My Portable Magic

With ‘This Is Us’ getting well underway on its second season, I am left here reflecting on the first season and the countless lessons that I took from the show.

I know that I am not the first nor will be the last to do something like this – but my word, this show is incredible.

1. Take the sourest of lemons that life has to offer and turn it into something resembling lemonade.
2. A tragic ending doesn’t have to mean the story behind it isn’t beautiful.
3.  Our pain, no matter how small or large, is part of who we are – we have to embrace it as it is something wonderful.
4. Hiding your anger will never get you anywhere.
5. Life is going to give us a lot of ups and downs, it is what we do with them that matters.
6. Pain, as John Green wrote, demands to be felt – this can be seen all throughout the first season.
7. Our destiny is not laid out in front of us to grab and take as we see fit – sometimes we won’t realize exactly what it is until it is right in front of our faces.
8. You need to embrace every single second of the life that you are living – savour all of its pieces.
9. Being good, in all of its forms, is so fucking hard.
10. But if you are genuinely good, you will change the lives of many.
11. When things don’t work out, you shouldn’t quit, you shouldn’t let those set backs hold you back from trying to make it work out in another way.
12. Your person will find you and they will love you unconditionally.
13. You only get one epic, big love in your life – don’t settle, don’t waste your time on mediocrity.
14. You have to show up – it’s that simple.
15. You always choose the ones you love.
16. The ripple effect is real – watch your mouth.
17.  You have to give people the space that they need to forgive you, no matter how long it takes.
18. Want your life to be a little bit easier (but in no means simpler) – be brutally honest and straight forward with your thoughts and feelings.
19. We all seek guidance from the ones we look up to in life, it’s part of our genetic makeup to need reassurance.
20. Believe in someone.
21. Sometimes the right thing to do for yourself may not be the right thing for someone else, but you still have to do it.
22. Children will affect your marriage – how you let it affect it will depend on you both and the strength of your love.
23. Create a life that suits you and not your family.
24. Your parents will make mistakes.
25. Your perception of how things are may be different to someone else’s.
26. Being a parent is the hardest but most beautiful thing this world has to offer you.
27. Making mistakes doesn’t make you a terrible or a bad person, it means you are real.
28. You don’t have to treat all of your children the same – they are not the same person and they all demand different things from you.
29. Don’t waste your life doing something that makes you feel like shit.
30. Sometimes you have to blow caution to the wind and just go with the go.
31. The more that you allow yourself to let go of things, the happier your life will become.
32. Happy life does not equal easy life.
33. No matter how hard you fight, sometimes things will play out the way that they are meant to be.
34. You were here long before you were born, you will remain long after you die.
35. God’s plan for us is way better than any plan we would ever be able to create for ourselves.

Now, I have to admit, it takes a lot of effort to put these lessons into work.

I am trying.

Maybe you should too.