Life is unpredictable. It changes us in ways that we could never anticipate. The world that we think exists when we’re young later reveals itself to have many sides, and our hardline beliefs can soften or blur as we adapt to new information. Sometimes these changes come gradually, almost without our notice; other times they can happen all at once. You encounter a new experience and then — poof! — you see things differently than you did before. You understand something new about life, about people, or about yourself.

“What we take away from life’s unexpected twists is hard-earned wisdom — and that’s worth sharing.”

This changes the way we move forward, and can even alter how we see and understand our past. What we take away from life’s unexpected twists is hard-earned wisdom — and that’s worth sharing. Most of your run-of-the-mill platitudes don’t cover the more surprising or difficult experiences, which are often multifaceted and complex, sometimes holding multiple truths at once. 

Over the past ten years, we’ve learned so much from you, our readers, in thousands of thoughtful comments, emails, and conversations. So we wanted to hear about what’s surprised you in life, and what you’ve taken away from that experience so that we could share with others and learn from it ourselves. Your advice and stories are full of wisdom and humanity — these are lessons that deserve to be shared.

*Some responses have been condensed or edited for clarity.

On honoring our bodies

“Five years ago I was diagnosed with PMDD. Since then I have been on a mission to balance my responsibilities and work life around my cycle. What I have learned and what I wasn’t prepared for is: ‘Things can wait’. There is no urgency in getting everything done now! It’s actually impossible and the anxiety I felt around needing to be on form all the time is far greater than the anxiety of falling a little bit behind. Waiting for the right week or moment is ok, being mindful of not making hasty decisions during the luteal phase and waiting for menses to end, is good. As I am learning this, it is saving me from the post-menses clear-up, where I am having to put right the things that have gone wrong because of my impulsive decisions and acting out on temporary emotions. I have become more present and I’m gradually trusting my ‘self’ more and more.” – hayze.sg

“The anxiety I felt around needing to be on form all the time is far greater than the anxiety of falling a little bit behind.”

“At the age of 14, I burned out and suddenly woke up one morning so exhausted I couldn’t move. I stayed like that for two years and discovered I had POTS! But that period — tough as it was — taught me to guard my energy and put my well-being above all else. Since I recovered from that more than a decade ago, I’ve developed a much better relationship with my body and self-care!” – Zanny S.

“When I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast, I was shocked by my body’s strong reaction. It had always been my dream to move to Oregon, but my body took much longer to catch up to my mind and heart. I woke up with an anxious pit, mind racing, and an increased heart rate. Everything felt eerie and unfamiliar. I felt a little lost. I started to question whether my dream had been a bad decision, maybe I was misguided and had just made a huge mistake. However, over time, I began to settle into the new space and land. I decided to take a true look at my intuition and feel these strong negative feelings in my body. I respected my body for the mammal it sometimes is. If a doe were to make a sudden migration across the country to a new environment, perhaps in some sort of trailer versus making the more natural walk, I’m sure she would be skittish and afraid as well. I have learned that sometimes anxiety or fear are not the result of something bad or dangerous, but sometimes just our mammal bodies reacting to change. It’s taken a few months, but I’m finally feeling the confidence and motivation to frolic once again!” – Anonymous Reader

On compassion for others & ourselves

“Apologizing is the most important thing you can ever do. It sounds simple, but every time I take some time and return to apologize, the person I apologize to always reacts with confusion. They always admit they could never have apologized first, but that my apology made them feel cared for and understood. So yeah, learning how to apologize sincerely is going to be the most complicated thing to learn but the most important.” – Gabriela H.

“No one really knows what they are doing and I choose to believe we are all trying our best — that’s compassion. Always be kind.” – Anonymous Reader

“People don’t do things to you…They do things for themselves.” – Anonymous Reader

“The real remedy lies in not finding a perfect partner who will take your emotional burden and meet your never ending expectations, but in pausing to truly examine your emotions.”

“After enduring turbulent relationships, I believed that what I needed for happiness and a healthy partnership was unwavering commitment. I thought that if I could secure just that, my fear of losing my lover or wasting my time would disappear, and hence all my insecurities and all the fights stemming from them too. Right? Wrong. But it took me a long time to realize that… The real remedy lies in not finding a perfect partner who will take your emotional burden and meet your never-ending expectations, but in pausing to truly examine your emotions, to delve into their roots, to question them, and to self-soothe. In other words, emotional regulation is the key. In the intricate dance of self-love and loving others, emotional regulation stands as a cornerstone. It is an art and practice that fosters inner harmony and self-growth. Emotional regulation transforms the way we interact with ourselves and the world and empowers us to navigate life with clarity and grace.” – Tania R.

“As we get older we are always dealing with transitions, loss, and making new connections. I see it in my 20-somethings and I see it in myself in my mid 50s and I see it in my parents who are in their late 70s.” – Anonymous Reader

On learning to be soft & slow

“I was surprised to discover that the whole ‘no pain, no gain’ adage is BS. I always believed that if I let go of my self-criticism and disciplinarian approach to getting things done then I wouldn’t do them. But the truth is, softness and compassion is much more motivating than self-flagellation. Who knew?” – Dominga R.

“It’s okay to freeze for a moment… just remember to breathe.” – kt

“Sometimes hard work doesn’t get you what you want, it just burns you out.”

“Sometimes hard work doesn’t get you what you want, it just burns you out. Balancing your goals with your values is so important, otherwise you might end up overworked, unhappy, and you might still not have reached that end goal you were striving for. If you prioritize values, such as being happy, healthy, and spending time with loved ones, it won’t be crushing when you don’t reach your end goal — whether that’s landing a specific job, increasing your salary, or publishing a book. It sounds cheesy, but contentment is so much more important than success.” – Abigail T.

On recognizing what’s in your control (& releasing what isn’t)

“I failed out of grad school and had to learn to “adult” very quickly — I learned there is resiliency and agency that comes with owning your biggest mistakes.” – KH

“Back in June, I decided to quit my job. It was the absolute best decision I could’ve made for myself. Within the next few weeks, it was evident. It felt as if the stars had aligned for me (and my husband). I felt the stress leave my body, and I replaced my time with self-care and reflection. We had been struggling with getting pregnant; a month after I quit that insanely stressful job, BOOM — positive pregnancy test. It was confirmed; I’d made the right decision and our dreams were finally coming true. Fast forward to this week… my mother, for whom I am a caregiver, fell and broke her hip. We are incredibly close, and she’s lived with us for five years. This situation put an enormous amount of stress on me, and I began to miscarry the day she had surgery. I wasn’t sure my mom would make it past surgery, at 88 pounds and 76 years old, not to mention the MS she’s had for over 35 years. As I sit in the throes of this, as I type, the only thing I’m certain of, is that we truly have no control. We can only control how we react in a situation. This one is heartbreaking, yet, I find comfort in that I’ve got no control in most of this scenario. So, as I learn to embrace that fact, I hope we can all learn to sit with and accept that life takes many beautiful, and sometimes tragic turns, and the fact that we don’t have much control over it, really takes a huge burden off, if we let it.” – Piper P.

“As I sit in the throes of this, as I type, the only thing I’m certain of, is that we truly have no control. We can only control how we react in a situation.”

“A mentor once told me, “It’s none of your business what other people have to say about you when you’re not in the room.” I return to this advice anytime I need to be reminded that the only person I can control is myself, and others will react to that as they will. More often than not, it leads me to respond with kindness, care or even silence to someone who is being negative or difficult.” – LK

“I’m a self-coroneted Princess Prepared, the type with checked-off packing lists, up-to-date safety courses, and a whiz at Google research. Yet I still got caught in a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane — the worst in the Bahamas’ history — shortly after my husband and I expatted to the islands. I learned that in case one’s hurricane evacuation plan doesn’t work, provisioning, storing water, charging phones, and stocking fresh flashlight batteries only goes so far when stranded on an obliterated island with zero ability to communicate with the outside world in hopes of rescue. Besides learning that houses in hurricane country should never have doors that open inward (and an assortment of methods to barricade said door, just in case), I discovered ways to tether myself to my home country in case misfortunate happens while traveling abroad… I am currently finishing a memoir manuscript regarding how my hurricane experience changed me and my husband, and provided an unforeseen opportunity to live an alternative dream life in the islands, now on our floaty home.” – Wendy H.

“My cancer diagnosis changed my life in many ways. After treatment, the recovery sent me on my joy journey. I began purposefully looking for and finding my joy every day. No matter what is happening you can always find something that is good. Due to neuropathy from treatment, I began private yoga lessons and I could move my body which helped my healing process. I met with an Ayurvedic practitioner and changed myself and began to love myself again.” – Anonymous Reader

On grief & adversity

“No one prepared me for the death of my dad. I also learned that no matter what age they are, we are allowed to cry and grieve for those we lose.” – Betty M.

“My ‘no one prepared me for this’ moment was two years ago. I lost my dad quite unexpectedly while he was halfway across the world on holidays, my husband told me we would probably be moving far away from home for his work, and my boss didn’t validate my trial period after 8 months of grueling work and dedication. I was heartbroken, lost and to be honest, quite desperate! But the beautiful life lesson I learned is that nothing is permanent if you don’t want it to be. Time heals heartache, and allows for new seeds to grow. The free time from not working allowed me to process my grief, and write a book about my dad’s passing that is now published. I have now moved with my husband to a new place I can discover and maybe write about for a second book. I never would have thought this would have been possible two years ago.” – Alix P.

“Life will test me in different ways to keep making me level up.”

“I was diagnosed with cancer at 18, underwent an above-knee amputation at 22 to save my left leg from a malignant tumor, and lost my father at age 29. In the span of a decade, I had experienced a spectrum of visceral losses… As I grew older and my life started ‘normalizing,’ I found I prided myself on my resilience. Perhaps it led to a smug, mislaid belief that only ‘good things’ would happen to me from here onwards, and all the ‘bad stuff’ was firmly behind me. I took a brief mid-career sabbatical when I was 39 to study digital marketing at NYU, for which I was out of India, my home country, for a few months. I returned home to realize something was not quite right in my marriage… There was no catalyst, or a single point of precipitation that I could have pinpointed as the reason for his wanting out. This made it very difficult for me to believe at first, and then accept, that he really wanted to have nothing more to do with me… I was unemployed at the time and his leaving left me with a financial burden that was a sudden shock to bear, aside from the immense void he left behind in my life. Nothing had prepared me for this seismic upheaval and it has taken me the better part of the past decade to overcome my feelings of being rejected. It also taught me that life will test me in different ways to keep making me level up. The challenges I’ve faced in the past don’t guarantee that there won’t be any more challenges in the future. Staying mindful of my life circumstances, even when things are going smoothly, has now made me more cautious than before, but it also prevents me from being blindsided (most of the time).” – Suranjana G.

On small (& big!) leaps of faith

“Spending money becomes so much easier when you trust that the money will come back to you.” – NG

“Motherhood! I can figure it out as I go, and reading the moments and responding naturally in the moment is the best I can do. Am I perfect? No way! Do I get it wrong? Absolutely! But I can figure out what went wrong and make it right again.” – JM

“That sometimes all you can do is wing it, and even if it feels chaotic and disorganized, you can still be successful and accomplished that way.” – SHF

“We put too much weight on making ‘the right decision’ or else! Or else what?”

“We put too much weight on making ‘the right decision’ or else! Or else what? Very few life decisions we encounter are so black and white, right vs wrong. They are typically shades of right and wrong. Don’t let the decision-making paralyze you. Nothing is permanent. Move to a new city and don’t like it? Move somewhere else or move back even, if you were happy. Take a new job or stay where you are? Just pick one! You can always change again or even go back.” – Anonymous Reader

If these stories spark inspiration for you, let us know in the comments about your unexpected life lessons. We love living and learning alongside you.

Ashley D’Arcy is Senior Editor at The Good Trade. She holds an MA in philosophy from The New School for Social Research and a BA in English & American literature from New York University. Her writing has been featured by The Nation, 032c, and sold by Printed Matter. In 2017, she was featured on Apple’s first original series “Planet of the Apps” where she was mentored by Gwyneth Paltrow. She is currently a psychoanalyst-in-training at Pulsion Institute in New York City.