10 Life Damaging Mistakes We End Up Making Unknowingly

Making mistakes is a part of one’s growing process. It is sitting on those mistakes that stagnates growth.

Whoever said there is no refresh button on life lied. You ran from your house to marry your love who just after a year of honeymooning ditched you for another woman. You are divorced at 25. And that means you are doomed for life? No! Press the damn refresh button. It will not erase the mistake but you can always learn from it and start afresh.

Following are the common mistakes that we make unintentionally, but these mistakes are potent enough to poison our lives! So if you are in the process of making one of these; just refresh. If you have done them already, refresh.

1. When you don’t embark upon a career path of your choice

Following the league and opting a career that you “hear” guarantees status, can perhaps make you look like a hot shot for a while. But then one day, after ten years of working your ass off like an ass, you will get a wake up call from an inner voice saying, “Congratulations! You just won the championship at doing what you hate for the longest period of time.” At that point of time you will perhaps be owning vaults of cash, but your heart will be full of regrets and sorrows for not taking that one, just one major step, that could have kept you feeling alive all your life.

 

2. When you cut down on your chances of being happy in the present by living with the ghosts of the past

That one taunt, that one heart-piercing word, that one heartbreak, and that one incident. Give them all sufficient place to thrive in your soul and they will eat you alive. Keeping yourself closed within walls etched with the bad memories of past can only bring a lot of pain. You have to remember that those were just moments, sure they must have been very painful, but again, they were just moments that are now in the past. And how can you be mad about something that is in the past? So shake them off of your back! Letting every bad moment of the gone times guide your each step today will keep you bound to negativity, and will devoid you of great opportunities.

 

3. When you keep switching from one wrong relationship to another assuming that only losers eat alone in restaurants!

So spending alone time is a thing of the stupid (as they say) but breaking records of dating every wrong person on the planet is not? Just because each friend in your group seems to have found their special someone or, just because your Facebook timeline these days is more like a fancy digital album of honeymoon photos, it does not mean that there is no single happy person alive on this planet. In fact, there are lots of them. And it is not to say that singles are happy or that the committed ones are a sad bunch. It is just to give out the thought that there is no harm in first finding your true self. Once you know you, and love you, you will no longer feel the need to go out of your way in pleading someone else to love you back. Things will happen for you and those things will mean something.

 

4. When you lower your worth by comparing yourself with others

Comparing yourself with others all the time will lead you nowhere ever. If their shoes are shiny, then may be your intelligence is shinier. If they know English (which is just another language), then may be you know some other one, like Hindi. If they are putting their best foot forward all the time, it does not mean that that you are good for nothing. You are good. You are the best thing that could have ever happened to you. So make the most of you and strive for perfection. But before that, strive for happiness and originality. Every one has different kinds of flaws and strengths. Deal with it and feel proud of what all is in your plate. May be others don’t have those flavours in their personalities, or in their life.

 

5. When outer appearances and status hold more importance in your life

You rejected that man’s proposal of being your life partner because he is not exactly Hugh Jackman type or, is just an undergrad and not even in engineering field! But what will come handy five years into the married life when it hits a rough patch? His sensible thoughts and caring heart or, the fact that he talks to machines in his office?

 

6. When you live by the fear of getting hurt

You care about someone fondly but don’t want them to know because you fear they will leave one day and you will end up being emotionally hurt. Okay! But, living with this fear or any other for that matter, will keep you devoid of that beauty which dwells across this spooky tunnel. So shoot out. Tell them how much alive you feel each second when they are around, tell your mother how strongly you feel about all the sacrifices she has done to support your career, tell your father how sorry you are for all the times you let his faith in you down. Just tell them. This might make you seem emotional but who said being emotional is a sign of weakness when in fact, it is a quality of the courageous! It takes courage to open up about things you feel so strongly about. So take that step, do something courageous.

 

7. When you start adjusting in life thinking that doing so will make you a hero

Adjusting is one thing, adjusting a lot is another thing, adjusting or tolerating to the point of exhaustion is wearing a suicide bomb jacket. Be it working with fishy employees who are always weaving politics against you, or trying to catch sleep listening to the sounds of traumatizing violence happening next door. You spend time thinking that it is your fault. That it is you who is bad at adjusting. That the world is bad and so you have to be more patient at tolerating it. You battle panic attacks each night and for what? Only to wake up the next day feeling so exhausted that you end up moving your butt from your bed in a dingy depressing room to the one in a smelly hospital room? And that would be being brave? What the duck! If situations go bad, the brave thing to do is take the stand for your own good and leave. Leave because you don’t want to harm yourself. Leave because diving in the shark spot is foolishness not adventurous!

 

8. When you feel that entertainment means staying intoxicated

That one deep inhale makes you see circles of pleasure. It gives you the feelings you would never want to let go off. And you start believing that intoxication is the only way life can be enjoyed. Really? Who said that it is possible to enjoy life by losing senses? Wash it down your throat, let your hair down, and party like there is no tomorrow, and you have yourself a memorable moment. Make sipping a part of your daily routine, and see your life transform from being a happy one to being a struggle. A struggle to survive with multiple health problems. Same goes for cigarettes and illicit drugs that you “think” make you look cool! When you can’t get rid of stress without lighting up the butt of toxins, it is not cool. It is being weak.

 

9. When you think food is the best stress buster in the world!

Stressed-eating pleases your soul and calms you down. But what you don’t realize is that in the process of feeding your soul, you also end up feeding a little bit extra to your body. A little bit more than it needs to function optimally. Sure it is extremely satisfying to lick-clean the ice-cream family pack every time you feel blue. But then doing so repeatedly over a few days, will make you say ahoy to bulging butt flesh and tummy! And falling in addiction to food will have you welcome obesity. And your obesity will put pressure on your heart. Do I still need to explain what happens when heart gets under pressure?

 

10. When you think that developing a sharp tongue is the best way to deal with the world of today

From a young age itself, we are taught about the importance of being brave. Which is a good thing of course! But most of us interpret this lesson in our own weird ways and think that being brave means practicing punching on people and not on punching bag. Some others think it means engaging in a war of words even when it is not necessary! You think being brave means bargaining with a poor fruit seller or, by getting into a tiff with an autowala? Developing such habits make you a nagger and not brave by any means. If you want to know the real definition of “brave”, ask Malala Yousafzai. Or may be ask your single mother, who morphed her many years of burning the midnight oil, into the car you always desired to show off as yours.

Making mistakes mean we are out there doing something. So don’t be ashamed. Just be sure to learn from them and start afresh. This is how you grow!

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