As the old saying goes, whatever doesn't kill you will only make you stronger and in many ways, that holds true when life teaches harsh lessons . It can be painful to learn things are more complicated than we thought and that people will disappoint us. But when we accept the ugly truths of life , we appreciate the beautiful things even more.
Taking these realizations to heart can also prevent us from having to learn them a second time. The sad thing is that many of the most challenging life lessons have to be learned through experience . Someone can tell you who to avoid or that life comes at you fast, but most of us have to learn these things first-hand.
A Redditor who goes by Professional-Can8235 asked the AskReddit forum , “What is the harshest truth you’ve ever learned?” and people shared how they realized that life wasn’t all lollipops and rainbows. However, they also discussed how coming to these lessons helped them become stronger people.
Here are 14 of the best responses to “What is the harshest truth you’ve ever learned?”
1. Love doesn't conquer all
"Even if you treat someone really well and you both love each other, it doesn’t always end like a Hollywood movie. Sometimes there are too many obstacles."
2. Sometimes you can't win
"You can do everything right, give something 100% effort, follow all the rules and still fail."
3. Hard work isn't always rewarded
"Being the hardest worker will not always equate to you being the one rewarded or recognized for accomplishments."
"I was always warned by my grandfather that from a corporate point of view that to make yourself irreplaceable could oftentimes make you unpromotable... Because the powers that be would rather have you keep going than wait for someone else to learn a role already being filled."
4. Don't fall in love with potential
"Learned this the hard way. I crossed my own personal boundaries just because I was holding on to a person’s potential. Never again."
"It kind of goes back to the saying, 'When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.'"
5. You can't make someone love you
"Loving someone unconditionally and being willing to do anything for them doesn't mean that they will feel the same way about you."
"You can’t love someone into loving you back."
6. Organizations are made of people
"Every organization, no matter how lauded, how aspirational, how trusted, is still at the end of the day comprised of very fallible humans."
"And in the end, they almost always end up subverting the purpose for which they were formed."
7. Life is short
"You grow up hearing this over and over again but until you reach a certain age you don’t have the perspective to fully grasp this."
"The age that I felt the oldest was 25. After that, it just became a number. The number changes, but inside, the person's self-image does not. Throughout life, old is always 10 years older than you are now."
8. Nice guys finish last
"Sometimes the nicest people just seem to get fu**ed over by the universe through no fault of their own."
"Conversely, sometimes the a**holes inherit the earth and you can't do anything about it."
9. You never realize a "last" when it's happening
"A big one for me is how many 'last times' you'll have, and how often you won't realize it's a last time. Things can change so fast. Go bowling every Monday? Have a convention you and your friends go to yearly? Hang out regularly with the same people? One day is going to be the last time it happens, and almost without fail, you will not know. Then you go days without talking to someone, then weeks, then months, then one day you realize that you aren't really friends anymore. No major fallout, just your lives are no longer compatible."
10. Everyone is forgotten
"No matter what you have or what you do, you will be essentially forgotten after a few generations."
11. Nobody is worrying about you
"Stop worrying what others think, most people are so caught up in themselves they barely know anyone else exists. Don't let your ego convince you that anyone gives a rat's ass about what you're doing. Of the few out there that do care, even fewer of them can do anything to either help or harm you."
12. Always someone better
"No matter how talented you are at something, there will always be someone way better than you."
"Talent just gets you a seat at the table. Too many people think being talented is all you need and the opportunities will come rolling in, but that’s not the case. It’s the people who couple talent with gumption that get the opportunities. Hell, I’ve seen guys with barely any talent but strong work ethics and willingness to do 'whatever it takes' run all over guys with obscene amounts of talent but no gumption."
13. Some people aren't special
"I'm not at all special."
"That's actually a freeing thought if you let it be. If you think that you are special, there's pressure and entitlement and fear of failure. If you are just as special as everyone else, it takes a large weight off your shoulders and you can be free to try things, some of which you're pretty sure might fail, with far less fear of failure. You're not special, so who cares if it takes you a while to get it right?"
14. Things aren't black and white
"We grow up thinking that the side of evil will be clearly defined, and the villains will be super obvious, mustache-twirling Lex Luthor, while the good guys are purely righteous supermen. Turns out, right and wrong is very challenging to define."
"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it was necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
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