I despise preaching texts. And I despise people who tell everyone what to do.

And mostly, I hate a mix of these two when it comes to “deep quotes”, which shall enlighten us and help getting through 1.  a bleak monday (“Find a job that makes you happy and doesn’t make you want to take vacation from” – who are you kidding) or 2. a bad relationship (“Be with someone who makes you feel worth it” – thanks, you should be a love therapist) or 3. a healthy lifestyle (“Love yourself enough to live a healthy lifestyle” – shut up!).

BUT I like thoughts, which are shared out of real life experiences – not an Instagram post that might look good between your chia pudding and your delicate jewellery still life pics.

And that’s why I thought about writing some things down, which I noticed about myself and those who were close with me the past half year.

Without going into too much depth, I feel like there are very few moments in my and some others’ lives where we very actively appreciate things we achieved, received or fought for.

Much like the child-principle, I most of the time live after the thought “if I get it, I like it and at some point it won’t be enough”. And this works very well to keep oneself motivated to thrive for “more” since “now” is “not enough” at some point.

But during the past months, I often perceived how, especially in my close surrounding, things that have been received (like chances) or achieved (like what we make out of these chances) are simply taken for granted. And I don’t talk about how we should all be happy about the fact that we have a roof, water and food (this is certainly not a goodie-person blog).

I just want to highlight that, sometimes, it’s good hold on for a minute and see how situations, that once scared the hell out of yourself and made you facing new extremes (or do at the very moment), can grow on you and make you someone else.

Someone, who will make use of unsatisfying, frustrating and low experiences. Thus, be thankful for these experiences, instead of just taking the fact of overcoming them, leaving them (always an option) or, most importantly, RECEIVING them for granted.

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Ultimately, I guess that it’s the downsides of moments and time periods, that prove our decision making and can indirectly decide where we head next – is this moment enough & you need to get out? Or are you making yourself going through it, in hope and motivation that it will help you refining yourself (instead of breaking yourself) –  be it professionally, personally or/and emotionally.

I also more and more see how I, along a lot of people I got to know since I pushed my re-start buttons back in summer, think that things are just deserved. Especially in that fearful time of finding something after uni.
“We deserve” to get a great job after dropping out of uni and having nothing in our hands but a degree, which we refer to as our assurance of being capable of doing “real-life”-things.
“We deserve” to work with the creme de la creme of people in our future jobs from the moment we enter a company.
“We deserve” to hold an important role in our professional life from day 1.
“We deserve” to not do the dirty work – “that’s for those below us”.

No, hell no. I’ve been recently given a very smart advice from someone I developed great appreciation for. “One doesn’t deserve anything” – until we prove it to ourselves and someone who will appreciate this proof just as much as we appreciate the chance to prove it.

And how are we proving this? With nothing else but not expecting to deserve anything from all the things that I listed as what we believe we “we deserve”. And if, after time, nobody appreciates … at least you should be reason enough to recognize the lesson that could be learned from it.

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If I haven’t put myself into some situations and forced myself to suck it up while actively recognizing that the time is NOW to start treasuring the chances in front of me, I would have probably not been able appreciate what I was able to learn during the past half year – with all its ups and downs.

That being said, it takes an undefined time to learn how and when to appreciate these moments, which quickly prove to be hard, time consuming, sobering and challenging all at once. After all, this is one of the hardest things one can learn I suppose – and I don’t think I’m there yet, either.

Personally speaking, and reasoning this little half-emotional post, I am very grateful for the lessons I learned until now after starting from almost zero last summer.

I don’t take it for granted that I made some decisions, which have appeared to be almost unmanageable but rewarded me with the best outcomes afterwards. After all, I found myself in very questioning and unstable moments, all triggered by a decision I did myself.

But here I am, being truly grateful for every experience I received in return of starting (!) to learn how to appreciate chances and moments that passed by my way in that recent time. If only for a second that I thought something can be taken for granted, reality thankfully hit shortly after (something, which shall be equally not be taken for granted… because reality is sometimes just as late as I am for my manicure in 10 minutes).

No matter what you interpret out of these lines (and I know they might be very blurry as I don’t take concrete examples), I believe that we all shouldn’t take anything/any chance we receive for granted, no matter how negative or positive that “thing” might be at first glance.

If you understand and learn how to make the most of something, you can indeed start appreciating it for whatever use you’d like or will make of it.

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This post is for A, J & M – real-life warriors, who know exactly what I’m talking about.
(and my parents – the biggest  supporters there are..)