10 Hard Pills to Swallow and Lessons from Them

There are a lot of brutal truths that many of us find hard to accept – what we also refer to as ‘hard pills to swallow’. However, with these brutal truths, there is always something you can take away such as a valuable lesson. Too many people avoid hard. They want things to be easy. They don’t say it. But they think it. If you want the good life you have to choose hard more than easy. Society mostly chooses easy.

Here are 10 hard pills to swallow in life and the lessons to learn from them as well as a positive spin on these problematic truths:

1. Not Everyone Will Like You

To begin, one hard pill to swallow is that not everyone will like you. WE ALL WANT TO BE LIKED! However, not everyone will love you for who you are, BUT you should NEVER become someone you are truly not. People respond to authenticity and eventually, the person you’re pretending to be will bleed through and people will lose respect for you once they find out you’ve been lying about who you are. There is no one in this world who doesn’t have haters, even if they seem to be ‘perfect’. Not everyone will clap for your success, but there ARE people who will (focus on those who care for you, not those who don’t).

Lesson: The most important love is self-love – don’t depend on others to feel worthy of yourself!

2. You Can’t Have Everything You Want in Life

As children, we may have dreamed of finding true love, having a grand wedding, having our own family, owning our own massive house, and buying what we want but sometimes, life throws obstacles and we may not get everything we wish for. You should still dream big, but if you worked hard, exhausted all options, and can’t get what you want, then take it as a sign that it might not be meant for you.

Lesson: It’s important to be grateful and appreciate what you already have.

3. You Can’t Be Happy All the Time-Life Will Have its Ups and Downs

Another hard pill to swallow is that we can’t be happy all the time. Everyone wants to experience happiness all the time. No one likes experiencing pain and suffering, hence we do whatever it takes to get rid of the pain. However, pain is inevitable, which is something we need to accept. Positive spin: Accepting that it’s impossible to be happy all the time helps us embrace the unhappy moments in life. Pain sucks, but it’s also necessary for your growth. Without pain, you would never realize how important it is to cherish the happy and amazing moments.

Lesson: Happiness doesn’t only come from cherishing the happy moments, but also from embracing the bad moments in life.

4. Hurt People, Hurt People

Strangers, colleagues, and family you love will try to hurt you. It won’t make any sense. It’ll keep you awake at night. Lots of people are deeply hurt. They refuse to face their pain. So they walk around hurt, looking for more people to hurt. Hurting you distracts them from their nightmare. They feel less alone when they blame, complain, and attack innocents.

5. The Amount of Effort You Put in for Someone May Not Be Returned

Sometimes it can be hurtful when the same effort isn’t returned. HOWEVER…The universe will reward you in other ways. If you feel as if you got no ‘love’ from life, it WILL come to you one day!

Lesson: Don’t have any expectations from others and help/give others from the kindness of your heart, not because you expect to get something in return.

6. You Can’t Help Everyone Nor Can You Change People

Truth is, we can’t help everyone and not everyone can change. Because of that, I stayed in an unhealthy relationship with hopes that my ex could improve for the better. After this experience, I realized that people only change if they want to for THEMSELVES. Positive spin: If you can relate to this, although we may not be able to change someone, what we can do is act as role models and inspire them. By working on becoming the best you can be, it can inspire others to want to improve themselves.

There is only so much you can do as a human, so focus on doing as much as you can for those around you, and don’t forget to also take care of yourself!

7. You Can’t Control Everything in Life

As much as we all want to control everything in our life, we have to surrender and accept that we can’t. We may try our best to be prepared for what gets thrown at us in life, but many times we are powerless and lose control.

Lesson: There’s no point putting all that unnecessary stress on yourself. Let go of what you can’t control and focus on what you can control!

8. Not Everyone is a Good Person

As much as I didn’t want to accept this, it’s true that there are a lot of mean people in this world. After getting deceived, used, and hurt, I accepted that not everyone is good even though I try to see the good in everyone. There may be people you meet who will also try to deceive you, play with your feelings, and hurt you. HOWEVER… Positive spin: there are also a lot of genuinely amazing people too (even though they are rare)! Meeting nasty people will also be a lesson and prepare you with signs for what not to look for in other friendships or a relationship – try to see good in others, but don’t ignore the red flags!

9. You Can Do Everything and Give all Your Love to Someone, But they May Still Hurt You, Leave you, Etc

This is something that is difficult for many of us to accept. Some of us have had friends and partners who claim they LOVE US TO DEATH and will never leave but still did. It leaves us with a scar on our hearts, and major trust issues and causes us to build our walls even higher than before.

Lesson: These experiences are here to help us realize the importance of self-love.

Why do I say self-love? When someone walks out after you do everything for them, you may blame yourself for not being good enough or doing enough for them. It’s not because you didn’t do ‘enough’ or that you’re not good enough. It’s because they didn’t know how to appreciate someone amazing in front of them. You aren’t the problem, they are!

10. Life is Transient

When you think about it, the fact that everything eventually comes to an end is pretty disheartening. That means having to accept that one day our loved ones will pass away as much as we don’t want them to. Only you will be there for yourself forever – people MAY (some, not all) walk out or you may lose some friendships and grow apart as people change. Everything in life is temporary and that’s definitely one of the hardest pills to swallow for sure.

Lesson: Don’t take anything for granted!

Although many of us do take things for granted and realize once it’s too late, eventually we realize that it’s extremely important to cherish and live to the fullest because everything things eventually come to an end. Hopefully, you have already learned to cherish everyone and every moment before realizing it once it’s too late!

Final Words

An amazing man named Ted Rheingold died of cancer a few years ago. He was lost too soon. Ted said, “If you think a conversation with someone may be the last, you explore it with a force that redefines what a normal trivial conversation means.” Every day you’re talking to people. You never know if any one of those conversations will be the last with that person. Pretend it is. Conversations will start to look different. You’ll communicate with a level of emotion and vulnerability that’ll make you appear superhuman to those trapped in their own Matrix. Too many of you act like you live twice. You start living the day you understand you’re going to die. It could be at any moment. Now that’s a hard pill to swallow that’ll change your life.

For some of us, these ‘hard pills’ to swallow may take time to digest. Just a gentle reminder that there’s no specific time to learn and accept these harsh truths. It doesn’t make you any less weak or different if you have trouble understanding that life isn’t always going to be golden. As long as you actively work on seeing the positive and finding the silver lining in every difficult situation, eventually, it becomes easier to shift your mindset to “why me” to “bring it on”!

What do you think are some hard pills to swallow in life? Do you find it easy or difficult to find the positive and lessons in these truths?

Article Credit: https://inspiringpositively.com/10-hard-pills-to-swallow-and-lessons-from-them/ https://timdenning.com/these-hard-pills-to-swallow-will-get-your-life-back-on-track/