Hard Times Teach Valuable Lessons – Part 1

As a child I grew up very shy and scared of what people may think of me. I stopped myself from being me out of fear of rejection from other people, it was very difficult because I grew up moving around a lot. By the time I turned 10 I had already lived in 2 countries, a few states, and a few provinces. I had traveled much more than most kids and also had been to at least 4 schools. It wasn’t easy making friends when you didn’t know if you’d even have the chance to grow a real relationship with them without being torn away and brought elsewhere. Don’t get me wrong though, I am very grateful for every moment in my life leading up to where I am today whether it was bad or good, because that is what created the person that I am today.

I had many moments of enlightenment in my life. Each one of these moments moulded me into the person I am today. Today I want to talk about one of these moments of enlightenment in my life.

Now I was very lucky growing up, because I had the opportunity to live both in poverty and in the abundance of wealth. On my mothers side, we lived month to month sometimes having difficulties making ends meet. While living through this full time at my mothers, my father didn’t have those issues for a period. My father and I would leave on business trips to the U.S. or vacations in the Bahamas and Jamaica. Every trip was done with first class tickets, and 5 star presidential suites. It was amazing. I became accustomed to us traveling to New York, it seemed only to shop and buy new clothes.

So you see I was both in a situation of extreme wealth and poverty growing up. That made it even more difficult to see my own mother struggling.

This is where I had my first moment of enlightenment. At the age of 12, I was both unlucky and lucky enough to live through a very difficult event. After having a few difficult years, my mother and I seemed to finally be able to live alright and we had purchased a building downtown in the town we lived, my mother had her beauty salon on the first floor and we lived on the second floor. Life was pretty easy for awhile, however one night while both of us were away (luckily), the building caught fire. The next morning I remember waking up and people looking at me funny until they finally told me that my mothers building had burned down and we lost everything. It was traumatizing at the time. I remember crying more than I had ever cried in my life. I had lost all my things, my gaming consoles (I was a hardcore gamer), my collection of Swarovski sculptures, my clothes, tvs, etc. From a 12 year olds point of view, it couldn’t get worst. From any point of view really. Obviously it was worst for my mother losing her business and home. At least I had a second home at my fathers. However, after reflecting on this moment in my life, I realized that this was a very important event that taught me a valuable lesson.

The lesson I learned is that you should never put importance on tangible “things”. There are only 3 things in life that we should ever put value on, our lives/health, the relationships we have with others, and the experiences we live through. “Things” will never be as amazing as real life experiences. For a child who grew up with wealth and being able to purchase almost anything (unless my father said “no”) that was a very valuable lesson to learn, because I had put so much value on my things.

After this life changing event happened, I became aware that I should start working on myself and believe in myself. I started the stepping stone journey towards removing my fear of rejection and being myself. I remember playing soccer and finally for the first time giving it my 100% and I became one of the best players in my school and team overnight, after years of playing and being stuck only being “ok” at the sport.

I will be sharing other moments in my life in the future, but all this is not for you to feel sorry about me or to make you jealous of me. It is only to share with you my story and the lessons I learned from them. I hope that you can take away something positive from this and that if you are not living up to your full potential, that you will begin taking small steps towards getting to your full potential. Life is too short and can end at any moment, why take the chance of being only mediocre when you can be the person you were meant to be in this world.

Please comment and share something about yourself that helped you learn to be the best you and or if you have any questions for me, please ask