Live.Laugh.Love

1. You feel proud of yourself.

Regardless of where you are in life, you feel proud of yourself for having achieved what you have and having done what you’ve done - whether it’s good or bad. Because life is not about going from one point to the next. Life is about the journey - and the key to loving life is to enjoy the journey.

You’re proud of yourself and for everything you’ve been through because every turning point in life leads you to another. Every change leads to a new destiny. When one door closes, another door opens. No matter what happened in the past, you are who you are because of everything that’s happened and you’re proud of who you’ve become. 

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” - Charles R. Swindoll

2. You feel happy with where you are and where you’re headed.

You know that you’ve done well in life when you’re happy with where you are and where you’re headed. You might not be where you dream of ultimately achieving but you’re happy that you’re on the right path. You know who you are and you’re doing things that align with your values. You don’t do things that go against who you are at the core. You are in touch with your soul, with yourself, and you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. Life will lead you down the right path. 

3. You are better than you were yesterday, last week, and last year.

You might not be the best you could be yet but at least if you’re better than you were yesterday and the day before, then you’ve done well in life. Sometimes we do stupid things. Sometimes we do things we should not have done. But as long as we realize this and aim to become a better person each day - mentally, emotionally, physically, and intellectually, then you’re further along in life than most people.

“The minute you stop improving yourself is the minute your life becomes stale. Never stop challenging yourself to become the best you can be.”

- Mo Seetubtim

4. Your relationship with your family has improved.

Not everyone grow up having the perfect relationship with their family. Most of the time we don’t. Personality clashes are common occurrences. Let alone having controlling parents or abusive parents who don’t seem to have it all together. While growing up, sometimes we need to push them away in order for us to grow and become mentally strong and well. Sometimes we have to ignore them in order to get rid of the pain and the burden inside our heart. But as we get older, we realize that no matter how bad our parents might seem at that time, they’re our parents. They might not be amazing at parenting. They might not be as selfless and caring as other parents are. But at least they have our best interest at heart. And even if we don’t, we learn to accept it. We learn to accept the reality and understand why they are the way they are. We learn to understand their circumstances and upbringing that shaped them up to be who they are. We are now mature and wise enough to learn to manage our emotions and handle conflicts with the only people in our life we can never completely detach from - our parents. 

As we get older, we realize that there’s not much time left for us to be with them. So instead of feeling bad about the hurtful past, we re-create the bond with our parents and make sure they know how thankful we are for the love and care they’ve ever given us. Because after all, we wouldn’t be here today without them. 

5. You’re passionate about your job, your hobbies, and your life.

After all, what is there to enjoy if we don’t enjoy life? You know you’ve done well in life when you love your job, have hobbies that you enjoy doing, and just love waking up everyday. You feel excited about what the day will bring and whom you will meet. Isn’t life just wonderful?

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

- Steve Jobs

6. You live in the present.

Instead of focusing on the past and wish things were different or worry too much about the future, you focus on the present. You realize that everything is fleeting and that life is uncertain. The only thing you have control over is the present moment. You know you’ve done well when you focus on making the moment in front of you the best moment it could be. You are mindful and know that our wandering thoughts can create illusional emotions that shouldn’t be there to start with. The only way for us to truly enjoy life is to live in the present.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” - John Lennon 

7. You know who your true friends are.

One of the most beautiful things in life is true friendship. They are the people who accept you for who you are and no matter what happens they’re there by your side. True friends are the rarest gifts and we should show our appreciation more often. You know you’ve done well in life when you know you have a group of people you can turn to to celebrate your success and to be your shoulder to cry on. They are the people you can trust wholeheartedly. Having these people in life means that you’re a true friend to them yourself. Being a true friend is a reciprocal process. You just don’t form a strong friendship if you only take and take, you have to give and you have to take. If you have a group of people who are there by your side for years to come, you know you’ve done well in life.

8. You realize that you’ve become more non-judgmental and open-minded over the years.

One of the things that can show our maturity is how we care for others. Over the past years, have your eyes become more open? Has your horizon been broadened? Have you become more open-minded, non-judgmental, and more understanding of the world and of people around you?

No matter who you are as a person, no matter what you do, if you have no sympathy for others and no understanding of the world, then you might be missing out on something good in life. Life is more than just about work and play. Life is about experiencing and understanding other human beings and other culture. Life is about experiencing love, joy, happiness, tears, and sadness. Life is about escaping from suffering as much as it is about pleasure. 

You know you’ve done well in life when you no longer judge people for what they’re wearing or for what they’re doing. Rather, you try to understand. After all, everyone’s story is different. You never know what they’ve been through and what happens behind closed door. 

9. You know how to manage your emotional well-being as well as your mental well-being.

As good as it sounds to be smart and successful, it is never a true success if your home is a mess, your family life is in chaos, and your emotional health is nothing to be proud of. Your emotional intelligence is even more important than your intellectual intelligence. It is never good to be an aggressive, abusive boss who is successful and can close any deals. It is never nice to be a strong breadwinner of the family when you abuse your wife and scream at her under pressure and stress.

You know you’ve done well in life when you have your emotional well-being under control and when you no longer feel like you’re falling apart inside because you’re breaking down. Stress is sometimes inevitable in life. However, learning to manage it and getting better at this is crucial and essential to a happy and healthy living.

10. You do things that are good for yourself, body, and mind.

Some people work too hard that they forget to take care of the most important things in their life - their health, body, and mind. Without good health, life is not enjoyable. What’s the point of being wealthy if you don’t have time to enjoy life with the people you love? You know you’ve done well in life if you make your health and well-being your priority. You make sure you eat well, exercise, and take some time off to relax and recharge. You meditate. You read. You do things that vitalize your soul. At the end of the day, no matter how big your home is, your body is your true home. 

11. You don’t regret anything you’ve done because life is about moving forward, not backward.

There are always things we did in the past that we are not proud of. If we could turn back time, we might actually not start doing it. However, there is no point thinking about it this way. If you’re smart enough, you learn from your past and have become a stronger and better person because of it. There’s no point in looking back and regretting, because everything happens for a reason and it leads you to where you are today.

You know you’ve done well in life if all you look forward to is moving forward. You focus on making today and tomorrow better. That’s the only outlook on life that one should have.

12. You feel thankful and are excited about life and the future. 

Your life can be truly amazing and wonderful, however, if you don’t appreciate what you have, then you’d never feel truly happy. You know you’ve done well in life if you feel thankful for being alive and appreciate what you have, rather than looking at what you don’t have. Life is a gift in itself. The key to this is to look at it with gratitude. After all, it is what it is. Everything and every person come into your life to teach you something. See it as a passing experience and learn from it. Be thankful for whatever has happened because without it you would not have grown and be as well-equipped as you are today. 

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

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 University. We choose a job right out of University, even if we didn’t love our program, because we just invested time into it. We go to that job every morning because we feel the need to support ourselves 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 pressured 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 6am 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. “But I don’t want to be alone,” we often exclaim. Be alone. Eat alone, take yourself on dates, sleep alone. 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 cells 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 if you have already found it, 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 define you – they were simply moments, they were simply words. 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 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 cyclic, self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t allow yourself to move past what happened, what was said, what was felt, you will look at your future with that lens, and nothing will be able to breach that judgment. You will keep on justifying, reliving, and fueling a perception that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

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.

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 know that she inspires you. Tell your mother you love her in front of your friends. 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.

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 paperclips, 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 irrespective 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.