Learning your Lessons

Every one of us has certain lessons to learn throughout his or her life. Some lessons we are doomed to repeat over and over again. Other lessons impact us on such fundamental levels that it only takes one time to get the message. It doesn’t always feel very good when we get schooled, but like it or not, it’s always a valuable experience.

Learning from our mistakes when we are young can be particularly humiliating. We are already in a phase in which we feel we know it all and are utterly self-conscious about the ways we are perceived by others, so when we receive a moral or ethical smack-down it particularly stings. In hindsight one can accept that lessons learned when young are the most valuable of all because we benefit from them for the rest of our lives, but at the time it feels as if it’s an exercise in torture.

Here’s a lesson I learned when young. Friends who are cruel to others will eventually direct their cruelty toward you as well. It might be fun in high school when there are cliques and insecurities and pecking orders are being established with a vengeance, but in the wider world, bullies are less accepted and can be even more destructive. Take a stand and defend those who are being attacked. Do not tolerate aggressive people. Pit Bulls turn on their masters every day.

Take a moment to appreciate the lessons you have learned in life. They have made you a much better person. They are gifts.