How2: Chlo’s Library. Chapter 2 - Things No One Else Can Teach Us.

We’re back for another Chapter of Chlo’s Library. This chapter is for those of you on your self-love, self empowerment, finding yourself journey. Things No One Else Can Teach Us was actually a recommendation from my older brother at the start of lockdown. He was posting quotes from the books on the gram and I was so intrigued that I had to buy myself a copy. It has been one of my favourite lockdown reads.

It is not a typical read of mine. I have never been one to read self-help books but this opened me up to a new genre, I enjoyed it so much that I now have a couple of these types of books, as well as all of Humble The Poet’s books. I think this is all part of your own self care (check out our blog post on this), taking time to understand yourself is so important.

For those of you who are unaware of Humble The Poet, he is a spoken word artist/musician/influencer/Youtube personality/public speaker from Toronto. For me, he is that wise old owl from children’s books who can tell you all about life, using his experiences to become greater and insightful. His way with words is amazing - he does it in a way that is not belittling or arrogant, just HUMBLE.

Things No One Else Can Teach Us is all about shifting your perspective. Understanding that only we have the power to change how we feel about life, using our experiences as lessons. Rather than worrying about the bad memories, overcompensating on the good, thinking about the what-if scenarios, we should use these experiences to “find, discover and create something valuable” - straight from Humble.

Every life experience we have come across has acted as a lesson, whether we know it or not. That horrible breakup allowed you to find yourself and realise your worth, that job opportunity made you realise your career aspiration and acted as a driving force for you to achieve all of your goals, that holiday made you understand that the world is so big that you have to travel and experience the adventure. This is exactly what this book is all about - not disregarding the moments that acted as pivotal life lessons, no matter how negative or positive they were. Being able to look back and realise how important that shitty situation was in allowing you to be the person that you are today.

Everything we go through is important, it puts us on game to better ourselves and the way we feel moving forward.

My favourite “chapter” of this book had to be the idea of focusing on the rainbow, rather than the pot of gold. This is the idea that we have to focus on the journey rather than the end goal. Humble describes these end goals as payday, graduation, the weekend and retirement, the idea that once these milestones are reached, we will be eternally happy - but how true is this? Once payday hits, we are ready for the following week/month to hit so our accounts can look healthy again, after taking graduation pics we are already looking for a forever job in an ideal career, once the weekend is over we’re back to work and waiting on Friday again. Humble describes the pot of gold as a key motivator, but it should not be the main motivation. This is because once we reach our pot of gold, we enjoy it for a few moments before the celebration wears off and we’re looking for another pot. That is why we must focus on the present. Enjoy your journey, celebrate every little step, have fun in the moment. What I’m not saying is don’t have goals and aspirations, we all need something to aspire to, but don’t let these aspirations blindside you to the fun you have on your journey of getting there.

For example, I have spent the past academic year working in a school. I know why I took a placement year in a school where the pay is not the greatest rather than a corporate office where I could be earning a lot more money - it will provide me with that extra experience when applying for my training course. However, if I had just worked this past academic year, only focusing on graduation and a teacher course, I would have never appreciated the little things I have encountered - building relationships with new friends, empowering young minds, having the most fun, catching the most joke EVERYDAY (I am sat here laughing at the memory flashbacks as I write this). This just shows how important the journey really is. I have the greatest memories to look back on and laugh about which would not have been at all possible if my mind was solely focused on that pot of gold.

I made the journey more important than worrying about the destination.

Throughout the book Humble ensures he tells his readers that he is not able to promise a happily ever after, instead he is pushing for us all to understand ourselves and our experiences. He explains that this is why there are things no one else can teach us. No one else is able to live in your brain with your thoughts, or go through life experiencing the same things as you, that is why it is so important to make sense of yourself. Despite this, he also makes it clear that we are not alone in these thoughts. Yes, our experiences are not the same, but his stories are meant to act as a realisation that challenges are not meant to be faced alone and that these same challenges can be transformed into something positive with a new perspective. Changing the way you see things, turning negatives into positives, speaking things into existence, manifesting positive thoughts, it is all SO important.

It’s possible to see the treasure that was always hiding in the trash.

Everything we have experienced in life has acted as an opportunity to better and find ourselves. Day by day it feels like nothing has changed, but when we look back and see how far we have come it shows us how much progress we have really made. This book made me think about things in a completely different perspective - something I did not think it would do. I now find myself not wasting energy on things that once aggravated my soul, but realising that the aggravation I felt was really just a lesson in itself. Allowing myself to realise that everything happens for a reason, in many cases to act as a life lesson.

To live is to deal with challenges and setbacks. No one is immune to the bullshit life flings our way; but our actions can make that bullshit better or worse - Humble The Poet

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