Learning and Re-Learning: What the Last Year Has Taught Me

Upon entering a new phase of life, I believed I had already learned the majority of lessons I needed to, or at least enough to build a strong moral compass that could guide me through every curveball the next year could throw at me. Growing up with a strong family foundation, I learned early on about all the things that would make me a good person. Lessons like “treat others the way you want to be treated” and “you don’t know until you try” were phrases bored into my mind until they became personal mantras. With time, I learned how to practice these common bits of wisdom while still valuing myself and coming up with whatever I deemed to be a perfect solution to any situation. Never did I claim to be self-righteous, but at least I was trying every day to be the person I had been brought up to be.

Turns out… I knew a lot less than I thought I did.

To give myself credit, I actually already knew a lot of the lessons I “learned” this year. I will always claim that my parents did a wonderful job of both comforting me and dishing out tough love to build someone ready to take on life’s challenges. Nonetheless, it often takes experience and personal mistakes to truly say you know something and can apply it. In fact, all the bit of knowledge I gained this year were things I knew but did not yet fully understand. Regarding blanket statements and lessons, I believe they exist to be interpreted differently by each individual. Maybe, as I continue growing up, I will realize how little I still know, but for now I feel lucky to be uncovering life’s hard truths on my own. So, after another year of self-discovery, here are some common lessons that I only came to appreciate this year.

Treat Others the Way You Want to be Treated

The first lesson that comes to mind when I contemplate the things I’ve learned is the phrase “treat others the way you want to be treated”. Common sense always told me that in order to receive love, support, and kindness… I had to first radiate it to every person within arm’s length. Ultimately, this thought process set me up for a lot of disappointment. Just because you treat people the way you want to be treated does not mean they will treat you the same way. I am not a vengeful person and I try my best to look at things from different viewpoints, but what I will not be anymore is someone who lets herself be a doormat to other people’s whims. Although it doesn’t always feel good, you can’t be there for everyone all the time. So, yes, I will always treat others the way I want to be treated, but sometimes I will also learn to treat others the way they choose, time and again, to treat me. This year I have swallowed many hard pills, this probably being the biggest one. Treat others the way you want to be treated and let their response to your kindness guide where you invest your time and energy.

You Don’t Know Until You Try

Growing up, this phrase was my mom’s go-to slogan. You don’t know until you try. It is how I learned to cultivate a diverse taste for food, a love for a variety of hobbies, and an open-minded view about my future career prospects. For me, this phrase has always led me to acceptance of things I before viewed with disdain. However, over the past year, I have become more of a realist who believes I can’t try things until I am certain they will work out. I can’t tell people about my lofty goals because what if I don’t have a 4.0 GPA, and perfect test scores, and what if I don’t make it there one day? I can’t make the first move; invite that girl out for coffee or ask that boy for his number because there’s a pretty good chance I’ll face rejection. In a tight-knit community where information spreads faster than wildfire, it is not so much about what I will or will not know… it is about what other people will know. In many situations this year, I have not let the fear of the unknown stop me. I have joined a multitude of clubs, trusted people I barely knew, and took classes just to explore. Yet, I have always let the fear of what other people will think stop me. The thing about not knowing is that there is beauty in uncertainty. There is beauty in all the things you don’t know about someone and their decisions, regardless of what you have heard from others. Everyone has the right to make their own decisions and their own mistakes. Everyone has a right to keep their motivations to themselves and the right to share their aspirations with the world. Other people don’t have to know unless they are willing to try to understand. Don’t let fear of uncertainty hold you back and don’t let the fear of what others don’t understand keep you from being open and vulnerable with those who are willing to listen.

Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is another phrase that is simple in concept but more complex in practice. Constantly meeting new people every day means needing to acquire the skill of perception fairly quickly. It is why, the minute we meet someone, we automatically need to begin connecting them to their major, hometown, or involvements. The amount of times this year I have thought of someone as “that girl’s boyfriend” or “the president of X club” or “that person so-and-so doesn’t like” is disheartening. While I’ve finally learned not to judge a book by its cover, it has taken a lot more to learn how to not judge a book based on someone else’s synopsis of it. I am an avid reader; someone who loves to read a book cover to cover, dog-earing pages and highlighting my favorite phrases. So, then, why am I so quick to write-off complex novels with hidden meaning and individual stories to tell? The labels we place on people, at times, can help us define their place in our lives but it is something we must be especially cautious about when forming judgments. When trying to judge someone’s character, I would at least like to flip through the pages of their story with my own hands before deciding if I would like to read further.

You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

I have never really understood this idiomatic expression and, sitting at the kitchen counter laughing about it with my roommates, I still believe it makes no sense. I guess it is saying that you can’t have your cake and simultaneously eat it at the same time because once you eat it… it’s gone for good. I think that’s ridiculous though. I have spent a long time living in fear that the good things I have today will one day be gone. I worry that the friends I have will soon leave me, or that the body I have will disappear after a week off the gym, or even that the things I love doing will one day lose their ability to bring me joy. However, I think living in fear of the future is what makes us lose sight of what we have today. Sure, you may not be able to have everything you want, but you should at least be able to appreciate everything you do have today. Maybe you do lose your cake the minute you decide to eat it, but there’s always another opportunity to get your hands a little dirty, lick the spoon, and bake yourself a new cake with more layers and frosting than the last one ever had.

It has been a pleasure writing for you this year and having a safe space to share my realizations and opinions. As I move into another year writing for Chocolate and Politics, I would like to say thank you to all the people who continue reading and supporting this blog. It means more than you know and I hope that you have been able to take a bit of wisdom from each post. I cannot wait to see what the next school year will bring and how it will translate into the evolution of this blog. For now though, keep reading, growing, and of course living.

Happy Living

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood” -Helen Keller