
One thing I really look back on in my life was that I got this message and took it to heart. Today, as a guy over 50, I have no problem what so ever taking this to heart since I’ve been through enough of life that I can the value and truth to this statement. The funny thing is, I’ve had plenty of people telling me that when I was younger and of course I didn’t really listen to them. Equally as comical is the fact that I give this same message to my 2 kids along with my students and basketball players. I hope they listen better than I did.
I’ve seen more challenges as I’ve gotten older along with most of those challenges being a lot more serious and heavy duty than most of the ones that I had when I was younger. When I was younger I thought those challenges were serious of course at that time, only to learn that you do what you can and get help if you need it and then time moves on, and just about all those challenges are a distant memory as I got older.
What I know now is that those times when those things come up in life are meant to test us. They are meant to give us some of the most valuable lessons we will ever learn throughout our lifetime. That’s if we look at that way while being in the middle of those problems and issues. That’s the challenging part. It’s really easy to look back on memories to think about them or at least try and remember them for the lessons that were there. I think it’s a hundred times more valuable if we can look for the lessons while we are in the middle of the lesson.
Also remember, we learn from many different sources. Other people telling us about their stories of their ups and downs – and the lessons they learned. Even watching others go through things without them telling us about them. We learn from reading books, listening to podcasts, seeing current events going on around us, etc. The most valuable of them all – those things that we go through ourselves! We are the best source of learning for our own lives since we are in the title role playing ourselves in our own story.