The moment I don’t understand myself, instead of getting angry at myself, I have learned to give myself compassion and breathe. I’m going through this life for the first time, I’m not supposed to know, I’m supposed to learn.

The day I realised that I have to stop taking things so personally has been the happiest day of my life. If you suffer from the idea in your mind, that you have never been good enough because of someone else’s opinion or criticism, you might find yourself conflicted thoughout your life. Opening my eyes to the fact that I can just exist the way I am was a big relief that started a positive snowball-effect in my life. Sounds very simple to start being who you are but in reality, it is a bit more complicated than that.

Human beings are lazy. We’d first try the shortcut rather than following the marked road.

We want to achieve maximum results with minimum effort. We want things now or as fast as possible. How can I get fit fast without moving my body, or how can I become a millionaire in a week even though I’m unemployed and broke? Of course there’s no reason to make things more complicated than they are and it’s good that we’re looking for optimal ways of doing things. However, the downside of this modern, fast-paced society, where everything is available 24/7, is that we start to lack basic skills like concentration and patience, which are really important qualities if you want to learn new skills and develop yourself in the long term. You might receive the package you ordered the next day or be able to watch the movie you like immediately from the streaming service, but this type of logic doesn’t apply to individuals. If you don’t have any experience, you’re not able to adapt a new skill that you just started learning overnight.

At least you tried, otherwise I would have cried, for not trying and just crying about not trying.

Our society admires success stories and I have recently got familiar with the word ‘survivorship bias’, which means that you tend to disregard failures and only focus on successful outcomes. I believe that if you are willing to accept and learn from your mistakes, you’re already on a much better life path, as opposed to thinking that success comes without failing. I think it’s brutal nowadays that we expect people to commit zero mistakes, even though we’re all living this life for the first time. I’m quite sure that many of us struggle having a healthy relationship with ourselves because of the pressure of trying to be perfect. If you don’t feel that confident and being best friends with yourself seems a bit too far away, it would be healthy to start by trying to be at least ‘ok’ friends.

Every single person you see on the street are living beings and every single one of them will most likely ask themselves at some point of their lives, who am I and what am I doing here? What is the meaning of all this and why do I do what I do? From what I have learned so far is that no one has solid answers to these big questions and to make matters more complicated; the answer varies depending on who you ask these questions from. What I have recently understood is that all individuals should try their best to take care of themselves not only physically, but mentally as well. Creating good habits might be helpful to bring our brains back on track, but why is it so easy to slip to the other side?

I think that we’re all prisoners of the pain of living. If we’re all prisoners, how can we free ourselves from the pain of life?

Life might occasionally be very painful and we can’t always imagine what the other person is going through. Self-compassion is a very difficult skill to learn because we can’t just magically give it to ourselves and start healing, unless we admit that we were wrong at something. It’s important to understand that the perfect human doesn’t exist. This type of observation is painful because admitting our mistakes and flaws makes us very vulnerable. Our ego wants to be right or valued but the reality is that the sooner you say bye to your ego and humble down, the better. If you let go and are willing to forgive yourself and others, you might be in the beginning of an amazing journey to slowly accept who you truly are. By focusing on yourself and learning to be friends with yourself, you become a better person for others as well.

We are mirrors to each other so many of the things that annoy you in another person might reveal a lot about yourself and your own insecurities. We all might have an idea of a ‘good person’ but even this so-called ‘good person’ will have their dark side they’re fighting with. Just like Yin and Yang are constantly clashing and bending their limits, there’s the gray line that is very difficult to be spotted but it’s still there as a division. I think that a ‘good person’ has to be aware of their dark side to be able to live a good life. Understanding your flaws gives space for others to understand them as well and helps you to move forward together. It’s such a cliche to say it, but I do believe that ‘team work makes the dream work’, and if you aim to have a good life you might end up making that wish come true.

We have created imaginary prisons for ourselves.

I think that compassion towards yourself is key to your freedom. We’re here for the first time, so why do we expect and demand so much from others and especially from ourselves? We’re so ashamed about our emotions even though everyone has their individual development around them. For your own health it is extremely important to address all types of emotions, even the unpleasant ones. Living through life with several bad habits and unsolved traumas will not allow you to life at its fullest. The majority of bad habits are a reflection of unresolved complicated emotions. These types of uncomfortable emotions cause numerous problems in our society. Next time when someone tells you about their emotions, take them seriously. Emotional intelligence might protect you and the people around you from many adult-life problems.

It’s not a secret that we feel happier and more comfortable when we’re taking care of ourselves and our bodies, but the way your body looks will not necessarily reflect the state of your mental health. The brain is an organ, so just like we have to take care of the outside parts of our body to maintain good health and look good, the brain needs to be taken care of as well. For example, sleep is an essential activity for your brain, if humans didn’t need sleep and rest, nature would have already erased that part of human development. So when you demand yourself to work harder and faster, take a deep breath and a break, because recovery is as important.

When we look at humans and how they grow, turning points might arrive all of the sudden and change the course of someone’s life radically. Whenever I look back, the downfalls have been the most important lessons that I had to go through and I have learned from them the most. I think that a big part of our overall well-being and if we feel good or bad about something has many layers to it.

There’s nothing more rewarding than looking back at yourself after a year of consistently spending 15 minutes per day on your own physical health and on developing a skill to enhance your mood and overall happiness. There’s no good or bad habit without consistency or repetition. The most important decisions that you make during the day are actually the little things, the food you eat, the quality of your sleep, the exercise you do, the games you play, the books you read, the time you spend on social media, the music you listen to, the photos you take, because those little things are the ones that will truly make a difference in the long run.

To sum things up; you can always change direction if you’re sliding towards something that you’re not happy with. This mindset has drastically changed the way I think and act in my regular day for the better. The values and good habits that the imaginary good person has, you can slowly incorporate into your life. If you tell me you don’t have 15 minutes, then I have to ask what space and time do you live in?