The cost of choices

"Every action bears consequences"

I thought everyone knew that.

You ate a rotten fruit, and you got sick.

You ignored your homework assignment, and you got a penalty from your teacher.

You became reckless with your health—hello, hospitals.

You cheat on your partner, and no one trusts you anymore; now, you're branded a serial cheater. 

But maybe you've always gotten away with everything easily because life handed you comfort on a silver platter. 

You've never tasted struggle, felt desperate for something, or had to claw your way out of a corner because someone was counting on you. You've never had to accept something, not because you wanted it, but because it was the only option left. You had an easy life, and everyone around you seems to baby you and sugarcoating instead of pointing out the reality. 

And then you decided to set foot on the wrong path. The signs were flashing a bright red light at the crossroads, warning you that if you go down that road, you will enter a thick dark jungle, where only pitch-black clouds hover above, and silence screams in every direction. 

But you ignored those signs. Too proud and too convinced that nothing bad could ever really happen to you, that life would keep being merry, happy-go-lucky, sunshine-and-rainbows, the universe will always be on your side, and everyone gets a happily-ever-after ending.

And then it hit you. All you got was a lightless wilderness that seemed to stretch to eternity. There was no sunshine, and no one was there to save you, just like those signs have warned.

News flash: the world doesn't revolve around you, and you can't always get what you want. That's not the way life works, man. 

Whether you like it or not, once you make a decision, you have to live with it. Swallow the pill. Own it. Even if it seems like the most erroneous choice you have ever made, try to make the best of it. Because you gotta live with the consequences of your own actions. This is how you learn something and how you can grow to be a wiser person.

You're an adult now. It's time to take responsibility for everything you did.