LESSONS LEARNED...four hours to the end

This year was hard for me in a lot of ways. But as hard as it was, I also feel like I've grown. I've learnt a great deal: 

I've learnt how to love and be loved (believe me, it's not as easy as it sounds and frankly I'm still working on it). It's like you feel that you don't deserve the good things of life that you have, but here's the shocker: YOU DO! You do deserve to be happy. You do deserve to be loved. And you do deserve the Grace of God that keeps you alive.
So I've also learnt to love myself and to know that loving myself means doing things that are beneficial to my life, not just permitted. After all, the Bible says, "some things are permissible but not all things are beneficial". So just because smoking is okay doesn't mean I should indulge in it and kill my lungs. (I mean, just saying).
I've also learnt to love and respect people who may be different from me. I've learnt to accept them as they are without judging them, even though I may not accept what they are doing. It's not my place to serve as their judge.
I've learnt to step out of my status quo and prove that I can do whatever I set my heart to do. Our destiny isn't set out in stone. We can change it. Either for good or bad. (Although I reccommend good)
I've learnt that although love could be so tarnished and faded and sometimes it may look like it's not there, at the darkest hour just before dawn, it begins to brighten and change into something new and beautiful and fill our hearts with so much light and life.
I've learnt that life is too short to waste it focused on the bad things and thinking of ways to hurt others or how others have hurt us. Instead, it should be spent creating memories that we can live on and that can live on after us, long after we're gone.
I've learnt to never feel like people owe me something because happiness is only achieved by looking at what you can do for others and not what can be done for you. It's a simple principle of selfless giving, which has existed for a long time, you know? God gave his only son, remember? We didn't even ask, he just did.

I've learnt a lot more this year as I'm sure we all have too. So as we get our wishes and aspirations for the new year ready, let's not forget the lessons learned as this year rolls by and in the new year to come let's always learn to take count of the little things in life that matter and the little lessons that we have learned.
Till then however... Bye!! Ciao!! Au revoir!! Adios!! Arivaderci!! Sayonara!! And see ya in the year 2012!....