Life Lessons

Simren Bhatia

Jul 26, 2023 • 5 min read

My boyfriend's cat, Maggie. The cutest cat.

7/18/2023

I'll be honest, when I first created that post on Instagram telling you that there would be a special topic talked about in a blog, I had no idea what it was going to be. I knew I wanted to provide value to my readers because honestly, I'm just so greatful. I don't have many readers, but the fact that 10-15 people take their time out of their day's to read what I wrote, means so much to me. So here's my special blog, that I hope you enjoy.

I'm 20 years old, turning 21 this December. Sure I haven't bought my first car, or had a kid, or graduated college, but I've done a ton of other things and I feel like I have a lot to share. So here's a little bit of knowledge I will share with you, in hopes that you don't make the same mistakes I did, no matter what stage of life you're in.

Don't lie.

There's a reason this is the first lesson in this blog. I used to be a liar liar pants on fire. It's funny now but it wasn't then. Throughout all of high school, I used to lie to everyone about everything. I was a pathological liar and a compulsive liar, there was a combination of manipulation and guilt-ridden anxiety that made me tell stories that simply weren't true. I wanted drama and attention instead of just being happy with what I had. There were some absurd stories I told ranging from meeting celebrities, expensive trips, and fancy things I had, all the way to needing help in certain subjects for attention and talking about people just so that people would talk to me.

Do I regret it? Yes. More than you know. How I WISH I could go back in time and reverse the lies I told because they broke trust between me and some of the people that I love so much. Including my parents, friends, other family members, and even people I JUST met.

I make it a point in my life not to lie anymore. It's been a very long time since I've lied to anyone, because it's not worth the negative affects and it's literally just wrong. It might feel good that people think you're cool for that second, but it'll go away. Trust me, I'm speaking from personal experience. If you're going to take one thing away from this whole blog, it's this: Don't lie because it's not WORTH IT. Just don't.

Don't expect good things if you don't work for them.

Manifestation is such a controversial topic, even though it's popular now more than ever. I have manifested things before, and yes they have come true. Some of them. After lots of manifestation and praying and hoping. You NEED to work hard for the things you want. There is maybe 0.001% of the population that lives off of their inheritance and CAN live off of their inheritance. Speaking realistically, even that 0.001% has to work to keep their inheritance what with taxes and inflation and all other-worldly factors (that I don't know much about if you can't already tell).

As someone who hops between interests in the span of about 3 days, I know it might be hard to put in the work into what matters. Hard work gives you a sense of determination, responsibility, and self-control. It also makes you feel better overall about reaping the benefits. Manifestation might work, in fact, it might add to the likely hood of something happening, but I assure you, that's not all it takes. For anything to happen the way you intend it to, you need to WORK HARD. This summer I choose not to rest because I want to be successful, so I'm working hard and learning all kinds of things. And don't worry, I'm manifesting too

Don't sacrifice permanent for temporary.

Here, I'll give you an analogy: Say you work somewhere that is giving you a steady income, health benefits, and a 401k plan. Now say you get an offer for a year long minimal pay internship. You would decline right? But you discover that employees that graduate from that internship program make 2x what you're currently making, but theres no health benefits or 401k plan. Would you take it?

The old me would've said "YES, MONEY!!!" but the new me is saying "No, that's not practical". Because it's not.

Don't turn away or ignore or even get rid of something that matters to you for something that you may or may not want or even need. The same thing goes for people in relationships. I've lost so many "friends" because they cared about their boyfriend/girlfriend more than they valued a friendship. And as soon as that relationship was over, they came running back. Is that even a friend? NO. But in that case they sacrificed permanent (a friendship) for temporary (that high school relationship).

It's a common mistake that a lot of people make because they don't see the everlasting results. They only see what's right in front of them whatever that be. And hey, I'm guilty of this too, I've done this in a few different ways before without even realizing I was doing it. It happens but as long as we pinpoint when it happened, we can figure out how to stop.

Create your own opinion about someone.

So the reason I put this here is because I feel like it's super important to make opinions based off of your own interactions with someone. I have friends that talk negatively about some people, but when I meet those people, they seem super nice and respectful. I would still have my guard up, assuming that what my friend said was true, but I wouldn't let them cloud my judgement. Through this, I've found a lot of new friends, and made a lot of new experiences.

Even though this is miniscule part of the blog as a whole, it's important to note that you can't hide behind people's opinions and feelings forever. There's of course limits to this, depending on the reason for the negative opinion but overall, create your own opinions and be friends with who you do and don't want to be friends with. But overall, in one sentence: Don't let a loved one's opinion of someone cloud your judgement.

Don't emotionally manipulate your loved ones.

And the best part is, they don't even realize they're doing it. This is kind of a broad topic though, because there's a lot of actions that fall under emotional manipulation. I've seen this happen in front of my eyes with friends and it honestly scared me. It's just such a terrible thing to do. To make someone feel negatively so that you can get something out of it. There's no positive impact that could come from it. I personally am not sure what it looks like from the manipulators end. But from the receivers end, I can tell you it's not pretty.

So here's the value I felt that I needed to give you through the form of Life Lessons. I hope that you were able to gain some knowledge from this. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already :) Ciao!