You can learn and grow from anything that ever happens to you.
How we perceive experiences shapes who we are and who we become as individuals. Now, before you call me crazy, let me further explain the title of this passage.
For the past few years, I’ve taken every situation that I would have considered “bad” and made a drastic life change out of them.
To start, none of this was done on purpose. I’d experience something not so good and out of fear of this thing or event happening again, I would try and make sure that it couldn’t happen! Allow me to explain with some examples.
Diabetes
Short answer:
The experience: My diabetes, after 12 long years of neglect, began showing kidney damage that I would forever need to take pills for in order to protect them… All at the young age of 24.
Why this experience was beautiful:
I studied diabetes and health every single day. I diligently worked until I had a complete understanding of my body and what I have to do in order to survive.
Since then I’ve almost completely reversed the damage caused to my kidneys. I’m conscious of everything I do now, and not only that, I’m now one hell of an example of how people with diabetes can completely change their health around, according to my Dr.
Long answer:
My diabetes, ever since being diagnosed at the age of 12 had never been under control at any point in time in my life.
Now, this wasn’t just a case of “you need to do better” this was a case of “you’re going to die an early death, your A1c is 14.5 (glucose level average/350) which we don’t even display on a physical chart. A good sugar level that my Dr. wanted me to be at was between 80-120 to give an understanding of what’s considered normal.
I was putting myself in danger of heart disease and stroke. But, this went on for over 10 years. Once I moved to Illinois I had to find a new endocrinologist (who would be seen every 3 months). If I didn’t need insulin to survive, I wouldn’t have ever gotten another Dr. Regardless, I decided to set up an appointment on the day because I needed supplies and wasn’t feeling great/hadn’t been feeling great.
We do the typical test and bloodwork that’s needed when one hasn’t been seen for some time. I leave and the next day I receive a call that I ended up missing from my dr, the voicemail says “Mason your urine sample came back and you have a lot of protein that is spilling out which indicates a problem with the kidneys.
We’re going to have to put you on medication in an attempt to protect them from any further damage.” These words made me cry. I was driving to a call and pulled off to a McDonald’s to cry it out. It’s not just that this was terrifying news, this was the FIRST time I had an actual problem as a direct result of my negligence.
After that day, I took it upon myself to do a complete turnaround of my health and haven’t looked back since. I immediately began studying how to, first, reverse my kidney damage if at all possible. Which led to learning how to maintain glucose levels and eat healthily and essentially stay on track with diabetes in general.
My first time going back to the Dr. and you wouldn’t believe the experience I had. They had me sit and wait in the office until they got my numbers back… The office lady came in to greet me first with a smile and a high five “Mason, way to go! We’re so proud of you!
The Dr. will be in shortly,” Then, Dr. Lee came in with the results in hand and said “I don’t know how you’ve done it within 3 months, but you’ve managed to bring your A1C down to 6.7” (almost that of someone who doesn’t have diabetes, also 3 points lower than I’ve ever had in my life.)
At the time, this was truly an incredible feeling but I was still worried about the damage to my kidneys. I asked him to do a urine sample again and when it came back he told me I’ve begun reversing the effects and that the amount of protein spilling was almost back to normal already.
Wow. Something that started out as the worst news I had ever received ended up being one of the best things to happen to me in my life.
Children
Short answer:
The experience: At 21 years old I was told my carefree lifestyle would come crashing down and I could no longer think for myself, but instead, for my family. No more dreams, no more goals to strive for. My girlfriend who at the time had PCOS, told me that she was pregnant… and I was completely heartbroken.
Why this experience was beautiful:
I have followed through with 90% of the things that I put my mind to because there are other people involved in my decisions now.
It put legitimate force behind my many ideas of becoming something/someone better than who I currently was, which allowed me to follow through with things in order to do what was best for us and it still does to this day.
Long answer:
I got home from work around midnight and my girlfriend (now wife) was sitting in the middle of the bed with her legs crisscrossed when I arrived. She told me that she was pregnant with a look of concern and excitement that I can’t put into words.
Haley had PCOS which is short for Polycystic ovary syndrome, which basically means that she had infrequent/heavy periods and it was causing infertility. Children didn’t even seem like a possibility for us which is why there was no concern.
I had recently turned 21 years old and going to the bar and getting drunk was my only goal in life. It was party time and I didn’t want anything to take that away from me, and I let everyone around me know that as well. I had a sense of invincibility and courage that you wouldn’t believe.
As soon as I got the news, all of this left within an instant. The first thing I did was go for a walk and contemplate.
Now, at the time this couldn’t have been worse news. I wasn’t sure when a good time to have a child was but I certainly didn’t expect it to be during prime party age.
On numerous occasions, I thought my fun life was over. Months went by and I was nothing but a sad sap bringing everyone down around me… but I slowly began accepting it. After a while, I even ran scenarios through my head on how I would approach “this” and “that” situations.
Finally, the day came on 12/16/17 when my son Sawyer would enter the world, making both Haley and me parents. We both began parenthood as nervous wrecks but maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings onto her.
As the days flew by, I noticed myself slowly growing from an individual who people couldn’t really count on to someone who takes his time to give a proper answer to anything. Not only this but there was also a gradual change in how I felt about children… patience began to show itself in my life too.
It’s like I was nothing but a shell of the man I once was and was beginning to now be a genuine human being.
All of the ideas I had set aside and/or completely forgotten about had now been resurfaced and I began making plans on how to achieve them.
I 100% believe this newfound success in taking action began because of bringing a child into my world, therefore, making me have to start accomplishing more in order to be more for my family.
In closing, my life was unknowingly spiraling downward until having a child and since then, I’ve accomplished more between that 4-year time frame than my entire life prior, 10 times over.
Not only that, I discovered that I absolutely love children and have since had 2 more and am currently inquiring about a 3rd to had to our list. Looking back now it’s pretty sad to see the old mindset I had regarding children and life in general, and I’m just so grateful and fortunate to have been able to be aware of my situation enough to change and document it.
Smoking
Short answer:
The experience: I started smoking cigarettes at the age of 16 and quickly made smoking a pack a day a habit of mine for many years to come.
One day, I had trouble breathing and it scared me enough to go to the emergency room. I went to the emergency room (it was very packed, they had to see me in the lobby) and they told me there wasn’t anything wrong that they could see with the immediate eye.
Why the experience was beautiful:
This scared me so much that I decided on my own that my breathing was due to the damage I had done to my lungs up to that point, and told myself I would stop smoking. Even though I had said this 1000 times before, I never touched another one again.
Long answer:
I started smoking cigarettes at 16 years old. A buddy of mine (let’s call him Jack) whom I worked with at the time regularly smoked and would often offer me one whenever I’d step outside with him on breaks.
For months on end I would tell Jack no because there was no want for me to have one, on top of that, my parents both smoked and I didn’t care to follow in their footsteps with addiction.
Well one random day I decided I would try one, and quite obviously, it was gross and I didn’t want any more. After having one, however, I told myself it wouldn’t be an issue should I ever be offered another one in the future because I’m aware that I could never be addicted to something like this out of sheer disgust for it.
As some time passed I began having a cig almost every day on break with my buddy Jack, still “knowing” that I didn’t need them and they weren’t a problem, until, randomly… Jack went on vacation.
A couple of days went by and it was slowly becoming all I could think about. Jack was not only the only person I know other than my parents who smoked, but he was also the only friend I had that was able to purchase them.
This became an issue, fast. The thought of it not having control over me was completely gone out the window, I just needed to know how to get more. This is where my addiction started and blossomed. I would figure out how to get cigarettes until finally turning 18 and then buying them myself. I smoked a pack a day, every day, for almost 8 years.
One day, I noticed myself having difficulty breathing. I was having so much issue in fact, that I called off of work and drove myself to the emergency room.
This emergency room visit did a lot for me and also nothing at all. They were packed with people and they had to see me in the hallway, and in that hallway, they told me there was nothing to the physical eye that seemed to be out of order.
So I went home and got way into my head. I immediately pieced together that my trouble breathing was likely from the nonstop cigarettes that I had been smoking for the past many years, and that I would need to stop.
Now I’ve told myself that I would quit smoking on numerous different occasions, but this was completely different. This time, I was scared to the point of change. A day passed and I began feeling better. My immediate thoughts were “you’re back to normal, you can have one now” but I decided not to because the fear of not being able to breathe was still relatively fresh in my mind.
The next day passed and I was still feeling better, and I truly gave thought to having one this time… but decided not to waiver. The third day was strange because I didn’t nearly think of smoking as much but was also feeling much better and feeling back to normal.
As the days passed, not smoking was no longer part of my “not feeling well” stage, and more so as me understanding that I had, at that point, been without nicotine longer than I had ever gone before and didn’t want to ruin it.
Around this time I was also reading books on behavior and realized that habits are so easily broken, even when you give in to temptation just one time. Knowing myself well enough, I decided to never touch one again no matter how bad I would want one because I was aware of what would happen. To this day, I haven’t smoked another cigarette since and never will.
I can say this without hesitation and without fear of fumbling over my words only because I know myself more than I ever have, and I know how I function.
This experience taught me to look inwards and find how I do things, and I’ve used this power of understanding habits to my advantage in many, many other aspects of my life already as well.
Final Words
The examples I’ve shown are a few of very many scenarios that played out in my life in an amazing way. I truly and wholeheartedly believe that there are no bad experiences.
Your actions and habits have snowball effects which can either be terrible OR amazing, and you can absolutely decide for yourself. The best part, you can start today.
Nothing that I did was anything special in any way whatsoever. In fact, they were all easily attainable things/goals that any other person on this beautiful Earth could do. Prove to yourself that you can do whatever you want with your life, you deserve it.
Love,
Mason