The statement above is one of the many facts we learn as we grow into adulthood. There are many things that we are taught in school, but life-lessons are self taught. We grow from our mistakes. I did not seize or grasp the full meaning of this sentence until I suffered a little.
In middle-school you are either bullied or the bully. In my case, it was (how original) the first option. I was the new girl and I later became the annoying ugly girl of the class. So I had it all thrown at my face by some guys that could not see the impact their words had.
Only when I would break down and cry, would they stop, and eventually once in a while apologize before starting again a few hours later.
This is how I realised that it was not me they hated, but my looks. It was not me, not who I was, but what I looked like. What I appeared to be. They truly did look sorry at the idea of me hurting, they just did not care enough to stop acting the way they did. It looked like they retrieved some sort of satisfaction from my pain. I later understood that some of these jerks were going to become really good people, and that for some others it was who they are, and not changing. Being bullied pushed me to my physical but also mental limits as I did things I now regret, but it made me grow as I learnt that in life you sometimes have to be ruthless and that strength keeps you alive . I learnt that looks can get you places brains can't, and that their power should not be underestimated. That is how I got interested into body language.
Only through pain can we get better.
We have all had friends that have let us down tremendously at one point in our lives. What I got from that experience was that there is a clear line between your Friends with a capital "f" and your friends. In french, we have two different words to call our friends, depending on how important they are to us: Amis and Copains. I learnt how and in which category to put everyone I met nearly immediately. I also learnt that upgrades and downgrades are possible. To finish with, I learnt that trust comes from honesty and that there is no point in trusting someone who has lied to someone else in front of you. Disappointments and let-downs are part of life, and they should be expected, sometimes forgiven. We are humans after-all and can make errors, but repeating them doesn't make you human, just selfish.
Only through pain can we get better.
When my grandparents died, I understood how primordial it was to say the words we never say to our families. To say "I love you" or "I'm sorry". Because it's always too late. The type of pain I am talking about right now is the one which comes with regret. Regretting doing something or on the contrary, not doing anything is painful to any individual. What is even more painful are the "what if...". What if I had faced my fears for him, would he still like me? What if I hadn't said that, would they still be friends? What if instead of doing that, I did this? All of those questions and only one goal: Imagining a different turn out.
Through all the regrets my 17 years old self can experience, I understood that I had to give up on the "what ifs" and I had to stop blaming myself. This is the way it all happened, now stop whining. Be the person you wish you were, have the strength you know is hiding in you. Get up and face the world like a superhero does when everything around them is falling.
Because living in fear and regret only results in more fears and regrets.
All it does is stop yourself from enjoying life the way it should be enjoyed.
Now, only through pain DO we get better.
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