The Four Truths You Need To Embrace If You’re Trying To Move On

1. Be selfish.

Think of the things that you should improve about yourself. Your hair? Your health? Your fitness? Your skin? Do you need a makeover? Do you need to sign up at a gym? Also, what are the things that you have long dreamed of but never made a single step towards them? Think of the things that have been long on-hold in your life. Probably your dream school, your promotion, trip to somewhere? Think of the goals that you haven’t yet achieved: your dream house, your own car, your PHD. How old are you now? Where are you in your long list of goals and dreams?

2. Create an entirely different world of your own.

Awfully, at this point, you are reminded of him or her from the places you visited together, even the streets you passed by. That’s normal because you have shared years with that person. He/she became not only a part of your daily routine, but that person became the other half of your life – and now he’s gone, she’s gone. But does that mean you’re supposed to fall down and collapse with that world? No. Therefore create your own new world – an independent world. Lay foundations composed of yourself and lasting things like your family, your friends and dreams.

Create an entirely new daily routine for yourself: a healthier diet, earlier sleep time, number of books you want to finish in a week, swimming lessons, dance lessons or any class of anything you want to learn. You can also develop other new good habits or hobbies that are geared towards improving yourself. Reconnect with your friends whom you’ve lost touch with when you were in a relationship. Go out with them, share stories with them. It is very important that you surround yourself with people who genuinely care about you. Go for adventures! You can book an impulsive trip somewhere you’ve never been to, camp, go stargazing, drive to a place you have zero geographical knowledge about (aside from safety, of course.) You can go cliff jumping! Mountain climbing! Sky diving! Or enroll in a gun shooting class, anything! The world is too vast and there are millions of things set for humans to enjoy. Life is too short to end up mopping all year long.

3. Remember that the foundation of your value is YOU.

Your value is composed of the entire complexities of your being – your dreams, your joys, your fears, your hopes, down to your smallest details. Now, why does it have to be founded on you? Because boyfriends and girlfriends are not the only ones we break up from. People leave – even friends whom you shared your life with for two, five, ten years can leave in a snap, so you cannot hook your value on them – on whether you are important to them or not, or on whether they’ll stay or not. This is only a fragile foundation – a foundation made of people who will probably love you today and forget about you tomorrow. There’ almost nothing permanent with humans, which is why you have to reference your value with who you really are. That is a kind of value which will never be questioned by anything or anyone, kind of value that is unalterable. This self-value does not care who stays or leaves. It can stand on its own.

4. Don’t move on through someone else.

A lot of people say that moving on through finding someone else is an effective way, but that is the weakest form of moving on, because moving on should solely be through ourselves. Why? Because moving on by yourself and not through someone else gives you strength. The kind of strength that holds you together no matter who leaves or who stays in your life.

“Why do we always tell our stories through relationships? We don’t always have to… Being independent and free mean we’re living longer, marrying later and refusing to leave the party and end the adventure before we’re really done.”

— Alice, “How To Be Single”

This is the time for you to tell stories about your own life – how you learned, succeeded and reached for your dreams. Though a huge part of your life has ended, a larger part has opened for yourself. Go through every process; do not skip one. Not even the part which requires pain — those things are essential in the completion of your healing.

And then one day, you’ll breathe in joy to yourself – kind of joy that no one and nothing in this world can rob you of.