set standards and look for external validations to build the so-called ‘perfect life’ that never exists.

Life is always imperfect. The harder you try to control something that’s beyond your control, the more you bring suffering and despair into your life. Thus, the time-tested wisdom of our ancestors always helps to figure out the real truth behind everything. Based on this truth, the following life lessons will help you live life with more confidence, courage, and vigour.

1. You are all alone in this world.

We stay in an illusion that we have family, friends, colleagues who stand beside us. If you’re married, at least you’ll consider your better half to be the person who will always stay with you till the end of the world. But if you look at the real picture, you will see that people die every year, leaving their close ones on this planet mourning for them.

The couples who were once considered ‘soulmates made for each other’ end up divorcing their life partners after years of living together. The friends whom you believed to be your best ones may start ignoring you for some or other reason. I don’t wish you’ve to go through any of this, but shit happens. Unexpected events occur when you expect the least.

Life is constant uncertainty. The only certainty is death — Sadhguru.

So, should we stop loving our close ones and stop investing our time and energy in our relationships since it’s eventually going to end one day?

No, this is the paradox of life you must know — You have to work for certainty in this world of uncertainty.

You have no idea what tomorrow awaits for you. Live in the present moment and have a sense of gratitude to people who bring love and happiness into your life. Express your love and appreciation towards them as it will help you to remain burden-free, satisfied, and fulfilled. That’s the only thing you can do for them because you never know who’s not going to see tomorrow’s daybreak.

2. Money is the ticket to your survival and happiness.

Even though money can’t buy happiness, but money is the ticket that allows you to survive in this world and pursue happiness. You don’t need to become super-rich to become happy and fulfilled. But still, you need the money that will ensure your survival and well-being. To a certain extent, money definitely plays a deciding role in determining your life expectancy and freedom to live life on your terms.

Humans trade the precious time of their lives to earn money to survive themselves and their families. A majority of them struggle to make their ends meet, and they end up living paycheque to paycheque till the end of their lives while they work for something they don’t like.

Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time — Pablo Picasso

Generating wealth will require you to make some sacrifices. But it’s essential for you to question whether those sacrifices justify the returns that you make. Don’t trade your time in doing something that you hate to do, because even if you earn lots of money from it, you’ll be frustrated enough to exhaust it all to gain self-validation from external sources.

Whereas if you make money by doing something that you genuinely love and if it provides meaning to your life, you will most probably value your earnings, and you will be motivated enough to lead a fruitful life.

Ask yourself these questions –

a. What do I love to do that can create wealth for me?

b. How much wealth do I need to generate now to lead a financially comfortable life later and retire at the earliest?

c. How can I create any passive income streams that can help me to achieve financial independence?

You will receive great fulfilment if you work in an area of your interest that serves your purpose, gives you the freedom to work on your terms, and generates enough wealth to save for your early retirement, provided you embrace a minimalistic approach to life.

3. Simplicity with clarity of mind is the path to freedom.

The idea of the so-called ‘perfect life’ is continuously built through the impressions that you come across on social media, the internet, and television. They play a significant role in shaping your perceptions about human life.

If you ask people to choose a dream life for themselves, they will most probably choose to live an affluent billionaire’s lifestyle. It happens because people are socially conditioned to worship the wealthy and put them on a pedestal.

But if you’re looking up to these billionaires as your role models, you will rarely find happiness. It may happen that you will become a billionaire like them someday, but that will not fetch you the freedom that you seek within your soul.

Life is unfair. It will throw all kinds of obstacles at you, leaving you totally helpless. As you age, you will face more complications in health, finances, love, and relationships and in literally every dimension of your life. The ability to simplify such complications will only serve you peace and strength to move ahead.

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” — Henry David Thoreau

Have clarity in your thoughts because your thoughts shape your reality.

4. True fulfilment comes with a purpose that’s bigger than yourself.

You have come to this world with a purpose. Most people in this world live incomplete and unfulfilled lives, complaining about innumerable problems surrounding them. They continuously live with a regret that even though they’re putting their best feet forward, they cannot achieve the ultimate bliss of human life. The reason for this suffering is their ignorance towards their life’s purpose that’s bigger than them.

“A man’s job is to make the world a better place to live in, so far as he is able — always remembering the results will be infinitesimal — and to attend to his soul” — Leroy Percy

If everyone thinks that it’s the work of another person to care for everyone’s well-being, how this world will inch forward? You have a special gift right within you that is unique in itself. Like a tree never eats its fruits. Similarly, your energy, purpose, and emotions are not all meant to be focused on your well-being only. Instead, you should use it to contribute to the greater good, which in return will deliver you the real fruits of human bliss.

“Help your fellow humans thrive and survive, contribute your little bit to the universe before it swallows you up, and be happy with that. Lend a hand to others. Be strong for them, and it will make you stronger “— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way

5. Life is all about the journey.

Life is a journey where your ultimate destination is death.

“From your birth till the last moment, you are walking in a straight line, straight towards death; you may look this way at the mountains, you may look that way at the lake, you may look at relationships, you may fall in love, you may suffer, you may enjoy, but essentially every moment of your life, you are walking straight towards your grave” — Sadhguru.

Don’t get puzzled by the complexities of life because eventually, all these things will come to an end when you die. Whatever successes you have achieved, whatever failures you have made, all of them will be of no use to you when you die.

The only thing that will matter to you when you would be at your deathbed is how you’ve lived your life throughout. There will be ups and downs, suffering and joy, pain and peace, love and hatred. But you will not be affected much by it when you will remind yourself that it’s part and parcel of your life.