101 Timeless Lessons Life Teaches

Take everything you’ve ever learned – all the crazy experiences

and lessons – and place it all in a box labeled “Thank you.”

What has life taught you? Think about all the things you would love to tell yourself if you could travel back in time to give your younger self some advice about life.

This is what our sister site, Everyday Life Lessons, is all about. Here’s a fresh sample of our favorite life lessons that were recently published on the site:

1. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.
2. In life, you usually get what you ask for, but it rarely comes in the package you think it’s supposed to come in.
3. Never let one bad day make you feel like you have a bad life.
4. Just because today is a terrible day doesn’t mean tomorrow won’t be the best day of your life. You just got to get there.
5. Tell the truth, or eventually someone will tell it for you. Read The Four Agreements
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7. A mistake is an accident. Cheating and lying are not mistakes. They are intentional choices.
8. Sometimes the person you want most is the person you’re better off without.
9. Some people cannot stand that you’re moving on with your life, and so they will try to drag your past to catch up with you. Do not help them by acknowledging their behavior. Keep moving forward.
10. Surround yourself with positive people who are going to push you toward greatness. Eliminate those who are trying to keep you from it.
11. Don’t let something that doesn’t matter cause you to lose something thatdoes.
12. Sometimes people aren’t who they seem to be, and sometimes people are so much more than you originally thought.
13. Loving someone isn’t just about saying it every day, it’s showing it every day in every way.
14. Maturity is not when we start speaking about big things, it’s when we start understanding the small things.
15. Of all the things that can be stolen from you – your possessions, your youth, your health, your words, your rights – what no one can ever take from you is your freedom to choose what you will believe in, and who and what your heart will love.
16. When you can forgive yourself and others and stop the imprisonment, you’re creating the love of your life.
17. Not forgiving is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
18. Age wrinkles the body. Quitting on your dreams wrinkles the soul.
19. The past can’t hurt you anymore – not unless you let it.
20. Holding on to the unchangeable past is a waste of energy, and serves no purpose in creating a better future.
21. Sometimes you’ve got to emotionally let go of the things that once meant a lot to you, so you can move beyond the past and the pain it brings you, and open the next chapter in your life.
22. The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong one, we get lost, and we turn back. But maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.
23. It doesn’t matter if you’ve failed or if you’ve been beaten. All that matters is that you learn something, get back up, and try again. Because winning is a good feeling, but winning when nobody else thought you could is an awesome feeling.
24. Knowing yourself is one thing, but truly believing and living as yourself is another. With so much social conditioning in our society, we sometimes forget who we are.
25. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
26. You can grow stronger from the pain if you don’t let it destroy you.
27. Tell the negativity committee that meets inside your head to sit down and shut up.
28. The worst person to be around is the one who complains about everything and appreciates nothing. Avoid these people at all costs.
29. Live in such a way that if someone decided to speak badly of you, no one would believe it.
30. If you love someone, tell them. For hearts are often broken by words left unspoken.
31. Life is shorter than it often seems. Sometimes we are only given a few minutes to be with the ones we love, and hundreds of hours to spend thinking of them. Cherish the moments you have with your friends and family, because in one single second they can be taken away from you forever.
32. Things change, but the sun always rises the next day. The bad news: nothing is permanent. The good news: nothing is permanent.
33. It’s your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.
34. We often accept the love we think we deserve.
35. If someone can’t accept you at your worst, they don’t deserve you at your best.
36. Without communication there is no relationship; without respect there is no love; without trust there’s no reason to continue.
37. If you leave someone at least tell them why, because knowing you’re not worth an explanation is even more painful than being abandoned.
38. Speak when you are very angry, and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.
39. Choose your words carefully – they can’t be taken back once you give them away. Harsh words are like bullets – they can leave deep wounds. And most of the time saying “sorry” is not enough to heal the wounds you leave.
40. Never make a big decision when you’re angry, and never make a big promise when you’re overjoyed.
41. It makes no sense to be second in someone’s life when you know you’re good enough to be first in someone else’s.
42. Take all the time you need to heal emotionally. Moving on doesn’t take a day; it takes lots of little steps to be able to break free of your broken self.
43. There is a difference between giving up and knowing when you have had enough.
44. Sometimes a break from your routine is the very thing you need.
45. When you find yourself cocooned in isolation and despair and cannot find your way out of the darkness, remember that this is similar to the place where caterpillars go to grow their wings.
46. Don’t count the number of friends you have; count the number of friends you can count on.
47. Sometimes, the people who are thousands of miles away from you, can make you feel better than people right beside you. That’s a sign of love and true friendship.
48. There are times when family are like strangers, and strangers are like family.
49. Life is not about making others happy. Life is about sharing your happiness with others.
50. When someone tells you, “You’ve changed,” it might simply be because you’ve stopped living your life their way.
51. If you’re lucky enough to have something that makes you different from everybody else, don’t ever change.
52. Know you worth! When you give yourself to someone who doesn’t respect you, you surrender pieces of your soul that you’ll never get back.
53. Imperfections are important, and so are mistakes. You get to be good by learning from your mistakes and you get to be real by being imperfect.
54. The best way to gain self-confidence is to do what you are afraid to do.
55. The mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work unless it’s open.
56. The difference between who you are and who you want to be, is what you do.
57. If you really want to know where your destiny lies, look at where you apply your time.
58. You are where you are right now because of the actions you’ve taken, or maybe the inaction you’ve taken.
59. Be sure to taste your own words before you spit them out.
60. Let the constant growth and improvement in your own life keep you so busy that you have no time left to criticize others.
61. When you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing. Go for long walks. Indulge in great conversations. Question your assumptions. Love yourself. Pay attention to the moment. Be a little crazy. Count your blessings. Let go for a little while and just be.
62. Just as we cannot see that a seed has taken root until it breaks through the surface, we cannot always see our own growth happening until it does the same.
63. Don’t ever change just to impress someone. Change because it makes you a better person and leads you to a better future.
64. Feelings are like waves in the ocean; we can’t stop them from coming, but we can choose which ones to surf.
65. Being happy doesn’t always make us grateful, but being grateful will always make us happy.
66. Smile every chance you get; not because life has been easy, perfect, or exactly as you had anticipated, but because you choose to be happy and grateful for all the good things you do have and all the problems you know you don’t have.
67. It’s nice to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s also important to make sure you haven’t lost track of the things that money can’t buy.
68. If you’re finding it hard to be grateful for anything, sit down close your eyes and take a long slow breath and be grateful for oxygen. Every breath you take is in sync with someone’s last.
69. Life is like a rainbow, you need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear.
70. It’s better to be alone with dignity than in a relationship that requires you to sacrifice your self-respect.
71. Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.
72. Moving on can mean that you’re making a choice to be happy rather than hurt. It doesn’t mean that you’re giving up. Read Stumbling on Happiness
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74. Decide to smile and make the best of it; it’s good for your health.
75. Don’t let loneliness drive you back into the arms of someone you know you don’t belong with.
76. Love is not about sex, going on fancy dates, or showing off. It’s about being with a person who makes you happy in a way nobody else can.
77. You don’t need a perfect one. You just need someone who you can trust – who shows you that you’re the only one.
78. There are people in your life whom you knowingly inspire simply by being you.
79. Everyone says love hurts, but that’s not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love; but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the one thing in this world that does not hurt.
80. Real friendship is a promise made in the heart. Silent. Unwritten. Unbreakable by distance. Unchangeable by time.
81. Good relationships are not just about the good times you share; it’s also about the obstacles you go through together, and the fact that you still say “I love you” in the end.
82. Do small things with huge amounts of love. You’ll see why.
83. Sometimes people don’t notice the things others do for them until they stop doing them.
84. Sometimes we expect more from others because we would be willing to do that much for them.
85. Look at yourself and remember, people in far worse situations have done far more difficult things than this.
86. The best thing that you can do in life is follow your intuition. Take risks. Don’t just make the safe and easy choices because you’re afraid of what might happen. If you do, nothing will ever happen.
87. Most of the time happiness doesn’t come from money or fame or power; it comes from good friends and family, and from the quiet nobility of leading a good life.
88. Lying is done with both words and silence.
89. When something bad happens you can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.
90. Don’t waste your time being upset about something you can’t change. Start again right now and do it better this time.
91. No relationship is ever a waste of time. If it didn’t bring you what you want, it taught you what you do NOT want.
92. You can’t always be agreeable. That’s how people take advantage of you. Sometimes you have to set boundaries.
93. The road to success is always under construction.
94. Not trying is failing.
95. Don’t be afraid of going slowly; be afraid of standing still forever.
96. The only time you should look back is to see how far you’ve come.
97. Stop wasting time regretting what you did a year ago. Start doing what you have to do now, so that in a year’s time you won’t regret what you did today. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
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99. It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it how many times you get back up.
100. Follow your heart regardless of what others tell you to do. At the end of the day it’s you that has to live with your decisions, not them.
101. One of the greatest freedoms is truly not caring what everyone else thinks of you.
102. The hardest part about growing is letting go of what you were used to, and moving on with something you’re not.
103. The best things happen when you least expect it. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
104. Sometimes you have to stop worrying, wondering, and doubting. Have faith that things will work out, maybe not how you planned, but just how it’s meant to be