Sometimes life will give you what you need and not what you want

If someone asked you, name 3 things that you want to have right now and it can be anything. What answer would you give?

I’m sure, we have bottomless wishes or things that we want to have in life. Whether it’s a status, money or (maybe) someone?

Maybe for us who watched Aladdin and the Genie too much, we will be clever enough to have some imagination to ask another 3 more wishes on our last wish.

Anyway, when you feel that your life is hard on you here are some things you can keep in your mind:

1. This too will pass ~ Ajahn Brahm

No matter how hard the ordeal is, when you have that in your mind, you will make a step by a step. You may be not be able to walk fast or run, but keep making some moves forward, eventually the “big” mountain seems smaller and smaller.

2. Sometimes life will give you what you need and not what you want

Quoting Steve Jobs on his commencement speech in Stanford few years back

“.. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith…”

We learn from the best teacher in the world, which is life.

3. The wall is there for us, to test our will

Quoting Randy Pausch in his book, The Last Lecture

“Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people”

Climb it, jump over it, crawl over it, let’s prove to life how bad we want something.

And one more thing, we have tendency to forget the happy times we have and easily feel miserable when something bad happened to us. Try to count your blessings! It may surprise you that you may have more than you think. 🙂

Cheer up!

Reference:

  1. Steve Jobs’ commencement speech [link].
  2. Randy Pausch quotes [link].