Whatever it is, do it NOW!

Has something like this ever happened to you: you're at school and it's recitation time, the teacher asked a question, everybody's wondering what the answer is, but you know. So you want to raise your hand but didn't. Maybe because you weren't sure if it was the right answer that you're thinking. Maybe because you're afraid that your classmates will think that you're Mr. or Mrs. smarty pants. Whatever reason you had for not raising your hand, you hesitated. A few seconds later, your classmate Michelle raised her hand and gave the right answer. Your teacher praised her and gave her a high grade for recitation. You probably hated Michelle for a few seconds or even a few minutes because she stole your answer, your high grade, and your praise.

I'm pretty sure something like this has happened to everyone, especially the shy ones. Unless you were a confident kid, this would happen to you.

In my own life, I regretted a lot of things in my school life. Now that I'm a working professional, whenever I look back, I can't help but think of all the things I would've done differently if I knew then what I know now. One thing I know now is to avoid procrastination. This is one of the biggest problems of people today. They put off for tomorrow what can be done today. I myself is guilty of this even to this day.

One example of this is when I took summer basketball lessons at elementary school. I think I was in 5th grade. I finished the lessons thinking that I would be a better player, but I didn't practice or play at all after that. I kept playing video games rather than basketball, and I put off playing telling that I will play tomorrow. Tomorrow then became the day after tomorrow, then turned to a few days, then next week, until I forgot to even play at all. I regret this so much because up to now I STILL can't say that I am good at playing basketball. I suck! I know how to play compared to when I started, but all that time spent I could've developed my skills were wasted. If I only did give time to practice and play basketball, I could've been good enough to play at local tournaments.

I also remember a story I read from the book Chicken Soup for the Soul. It's titled "Why Wait?...Just Do It!" by Glenn Mcintyre. The story here is about a person who wanted to ride a motorcycle but didn't know where to start. He just bought a motorcycle and started riding. At an early age of 17, he started to ride and fell in love with it. He rode until he ran out of roads years later. At the age of 23, he had a road accident and became a paraplegic. He was thankful that he rode at an early age because he wouldn't have experienced those wonderful things on the road if he hadn't started riding at that early age.

Whatever you want to do, whether it be to get a different career, try a new hobby, start a business, travel to another continent, do it NOW! The sooner, the better. Stop putting off for tomorrow what you can do now because there's no guarantee that there will be a tomorrow at all.

The main thing I learned from How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Last week, I and my older brother decided to watch How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World for a sort of like a post 26th birthday celebration for me. I was really excited because How to Train Your Dragon is one of my favorite animated movie series, and I also think dragons are cool (who doesn't think that those flying, fire-breathing mythical creatures are awesome?!). Besides the entertaining part of the story, there was one life lesson I learned in the movie and I want to share it.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for those who haven't watched the movie, I suggest you watch it first or make sure that you're ok with me spoiling you.

So the story in this movie continues from the second one, where the people from Berk are living happily with the dragons, and at the same time catching the dragon killers. Eventually, Berk gets overpopulated especially since they brought home so many dragons over the years, making them an easy target for enemies, so they were forced to migrate to another location. Hiccup remembered a legend that his father told him about the hidden world, where the dragons can live amongst themselves. Many things happened and eventually, the people of Berk were happy with their new location, but they had to let go of all the dragons so that they can be safe in the hidden world.

You might be asking: Is there actually a lesson in this movie for real life? Yes, there is! If you just use a little bit of thinking, you will notice the lesson. It's that everything in this life has an end, you eventually have to let go. Hiccup and the people from Berk loved their dragons. From the ending of the first movie, all the way to this movie, they were with their dragons and enjoyed every second of it. This is until the part where they realized that the dragons are in danger, and there is a world where the dragons can be safe, but they will have to let go of them. This can be applied in real life too. No matter how much you are enjoying your life or whatever is happening in your life, there will be some big changes that will happen, let go of the past and let go of whatever is holding you from enjoying the present and focusing on the future. Let go of your glory days in high school, it's over. Let go of that job you loved/hated, you will get a new one. Let go of that previous relationship, he/she is not part of your life anymore (unless you stayed friends that is). Let go of that grudge you had with someone you didn't get along with or fought with, no matter the reason for your grudge, it's not important anymore. 

The sooner you can let go of the things in life that are no longer serving you, the better your life will be.