Life is not always sunshine and bed of roses. Life is not a smooth ride. It’s a journey that has many unexpected turns, bumps, and curves.

Life is a journey that consists of both positive and negative experiences. No matter how happy, successful, or rich life someone leads, we all come across many challenges, risks, and difficulties in our lives.

However, if you take a moment to think about all these things, you’ll see that they don’t actually pose any problem for us. The real problem is that most people avoid talking about them because it’s difficult and painful for them to accept the truth that hard, sad, and hurtful things, such as  misfortunes, pain, losses, and regrets are unavoidable. 

I know it’s easier to talk about only the positive aspects of your life than talk about and embrace your negative, painful feelings and experiences, but by wilfully ignoring the ugly, harsh truths that are all around you, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to live your life to the fullest and become your best self.

Following are 17 brutal truths about life, so, make sure you pay close attention to them if you want to make your time on Earth worthwhile:

1. You won’t live forever.

Let’s face this truth once and for all. You and everyone you love and care about are eventually going to die. No one lives permanently. So, instead of worrying about death, make sure you live your life the way you want, spend more good quality time with your loved ones, and enjoy every moment life offers you.

2. No one cares.

Are you dealing with problems? Are you going through a heartbreak? Have you lost someone who was very close and important to you? Well, guess what? Everything you’re feeling and going through is your own problem. So, stop thinking that others will feel the same pain you’re feeling.

3. You’re the only one who is responsible for your own life.

You’re the one who controls your feelings, thoughts, and actions. So, every mistake you make, and every word you say and thing you do that could hurt someone is only your fault and you need to man up and take responsibility for that.

4. You can’t escape your negative emotions and thoughts.

Your fears, insecurities, anxious thoughts, and pains are an inseparable part of you. No one wants to experience sadness, disappointment, despair, anger, fear, or pain, but sooner or later, we all do. You can’t escape from them, so, stop running from them.

5. Happiness is not somewhere far away from you. It’s right here.

So, stop chasing it. Because while searching for it in other people, money, or possessions, you fail to notice the happiness that vibrates in every smile you get, every person you meet, and every ‘hi’ you hear. You fail to notice the happiness that lives within yourself.  

6. Time is your most valuable thing.

Your time on Earth is limited, so make sure you make the most of it. At the end of the day, would you rather remember how many wonderful and rewarding experiences you’ve had or how much time you’ve spent posting statuses and talking with your friends on social media?

7. Money doesn’t equal happiness.

Having a wallet full of bills doesn’t make your life any happier or more meaningful. Instead, it’s the time you spend with those who truly love and care about you and the time you spend doing the things you enjoy the most that makes you feel happy and fulfilled.

8. It’s impossible to make everyone your friend.

Stop trying to please and be there for every person out there. No matter how much you like and are good to someone and want them to be your friend, you can’t make everyone be your friend. The only person in the world that can be your best and most supportive and loyal friend is – yourself.

9. You can’t take your wealth to your grave.

All the time and energy you spend building your fortune and climbing up the social ladder will be for nothing when you die. So, make sure you spend your time and energy on taking care of your health and your loved ones. It’s them that make your life beautiful, not money and possessions.

10. Your problems don’t define you.

Your worries, problems, and pains don’t make the person you are. They’re just a part of your life. So, instead of focusing all your attention and energy on them, focus on the people that make you happy and fulfilled and the things you’re passionate about.

11. No matter how hard your life is, you always have something to be grateful for.

Everyone experiences pain, grief, loss, and health or financial problems sooner or later in life. And everyone wants to achieve greater happiness and success.

But, what about the roof you have over your head? What about the food and clean clothes you get to enjoy every day? What about all those people who genuinely love and care about you? Yes, they matter, too, and you must never forget to cherish and be grateful for the things you already have in your life.

12. Dreaming is just a waste of time.

Fantasizing about that big house you want to buy and the great job you want to get while doing nothing to fulfill those goals is easy. But, unless you put in a great deal of effort and hard work, you’ll never achieve them.

13. Wasted talent is a wasted life.

If you know you have a talent for something, don’t be afraid to use it and show it to the world. If you don’t work hard to improve your skills and nurture and develop your talent and if you don’t use it appropriately, you’re going to waste it. And when you waste your talent, you waste everything.

14. Negative reactions don’t solve anything.

Flying off the handle is easy when things don’t go as you want, but let’s be honest: Has shouting, yelling at someone, or slamming doors has ever helped you overcome your problems?

15. Knowledge is useless unless it’s shared with others.

Every bit of information, lesson, insight, or solution that you possess is useless if you don’t give other people a chance to learn from you. Therefore, don’t keep your knowledge and experiences only to yourself, but share them with others. You can never know whom you can help.

16. There’s no such thing as perfection.

What’s perfect to you is mediocre to someone else and vice versa. So, stop trying to be perfect in everything you are and everything you do and just be who you really are. Those who truly love you will love you even more when you give them the true version of yourself.

17. The present is what matters.

Mother Theresa said: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” 

We have all met people whose behavior is highly negative and damaging. The main harm when it comes to toxic people is that by the time you realize how negatively they influence your mental and emotional well-being, the damage will have been already done.

A toxic person can affect every part of your life in the same way any other toxin can harm your body. They can ruin your relationships with other people, shatter your confidence and self-esteem, and even make you question your own logic, perception of reality, and even sanity.

Unfortunately, you can’t avoid this kind of people because they’re everywhere around you. And if you don’t know how to deal with them, they can wreak havoc on your life.

So, to prevent them from having influence over you and protect your sanity, you need to be able to recognize the ways in which difficult and highly negative people behave. Knowing how they behave, you’ll be better prepared to handle them effectively in any situation.

Following is a list of 8 behaviors toxic people display and how you can handle them effectively:

1. They always change their behavior.

It’s difficult to tell what version of them you’re seeing at any given time because they hardly ever act the same. Today they might be the nicest, most compassionate, and loving people you’ve ever known and tomorrow they might simply ignore you like they’ve never met you before.

Sure, this will make you wonder whether you’ve said or done something that upset them and you may even try to make up for it and put things right. But, the truth is – you’ll never succeed in it.

What you should understand is that it’s not about you. You’re not the cause of their bad mood, unhappiness, or disappointment. When they give you the silent treatment, that’s their way of manipulating you. And if they refuse to discuss the issue, then most probably, there’s nothing to be discussed, right?

2. They make you feel like you owe something to them.

A toxic person will give you advice, do you a favor, help you, buy you expensive gifts, or shower you with sweet words and compliments, but don’t let this “kindness” confuse you.

They’re not being kind to you because they genuinely love and care about you. They do this because they have other intentions – they want you to do something for them – you know, pay back the favor. And guess what? That’s usually something that you’ll hate to do and they know this.

So, to prevent them from putting you in these situations, don’t accept presents that appear out of proportion or favors you never asked for.

3. They’re never wrong.

No matter what they think, say, or do – they’re always right. Of course, this is only true in their own delusional, wicked world. They will make a mistake and hurt your feelings, but they’ll never own up to it and apologize to you.

To avoid taking responsibility for their mistakes and bad actions, they’ll twist your words and the facts so much that you’ll end up in some silly argument about things and situations you don’t even remember happened.

So, never try to defend yourself or prove your point in an argument with them. And, of course, get rid of the need to wait for them to apologize to you for whatever bad thing they’ve said or done to you.

4. They project their feelings on you.

A toxic person can accuse you of being too sensitive, jealous, clingy, or needy or even of having a problem with them. Of course, when this comes from a person you didn’t expect, especially when you have nothing to be mad about at them, you end up feeling confused, disappointed, or even sad.

But, what you should understand is that this has nothing to do with you. It’s not you who is all those things mentioned above and it’s not you who is having a problem with them – it’s them. They’re just projecting their own negative feelings on you, so don’t ever feel the need to defend yourself against their accusations.

5. They envy you and therefore dampen your happiness.

These people can’t stand when someone is better and more successful at something than them. To make you feel less important than them, ruin your happiness, and make you feel bad about yourself, they never congratulate you on your successes or whatever good news you’re sharing with them.

For example, you have a new boyfriend/girlfriend, they’re quick to say something like: “Oh, really? Well, I hope this relationship lasts longer than the last one.” Or you got promoted, and their reaction is: “Oh, well, finally, because I got promoted two months ago.”

It’s obvious that they envy you and by telling you things like these, they’re trying to downplay the importance of your achievements and successes and dampen your happiness. Anyway, this is something you can’t control and change, so make sure you never take their snide comments to heart.

6. They don’t solve arguments – they create drama.

Instead of trying to resolve arguments, they either keep quiet and they don’t respond to anything you say or they change the topic of discussion. They bring up some old unresolved problems or past mistakes you made that are completely unrelated to the issue at hand and that you might even no longer remember. They do all this just to confuse you and put you on the defensive.

So, in order to save yourself from being dragged into a needless drama, state your point clearly and don’t try to defend it. Don’t bother to win the argument because the only thing you’ll succeed doing is wasting your energy.

7. They use snide remarks to hurt you.

They’ll tell you something like: “Oh, that new haircut looks really good on you.” Or “Oh, so, that’s your new boyfriend/girlfriend.” These words seem innocent and honest, but the tone with which they say them turns them into something nasty.

They make snide comments about your appearance, relationships, successes, or anything related to you to belittle you, hurt your feelings, and weaken your confidence and self-esteem.

The best way you can deal with this kind of behavior is to always know your worth and that what others think and say about you can’t define you.

8. They avoid contact with you to punish you.

You’re still planning to go on an outing together or discussing a problem and all of a sudden the person is out of reach. They don’t answer your calls and respond to your messages or emails. They even stay offline on their profiles on social media.

Of course, in the meantime, you are in a state of confusion, trying to figure out whether you’ve said or done something that upset them.

Never allow yourself to think that it’s about you when someone treats you this way. That person is punishing you for reasons known only to them. This behavior is cowardly and disrespectful and if it occurs repeatedly, you should consider distancing yourself from that person completely.

You’ve battled the dark depths of depression for the last couple of months. You felt like your entire world was crumbling down in front of you. You felt like you were in a deep, black hole with a no way out. The sadness, despair, and darkness you lived in felt like a home to you.

You kept your painful feelings and thoughts to yourself. You didn’t want others to know about your problem so you tried to hide yourself from people in any way possible. You were telling people you were busy with work or other stuff, but the truth is that you were busy eating junk food, sleeping, and listening to sad, depressing music.

But, fortunately, you’ve started digging your way out of that deep, dark hole. You’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Things appear much clearer and more stable now.

But now that you’re finally starting a new chapter in your life, there are 9 things you’re doing that other people don’t notice because you’re recovering from a depressive phase.

Here they are:

1. You have a crazy appetite.

When you’re climbing out of a depressive phase, your appetite is prone to frequent changes. One day you may eat everything that your eyes can see and spend the next one not eating almost anything. Or you may get delighted at the sight of a meal, then take a bite or two, and then feel like you can’t finish eating it.

It’s not easy going through this, but once you’re completely out of your depressive phase, your appetite will return to normal.

2. You have unusual sleep patterns.

Before you faced the awful monster called depression, you had normal sleeping patterns. You usually had a good quality 7 to 8-hour sleep every night and went to bed and got up at approximately the same time. However, this changed when you started struggling with depression. In an attempt to escape your reality and the sad, painful feelings and thoughts you were struggling with, you began spending a lot of time sleeping.

Although you’re feeling better now, it takes you a while to establish healthy sleeping patterns. You become tired and overwhelmed during the day and take long naps and this makes you go to bed late at night. So, your friends may be wondering why you’re still online on your Facebook profile at 2:00 am.

3. You easily get very emotional.

Your mood is constantly changing. Things can easily make you cry, even the simplest ones, like watching a sad movie. Or you often find yourself suddenly getting anxious or angry, even over simple, meaningless things.

Additionally, you can easily get upset by loud noises or when you hear people quarreling, and sometimes even making a small mistake can be enough to make you feel stressed out and disappointed in yourself.

4. You suddenly become overly sentimental.  

You spent a couple of months being isolated from your friends, so you often find yourself craving their attention and wanting to spend time with them. You call them every day just to “say hi,” or send them long messages telling them who much you love them and how much they mean to you.

Sometimes you even become extra loving and ask for hugs and cuddles and give even more of these at random times. People may think you’re just being overly affectionate, but you know that you feel grateful that you still have the people you love in your life and you want to ensure they know how important they are to you.

5. You avoid spending time on your own.

You may be successfully getting out of a depressive phase, but your insecurities and fears are still here. And being alone can cause them to come to the surface. So, to prevent that, you try to always have people near you or reach out to them electronically.

You go out and hang out with your family and friends more rather than hiding yourself in your home. All this has a positive effect on you since it keeps you distracted and makes you feel secure.

6. You frequently share positive posts on social media.

As you’re trying to put the depressive episode of your life behind you, you look for motivational quotes, positive statements, and inspirational stories that you think will help you move forward and embrace life the way it is.

Additionally, you’re so in love with this positive stuff that you share them on social media every day. Other people may see this as your usual way of motivating and taking care of those around you, but you know that all these positive, inspirational posts are just for you.

7. You frequently listen to music so as to control your emotions.

Listening to music is the best therapy for you. It helps you stay calm, lifts your spirits, fills you with positive energy, and makes you feel relaxed. So, you often find yourself listening to pop music from the 1990s or the beginning of this century.

People may wonder what’s up with your choice of music, but you don’t bother to change the genre because this type of music significantly improves your mood and keeps you energized.  

8. You buy yourself things, even when you don’t really need them.

You’re a real proof that shopping is great therapy. Shopping gets you out of the house and makes you feel relaxed. Therefore, you often find yourself buying a lot of things even when you don’t need them.

You know that you need a change in your life, and making little changes to your style by buying clothes or a nice pair of shoes might be just the thing you need so as to feel pretty and love yourself again after your depressive phase. Others may think you’re just trying to look attractive, but you know that shopping is actually a part of your healing process.

9. You keep your home organized.

Mess is one of the main triggers of stress and anxiety and you know that seeing piles of clothes, dirty dishes, toys, or you name it in your home is enough to make you sink into depression again. Therefore, you try to make sure you keep your house/apartment clean and organized.

After all, it’s not only your depressive thoughts and feelings that you need to get rid of to get your life back on track, but the things you no longer need and want as well.