1. Loving someone–or being loved by someone–is not the same thing as them being right for you.

2. No matter how hard you try to be a good person and friend, you’ll never be able to control whether or not someone actually gives a shit about you.

3. You can’t learn without failure. You won’t change without pain.

4. No one else will advance your life for you. Advance it yourself, or be happy where you are.

5. Sometimes people who are suppose to help you hurt you instead.

6. Self-doubt can actively destroy you at every turn. You can prevent yourself from succeeding in something you are extremely proficient at if you can’t convince yourself it’s true… Don’t be your own worst enemy.

7. Family is not necessarily blood. You can try and push and push but sometimes the most air-headed, least understanding people are the ones your born with.

8. The only person you can ever 100% rely on is yourself.

9. It’s one thing to be acquainted with people you find to be friendly. It’s another to have true friends that stick with you through “thick and thin” over the years of your lives together.

10. Some people truly cannot be helped. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you care about them, no matter how good you are to them, some people just want to burn.

11. You can’t make people like you. Be someone you’d respect, and those who share your values will respect you for who you are.

12. No matter how much you love someone, give someone, or sacrifice for someone, that will not guarantee that they will love you back.

13. You can’t make everyone happy.

14. No matter how hard you try, you won’t always get what you want.

15. It’s not always an option to make lemonade with the lemons life throws at you. Some lemons are just rotten like that.

16. Love is disposable and replaceable.

17. You can’t erase your mistakes.

18. The only things guaranteed in life are illness, pain, and death. Happiness and love need to be earned through dedication and compassion.

19. You can be the biggest, nicest, and juiciest peach, but there’s always someone who doesn’t like peaches.

20. People will always be in search of more.

21. You can do everything right and things sometimes still turn out wrong.

22. Not everyone has your best interests at heart.

23. Happiness doesn’t exist without sadness.

24. Love does not conquer all. It really, really, doesn’t.

25. Very few people actually care whether the things they believe are true or not.

Ask someone if they care and basically everyone will insist they do, but challenge a belief they’re emotionally attached to with facts and they will fight to the death, sometimes literally, to hold onto that belief. Even when it would be in their best interest to let it go.

26. No matter how nice you are. There will ALWAYS be people who say they hate you and mean it.

27. That a big part of life is dependent on luck. It’s a hard pill to swallow that a lot of things are out of our control.

28. You can do everything right, put in all the effort, and still fail.

29. You are the villain in someone else’s narrative.

30. Losing a parent sucks as a kid and as an adult.