"But there were, lessons learned"

You can't pray for courage without embracing the situations that come along with it
Situations that require you to use courage, and most importantly learn it. The thing with courage is it is not a I-bestow-upon-thee-courage and tada! you are courageous in everything you do. How we wish it was that simple. Two years ago, I started a simple concept of having a word as my resolution every year. It started with the word empathy, and boy did I have to learn about empathy that entire year, and the years that come after. It becomes something you no longer ignore because you are now aware. And this year it was courage, oh my dear God Lord have my prayers been answered. Courage is bestowed upon us a choice in a situation. Will you be courageous in facing a situation that could use courage? If you chose it, you may learn something, if not, you just miss a lesson. But learning courage is a chicken-and-egg argument, does courage comes first before making a courageous decision or does a courageous decision lead to courage? Ultimately, courage asks you to seek your heart, it did originate from the Latin word "cor" which means heart.

Your values and beliefs will be challenged, constantly.
They say the hardest thing to do in the world is to be yourself when everyone wants you to be someone else. That is not far from true. You will be constantly tried for valuing what you value, and believing what you believe. It comes in the forms of social comparison, doubts, feeling like an idiot et cetera. It comes with possible need for overhaul. And you will realise that at the end of it, what matters much is not which values and beliefs you take, but that you actually take a stand and stand by it

You will realise you don't know much, or anything at all.
I like to be right. It has been my utmost defense for the years I've grown up. To admit I don't know is like bringing out my ego and chopping it for stew. To just shrug and say I've no idea really makes me feel the cheese-grating-nail-scratching-blackboard cringe. Yet, realising this makes one so humble, and if anything, makes me want to learn even more.

You will also realise you have something to give, if anything at all.
Humility has a flip side when one feels that you have no confidence at all that you know anything at all. Actually, I'm not even sure if that is considered humility. But anyway, you would realise that humility and confidence are no opponents. That you can put at the table something you might have to offer, regardless of whether the offer is taken. It's the part where you are considering that you may have something to offer, and testing to see whether the offer meets the demand which helps you learn what exactly you can, have and will contribute

People will make you feel like the worse lump in the world, and they will also make you feel like a diamond
We will all meet more people as we grow up, even by simple probability. Just try changing your daily routine a bit. Can't say the same if you lock yourself in the basement everyday though there's always social media. But anyway, people will test your faith in humanity. Some people will make you feel like you are the biggest loser whether because they explicitly tell you that, or implicitly show it through their behaviours or you are just perceiving it in your brain. The point is, being around people will create mirrors, and what you see in the mirror may be something you like, or not. You will want to compare, you will want to win, and you will learn that in more cases than not, there is really no win or lose. Everyone gets to keep some medal. The good side of this though, is that you come to learn who is key, or who you want as key in your life, and whose key will you be.

You will become very closely acquainted with this amazing thing in life called Choices.
It's no longer choosing between nap time or movie time. It's choosing between paths, paths that you have no goddamn idea where they will lead to. and you will still have to make a choice and live with it. Which brings me to my next point. You will make bad choices. and you will realise you can actually survive it, and may even come to embrace it. But at the end of the day, you won't be running long from this thing called Choice.

You will love, hurt, learn - repeat cycle
Friends, other halves, family, work, passion; anything you have actually decided put your heart into. You will stretch the capacity of your heart, you will feel the pain of the stretch like yoga after 10 years of break. It is not pleasant, but so necessary.

You will accept that "It didn't start out this way, why should it end this way?"
Change. In matter of 30 seconds, so quick that when you realised, it has already happened. In a matter of 30 weeks, so gradual that again when you realised, it has already happen. But you didn't start out this way, so why be so sure it will end this way? There are two sides of looking at this; that if you started out horrible, things may get better, but also if you started out great, things may become horrible. And it's not linear, it's cyclical. You can choose to fight it, with that you learn which battles are worth it. At the same time, you can choose to embrace it, and flow with it - the latter being a crazy challenge.

You will learn 50 shades of grey
And not in the sexual way. Not unless you prefer to, promise not to judge ;) But you will realise that not all bad is necessary bad, and not all good is necessary good and every new thing you learn might bust your mind, or grant you awe. You will learn to walk by the peripheries and balance the in-betweens and feel your core. Nuts, but it makes good stories, haha.

P.S:
I noticed I use the word 'will' a lot, and it's not intended to set up any expectations and make anyone go "oh shit oh shit oh shit, this is going to happen to me". But I kinda like the intense tone that comes with will, because I really believe that is what most of us will face, just in our own unique way. So don't fret yet, I promise life is still very worth it, cross my heart.

23 years of life, and more to come, =)