[OPINION | Youth] How bad experiences change your life and prepare you for the future

Why is it so hard to forget the moments that have scarred us the most?

It’s because these are the memories that have changed us the most.

At some point, everyone will experience something that will teach them life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and that everything won’t always go as planned. 

When I was younger, my older brother would tease me and insult me, and since I had a short temper I would always give in. But once I laid a finger on him, he would play the innocent card and my parents would somehow blame me for everything.

I always thought back then that everyone was against me, but then I decided to see things from a more optimistic point of view. Instead of seeing my brother as a bully, I saw him as a teacher that repetitively tested my patience in order to change my short temper.

When I got older, I experienced the grief of losing a loved one. I’d always looked up to both of my grandfathers because they took care of me. But I was a lot closer with the one from my father’s side because we lived right next door to him. My grandfather would teach me to shout “I have arrived” in Hokkien whenever I went to their house for lunch. He would sit on the couch waiting for me to help him turn on the TV because he didn’t know how to operate a remote. And I would always help him around the house because it made me happy knowing he was happy.

But one afternoon, he became ill, and the month after that, I noticed that something was different about him. His eyes were red, and I could see that his shirt was wet. Whenever I came home, I would still shout that I had arrived, but I would no longer get a response.

Then one day, I came into his room, and it was just my grandmother there crying on the bed. That experience taught me to cherish every moment in life, to live every single day as if it were my last.

Later on in high school, I got anxiety and sleep problems because of my personal relationships. Still, the things that I experienced before helped me to cope with these problems. So even if I ended up sleeping at 4 am on a class day because of my anxiety, I would still wake up every morning knowing everything would be alright.

What I’ve learned from bad experiences is that you should always have the will to carry on. Knowing that things will get better is an essential part of coping through these tough times. I always believed in the saying, “For every bad thing that happens to someone, a good thing will follow.”

My experiences have allowed me to become who I am today. I have gotten more optimistic because of what my past has taught me. I have also learned to make better decisions. I also try to avoid certain situations that could eventually lead me to more pain, but I do know that sometime in the future, I will have to deal with those emotions again.                

Viktor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy, says in his book Man’s Search for Meaning: “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an eradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.” We should all have our own ways, then, of coping and dealing with these situations in order to come out as a better version of ourselves. – Rappler.com

Anthony Michael Villanueva, 17, is a Grade 11 STEM student of St. John’s Institute.