By Sharmen Lane
For the majority of my life I didn’t appreciate who I was or how the things that had happened in my life could have been for the positive. At a young age I learned a lot about instability and dysfunction. My parents had been divorced nine times before I was 21. I saw men and women come in and out of my life like a rotating door. I had what felt like more steps than the Washington Monument and changed step parents more often than underwear.
To continue this unhealthy lifestyle, I became a bulimic at age 15 and didn’t stop until I was 30. I was a high school dropout and had difficulty in romantic relationships. I was married and divorced by the time I was 22 and again at 31. It hit me one day that I was making life changing mistake after mistake. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I had to make better choices if I were going to have a better life. Somehow I had become a victim to my circumstances and discovered that I wanted to take responsibility for whom and where I was in life so that my history would no longer determine my future.
One day I woke up and decided that I was going to appreciate my life and all the things in it. After all, all these circumstances and events taught me lessons, made me wiser and stronger. I had learned to depend on myself, to be independent, to be strong and force myself to make it through tough times. I had learned how to control and choose my reactions even though I couldn’t control the things that happened to me or in my world. This was a truly valuable lesson because when I realized by appreciating my life and all its details, I learned to appreciate all my amazing strengths.
Sharmen Lane is a personal growth author and motivational speaker.
