As we go through life, we have thousands of experiences and lessons that make us feel like we’ve glimpsed some truth about life for a moment, but only a fraction really moves us beyond that.
The beauty is how far this small fraction can move us. How one small insight, one memorable moment, can change the way we live, work, and play. These are the six truths that could change the way you approach your life.
1. You don’t need to get over something to move on from it.
Movies, TV shows, and even successful people sharing their life story makes it seem like life is linear. It’s easy to picture our lives as a journey littered with obstacles or an adventure with different levels. The story we tell ourselves (and that others tell us) is that when we’re faced with an obstacle, we must overcome it to move forward in our journey.
Sometimes that’s true. But not always.
Maybe life is more like building Lego. We have a vision of what we want to build, but when we get stuck on one part, we can work on another section first. Maybe we’ll find the piece we’re missing along the way. The answers we’re looking for don’t always lie in the challenges we’re facing.
More important than our ability to overcome obstacles is our ability to move on without overcoming them (yet).
It’s okay to feel pain, just don’t let it stop you from rushing into the future with all the excitement you can muster.
It’s okay to have baggage, just don’t let it ruin the relationships that have yet to come.
It’s okay to doubt yourself, just don’t let it hold you back from showing the world what you have to offer.
2. Love is created, not found.
We’re tempted to believe that if we just find that one job, that one person, or that one place, it’ll be perfect.
If we find our soulmate, we’ll make it work, everything will be easier, and we’ll have time to focus on ourselves next.
If we find our perfect job, then we’ll be able to give it our all, do great work, and have the energy to tend to all the other parts of our lives.
If we find that one place that instantly feels like home, then we’ll be able to have a community, put down our roots, and feel stable in our life.
But there’s nothing in this world that contains all the love we’re looking for. There’s nothing that can possibly find or get that is perfect in itself.
Some people, some places, some jobs may be a better fit for us than others. Some may have more potential for our love than others. But to make it perfect? To truly love your job? To truly love your relationship? To make a place truly feel like home? You have to create that.
You won’t find the perfect relationship. You’ll create it through having hard conversations, being vulnerable, and supporting one another even when you don’t feel like it.
You won’t find the perfect job. You’ll create it by working hard, putting yourself on the line, and fighting through moments of fear.
You won’t find the perfect place. You’ll create it by turning a house into a home and building friendships that are worth staying for.
We can’t find love. We can’t find passion. We can only create it.
3. Adventures can be found anywhere… if you’re truly adventurous.
In a world so caught up with wanderlust and the nomadic life, we forget the best adventures still exist in our mind.
I’ve had conversations that left me feeling like I’ve travelled the world and seen a thousand cultures. I’ve listened to people who have taken me to other worlds where reality looks just a little bit different, if only for five minutes.
You wouldn’t turn down a free ticket to Bali because it’s different from where you live.
On the contrary, we travel to experience difference.
So why not welcome difference in our daily lives? Have a conversation with someone, not despite the fact that they think differently from you, but because of it. Listen to them the same way you’d stand in the busy streets of Japan—just to take it all in.
Look for the people who challenge you. The ones who’ll force you to think differently and maybe even see life a little differently.
Stay open to intellectual adventures.
Seek to experience difference, because that’s all that adventure really is.
4. If you can’t find it here, you won’t find it anywhere.
And that goes for whatever it is you’re looking for. Because the truth is, the things we look for, we already have. And if we’re looking for it in other people, other places, or other lives, we’ll never find it.
We won’t find inner peace in the forests of South America or happiness in a relationship. We won’t find the feeling of success in a business or contentment in a job. Most importantly, we won’t find our future by ignoring our present.
We’ll never find validation in others, we’ll only find it when we learn to love and be proud of ourselves.
We’ll never find adventure and curiosity by flying around the world, we’ll only find it when we learn to be amazed at the world even standing in our own bedrooms.
We’ll never find ourselves in any book, guru, or mastermind, we’ll only find it when we learn to turn inwards.
Everything you need and everything you can possibly hope to be is right where you are, wherever that may be.
5. Know when you’re running towards or away from something.
This comes down to asking yourself, What am I fuelled by?
Am I driven to start a business because I’m running towards a vision? Or running away from feeling incompetent and unsuccessful?
Am I travelling because I’m pulled to see the world in all its glory? Or am I running away from something back home?
Am I dating because I’m truly excited about the people I’m meeting? Or am I running away from the fear of being alone?
Running away from something only goes so far—sooner or later, you’ll run into something else you’ll need to run away from.
It’s not enough to know what you don’t want. If you don’t know what you DO want, you’ll forever spend your life running away instead of towards.
6. Sometimes growth isn’t about more or better, it’s about different
Growth happens, not just in scale, but in dimensions.
When we’re children, it’s possible to have a best friend we can tell anything to. It’s possible to have friends who meet us on every dimension. We only have three: family, school, and friends.
But when we grow older, we grow not just in scale but in complexity. We have more dimensions, and they’re not all the same, either.
Yet we continue expecting people to be everything. And we’re disappointed when the people closest to us don’t seem to understand a part of our lives that’s important to us.
The more growth we go through, the harder it’ll be to find people who match us in all our dimensions. Impossible, even. So maybe it’s time to stop expecting people to be everything. Different people are for different dimensions.
Surround yourself, not just with people who make you better, but with people who make you different. People who make you multidimensional.
These are the six truths that, if you can believe, remember, and embody in the way you live, could change your life.