Life is Not a Straight Line - By Ekatvam

Your Plans and what Universe plans for you (Pic: Doghousediaries)

Understand that life is not a straight line. Life is not a set timeline of milestones. It is okay if you don't finish school, get married, find a job that supports you, have a family, make money, and live comfortably all by this age, or that age. It's okay if you do, as long as you understand that if you're not married by 25, or a Vice President by 30 - or even happy, for that matter - the world isn't going to condemn you. You are allowed to backtrack. You are allowed to figure out what inspires you. You are allowed time, and I think we often forget that.

We choose a program right out of high school because the proper thing to do is to go straight to college. We choose a job right out of college, even if we didn't love our major or concentration, because we just invested time (and money) into it. We go to that job every morning because we feel the need to support ourselves and live abundantly. We take the next step, and the next step, and the next step, thinking that we are fulfilling some checklist for life, and one day we wake up depressed. We wake up stressed out. We feel pressure and don't know why. That is how you ruin your life.

You ruin your life by choosing the wrong person. What is it with our need to fast-track relationships? Why are we so enamored with the idea of first becoming somebody's rather than somebodies? Trust me when I say that a love bred out of convenience, a love that blossoms from the need to sleep beside someone, a love that caters to our need for attention rather than passion, is a love that will not inspire you at 6 am when you roll over and embrace it.

Strive to discover foundational love, the kind of relationship that motivates you to be a better man or woman, the kind of intimacy that is rare rather than right there.

Be alone to discover yourself back of who you are and what you want to be

"But I don't want to be alone," we often exclaim. Be alone. Eat alone, take yourself on dates, sleep alone. It's okay, in fact, in the midst of this you will learn about yourself. You will grow, you will figure out what inspires you, you will curate your own dreams, your own beliefs, your own stunning clarity, and when you do meet the person who makes your the cells in your body dance, you will be sure of it--because you are sure of yourself. Wait for it. Please, I urge you to wait for it, to fight for it, to make an effort for it. Some of you have already found it, and you know this, because it is the most beautiful thing your heart will experience.

You ruin your life by letting your past govern it. It is common for certain things in life to happen to you. There will be heartbreak, confusion, days where you feel like you aren't special or purposeful. There are moments that will stay with you, words that will stick. You cannot let these things define you - they were simply moments, they were simply words.

Don't let negative event destroy your life. Get up and move on!!!

If you allow for every negative event in your life to outline how you view yourself, you will view the world around you negatively. You will miss out on opportunities because you didn't get that promotion five years ago, convincing yourself that you were unqualified or or too stupid. You will miss out on affection because you assumed your past love left you because you weren't good enough, and now you don't believe the man or the woman who urges you to believe you are. This is a cyclical and self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you don't allow yourself to move beyond what happened, what was said, or what was felt, you will look at your future though that same lens, and nothing will be able to breach that judgment. You will keep justifying, reliving, and fueling a perception that should not have even existed in the first place.

Realize your true power (Pic source: Beautyiswithin.net)

You ruin your life when you compare yourself to others. The amount of Instagram followers you have does not decrease or increase your value. The amount of money in your bank account will not influence your compassion, your intelligence, or your happiness. The person who has two times more possessions than you does not have double the bliss, or double the merit. We get caught up in what our friends are liking, who our significant others are following, and at the end of the day this not only ruins our lives, but it also ruins us. It creates within us this need to feel important, and in many cases we often put others down to achieve that.

Dare to say your heart out loud!!! (Pic source: livelifehappy.com)

You ruin your life by desensitizing yourself. We are all afraid to say too much, to feel too deeply, to let people know what they mean to us. Caring is not synonymous with crazy. Expressing to someone how special they are to you will make you vulnerable. There is no denying that. However, that is nothing to be ashamed of.

There is something breathtakingly beautiful in the moments of smaller magic that occur when you strip down and are honest with those who are important to you. Let that girl or boy know that she inspires you. Tell your mother you love her in front of your friends. Reveal a side of yourself to your spouse that you have kept hidden. Express, express, express. Open yourself up, do not harden yourself to the world, and be bold in who, and how, you love. There is courage in that.

All you need is to believe in yourself (Pic source: Google.com)

You ruin your life by tolerating it. At the end of the day you should be excited to be alive. When you settle for anything less than what you innately desire, you destroy the possibility that lives inside of you, and in that way you cheat both yourself and the world of your potential. The next Michelangelo could be sitting behind a Macbook right now writing an invoice for office supplies, because it pays the bills, or because it is comfortable, or because he can tolerate it. Do not let this happen to you. Do not ruin your life this way.

Life and work, and life and love, are not exclusive of each other. They are intrinsically linked. We have to strive to do extraordinary work, we have to strive to find extraordinary love. Only then will we tap into an extraordinarily blissful life. A life celebrating your inner light and the light in all others.

With love from Ekatvam

P.S: This article is not written by me. I re-post it on my blog because I find it worth reading and sharing. Thank you for the writer to write it so well that it touches many of people's heart.

To sum it up - Be Yourself (Pic source: Az Quotes)

On personal note

I feel that my life is more or less just like the first top picture shown above. What we planned and what Universe responded to us would not always in the same path.

In my course of life it'd been many times that I spent much money and time starting on something but then given them up. I never regretted all my decisions though, because I simply listened and followed what my heart was saying. 

I might sound or act blunt, less tactful, or rude sometimes, but again, I just did not want to hide my feelings and regretted for things that I did not do.

I might sound mushy to suddenly send message to you to thank or appreciate everything that came and happened into my life since it all happened because of you, your love, your family bonding, your friendship, the joy and luck you brought into my life, your incessant support, your spiritual guide, and so on. Let it be mushy but I wanted you to know that you were loved and appreciated for all the things that you had showered me with all through my life. All those have built me into who I am now.

Love much and fully. Not love just because he or she loves me. It takes two hands to clap in any relationship. Do not settle for something that you do not put your heart into. It will only hurt the other party when he or she knows that you do not love as much as he or she loves you. Everything in life is about balance. Give and take. Not just take and not giving.

I am still learning and always learn. I am grateful that I have positive outlook towards life. Beautiful castle is not built within a day, so does ourselves. We need the right foundation to build the strong self and only through mistakes, we learn to build the better side of us and not to repeat the same mistake, again and again.

Wish everyone a wonderful day and weekend!!! :)

Hope the article above can help you in any way towards your personal life, just like it helps me. Have a wonderful life ahead everyone!!! :)