Mika Launikari

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Life is not a multiple-choice test, but a do-it-yourself project

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Do you sometimes find yourself struggling to make a decision or to create the life you want? Are you always looking for an easy way out? Maybe you do not consider yourself as indecisive, yet you understand that making well-grounded decisions is a critical skill for moving forward in life. As we all well know, life does not come with a book of instructions, neither with straight-forward guidelines. No, life is a do-it-yourself project!   

Life can be confusing as long as we do not know what we are meant to be learning or where we are supposed to be heading. Too often we put the focus on trying to find the one and only correct answer, although we should be looking for a solution that works well for us. In life ambiguities need to be addressed and different options need to be considered. Choosing is not necessarily about true or false, yes or no, but about being courageous to experiment, take random steps and see what comes from there. Taking decisions is not about ticking the right box or circling the right answer. Sometimes it may even mean choosing simply the one that is the least bad option and eliminating all the rest.

More often than we would like to admit, we are not absolutely sure why we do the things we do. Some may call it intuition or their inner voice guiding them, some may say it was their rational mind or logical thinking that led them to take the action they did. Even when we do not know, if we have made the best choices, we can always argue that we gained something valuable from the experience. But if the experience was not fully satisfactory, people may start speculating about what could have happened had they only taken a different direction. This they will never get to know. Uncertainty belongs to life and more often than not things are beyond our control.

We are all unique individuals with a special purpose in life. The true mission for each one of us is to find out who we are in relation to the social environment in which we live, study, work and spend our free time. Life is not about staying self-focused or becoming self-centered, but rather it is about engaging oneself in a meaningful and mutually beneficial manner with other people. Through interaction with others we can learn, grow, thrive and flourish. Other people act as a mirror to us. This allows us to gain better insight into what we stand for and to develop further as a human being than we could by being on our own only.

Life is an essay to be written. How do you want your life story to look like? Interesting and intriguing? Or do you rather go for something more average and ordinary? If you intend to make your life more exciting, stimulating and adventurous, some imagination needs to be called on. A creative mind can see the potential of almost any situation and work out multiple solutions to a problem or a challenge. Finding fresh approaches, innovative methods and new ideas is necessary for getting rewarding results. In one’s life, though, nothing good comes without hard work and sacrifice. Hence, it is vital that you know how to prioritize correctly.     

Life is not a multiple-choice test. Life is a roller-coaster. Life can sometimes appear as a fight against all odds – and still be worth it. Life is about creating yourself!

Text: Mika Launikari

Photo: trendfrenzy.net