15 mistakes of your life will be realized when you are old.

When you are young, you have Time and Energy but no Money. When you get older you have Money and Energy but no Time. And later when you finally have Time and Money, you no longer have Energy that time you will start realizing life’s mistakes. But remember that young life is very precious which you will not realize until you become old. It’s the energy, beauty, vibe of the youth that writes most of your life story. When you are in the death-bed, most of your concept of living life is completely opposite to what you are thinking now. Below listed are mistakes realized by most of the people when they get old .So if you are young learn from these others mistake and at least plan better if you can’t avoid some of them completely.

Image: La Melodie, Flickr, Creative commons license.

The people you make friends during the life journey are so much more important than your job OR the things you buy.
Control impulse on spending and plan Finances in better way.
Always worrying about what others think and Holding yourself back due to society & cultural norms.
Pursue your dream and passion, although you are too busy.
Being too consumed in work.
Focus on being happy and forget the drama.
Not travelling while you could.
Failing to live up to your own potential, not realizing how beautiful you are and Neglecting physical fitness.
Trying to change other people’s behavior / habits.
Thinking other people were my responsibility.
Thinking that my mistakes would ruin my life.
Worrying way too much and letting jealousy over power you.
Confusing lust with love.
Not saying I love you when you had the chance.
Settling & giving up and believing in the Retirement Lifestyle

Let us go through these mistakes in detail one by one.

The people you make friends during the life journey are so much more important than your job OR the things you buy:

You may work for great corporate jobs; you have brought lot of things and also would have made few friends. But you will realize when you are old the most that matter in life to you is your friends. You will realize that you could have spent more time with your family and friends than spending more time on the other things. You will feel that you have not contributed enough to the society, family and friends in terms of love, affection and giving your valuable time as needed.

Image: Fernando de Sousa, Flickr ,Creative commons license.
Control impulse on spending and plan Finances in better way:

In case if you get in to financial trouble during your life’s journey then one of the main reason is impulse spending. Things like buying clothes when you really don’t need them. Buying gadgets to have them since others have them. Buying stuff to impress the society, neighbors, friends and women thinking it will increase your value. When you are old you will realize if only you had thought over your purchases by giving it some time before taking the decision. So just think if it is a NEED or a WANT before purchasing.

Finance management skill cannot be easily learnt from book reading. You need to just practice it. Although you know that you are supposed to budget and track your spending, but in practical you will be lazy or too busy to do that. So you need to learn how to plan and most importantly to stick to that financial spending plan. Don’t make Expensive Financial Decisions when you don’t have a clue about what you’re doing. Remember that saving is a great art than earning.

Image: 401(K) 2012, Flickr, Creative commons license.

Always worrying about what others think and Holding yourself back due to society & cultural norms:

Many time you hesitate the things you like to do because you think you are not good at that and being disliked or mocked by others. You cannot make other people like everything you are doing in life. Some people have comments on everything which you cannot control and which really don’t affect you as you think. Look back to your past to realize this fact.

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Pursue your dream and passion, although you are too busy:

Getting too comfortable makes you not to use your real potential. For example you wanted to become writer and may be doing a different kind of job due to financial constraint. You may never have had time to write due to family, full time job and children commitment. However you have to make those hours to reach your dream slowly. May be it may take 10 years or more. Set aside a block of 1 to 2 hour time aside daily for what you love to do , cut out other stuff from your life that takes time like TV, gossip, more sleeping etc. and don’t let anything interfere with that work.

Being dissatisfied in a Job but doing nothing about it is very bad journey of life. Fear of unknown, laziness, lack of information and not knowing what you want to do in life, will hold you back the real thing you wanted to do in life. Don’t compare yourself to others and follow the path of others who succeeded in a field which is not your cup of tea. Focus on your strength by doing different things until you feel the sense that you are in right path and continue your effort in that path without quitting until you reach your goal.

Image: Celestine Chua, Flickr, Creative commons license.

Being too consumed in work:

All that office stuff that is stressing you won’t matter in next 5 years. You were having deadlines, projects and your manager on top of you and your stress level may have gone through the roof. You would have been less stressed if you could have realized that it would not matter down the lane in a couple of years. But remember the hard work and stress level you will go through in the job which is fulfilling your dream and passion will pay you off in long term without knowing oneself. The skills and habits learned during the high stress will be useful in life forever.

Focus on being happy and forget the drama:

Happiness is state of mind. Your life has been slightly unstructured; you can make yourself into anything that you wish. This moment if you are willing, you can make yourself very joyful and pleasant. This moment if you want, you can make yourself very unpleasant and miserable. Close your eyes and imagine yourself you are happy person by thinking a positive event in your life and you can be happy at this moment. There have been many things that have happened to you professionally and personally, that seem like the end of the world. And while these things were bad, they get blown up in your head so that they become a major drama. They can cause you depression from time to time. What a waste of time. If you realized that it was all in your head, and that you could be happy instead if you focused on the positive, on what you did have, and what you could be doing. Then you could have skipped all the cribbing about bad things.

Image: BK, Flickr ,Creative commons license.

Not travelling while you could:

To get more joy in life travel more. It does not mean taking vacation, journey somewhere you have never gone before with an open schedule, to let life show you what opportunities were waiting for you that you could have even imagined before. It will capture the culture to experience, food to eat and people to meet. Most of us think we need to wait until our later years, but decide to travel more now. After travelling you will appreciate your home more and you will realize it is extremely easy to make friends.

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Failing to live up to your own potential, not realizing how beautiful you are and Neglecting physical fitness:

To do something new people are scared. When you first tried to learn to swim or cycle how scared were you. People are scared to achieve greater and new things. You need to come out from your comfort zone to show up your real potential. You face the fear and unknown to reach your real potential. Now when you are old, you may realize that you would have utilized every single day of your life to the fullest. Also remember any physical activity like gym, yoga, walking etc. is must to maintain physical fitness.

Image: La Melodie, Flickr, Creative commons license.

Trying to change other people’s behavior / habits:

People can change but you cannot change them, no matter how much you want to. No matter how much they may need someone’s help to change. Only the circumstance, situation and their own urge to change will change them. Some people do change but most people don’t. So accept people as they are without wasting your energy to change.

Thinking that other people were my responsibility:

Carrying other people’s burden and expectation is heavy to bear and which will lead to forget your passion, dream and real potential. No one should ever expect us to make them happy because we simply cannot do that for long-term. It is beyond our control. Happiness is state of mind and only that person has the control on his mind to keep him happy. Whatever you offer will make others happy only for a short-term.

Thinking that my mistakes would ruin my life:

If you look back, you would have done many mistakes and still you are happy and alive. Life is of choice and you need to choose one. You took the decision to choose one option with the best of knowledge and resource you had at that point of time. So no regret is needed if that decision turned to become a mistake in later days. You always learn from your mistakes and grow in life even though you have faced tough situations due to that mistake.

Image: Celestine Chua, Flickr ,Creative commons license.

Worrying way too much and letting jealousy over power you:

In your academics you have scored less and you get very worried But to only realize later that by scoring that extra score it would not have changed your life completely. Your interest, memory and way of thinking may not be as good as high scoring students. May be it is their strength and your strength lies in another area. But you are having a unique strength in which no one can beat you. Identify those to be successful. Worrying will waste time; only in life just doing the things will work. Instead of spending your time on worrying and procrastinating you could make use of it and could have done something productive.

Confusing lust with love:

In your teenage you will think lust is a sign of true love. However when you are old you will know that the butterflies, the fast beating heart, the sweaty palms and the nerves intoxicating are not signs of love. It’s infatuation.

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Not saying I love you when you had the chance:

You wish you had gathered some courage to do it at that point of time when needed because you realize if you did that you would have felt happy now although the opposite persons reaction was not positive.
Settling & giving up and believing in the Retirement Lifestyle:

Now a day’s life has a standard pattern, get a degree and job that may or may not fit in to your like but which offers good money to live a quiet life and get drunk on weekends. Next target is to by a car and apartment. Then spend time to meet a nice girl and marry her and have some kids. Thereafter the only choice left to Pay the monthly EMI and pay for the kids 20 years and spend 20 years in retirement and die quite. Finally one day you will realize “this is not the life I wanted to live. It sucks”. Also after 10 years of working you will realize that you have not done anything in your life other than buy things. So don’t spend time accumulating things. Do the things you will be proud and happy of when remembering your past in the death-bed at any point of time in life.

The plan of living and postponing happiness after retirement is bad idea. Just don’t work to live happily after retirement. If you choose to work for a job which is your passion then no need of retirement till death.

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