Life is not easy when you are pursuing something worthwhile and ready to learn from the best experiences. Most of the time, we learn the lessons from the old and wise as they have already been where we are and have done what we do. But we hardly take their advice in advance. We never think of this as a precaution. We always learn it from our life and rarely does life teach us something in a easy way. It always takes tests and then fails us to learn anything worthwhile. Here are five life lessons which people will learn the hard way in majority of cases.

当你想追寻值得做的事情并准备学习最好的经验时，生活并不是简单的。大多数的时候，我们从老者和智者那里学习经验，因为他们也曾经和我们一样年轻过，也曾做过我们现在做的事情。但是我们很难提前采取他们的建议。我们从未把这当做预防措施。我们总是从自己的生活中去学习，而生活也很少用简单的方式来教我们。它总是测试我们，让我们通过失败来学习有价值的东西。下面的这五个教训，大部分的情况下人们都是费一番苦功才会学到。

1.It takes consistent¹ time and effort to be an expert in any area.

无论想成为哪个领域的专家，都需要付出同样的时间和努力。

This is the first and foremost² thing to keep in mind. People usually get discouraged when it takes more time than they thought it will. One thing to keep in mind is that people refer only to people who have already achieved what you want to be, which most people fail to do. They look at other unsuccessful people and apply those criteria³ to them even before they take action. Look at any successful person and you’ll notice one thing common in all of them. They took time to learn and mastered their craft like no one else. There is no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs.

这是你要记住的第一件事，也是最重要的一件事。当人们觉得所用的时间比预想的要长时，通常都会垂头丧气。但要记住一点，人们只会提起已经取得成功的人，而大部分的人都以失败告终。人们看着其他没成功的人，自己还未行动，就把那些准则用到他们身上。随便找出一个成功的人，你就会发现成功人士的共同点。他们都比常人努力，拿时间去学习并掌握技能。通往成功的路上没有电梯，你只能去一级一级爬楼梯。

2.You don’t have to live your life in a way society wants you to.

你不必以社会想让你生活的方式去生活

Decades of old beliefs, superstitions⁴ and rituals⁵ are being performed these days and are followed blindly without questioning their rationale. Parents sometimes force their children to select a career they don’t want because other children have selected that career. Girls are made to follow some rituals in their family which makes no sense to them at all. Worst of all, people follow them without even asking. There is no harm in old rituals and beliefs but when you pursue them before your interest, sooner or later you’ll realize that you should

几十年的旧习、迷信和规矩最近又开始风行，人们盲目地跟风而不去质疑这样做的理论依据。父母们有时会强迫孩子选择孩子不喜欢的专业就因为其他孩子选择了那个专业。女孩们在家里要守一些对她们来说无任何意义的规矩。最糟糕的是，人们连问都不问，就这样做。老规矩和旧习俗并无什么害处，但当你在感兴趣之前就去做时，不久你就会意识到你应该先做自己认为是正确的事情。

3.We don’t care about the things we get easily.

我们不在乎容易得到的东西

This is true in all the areas of life. Take health for example. Very few people take their health seriously. They know that if their health is lost, they won’t be happy, still they eat junk food and never exercise, keep accumulating fat and keep spending on weight loss programs. Still nothing works. Why? Because they don’t take their health seriously and the real reason behind that is they have got it for free. We spend thousands on cars and take care of them nicely. Imagine what would have been the price of human body if we had to pay for it? And then imagine how well we would take care of it if we had paid a huge amount of money to get our body.

这一点放之四海而皆准。就拿健康为例吧。很少有人把健康当回事儿。他们知道当他们不健康时，会不开心，但是他们还是会吃垃圾食品，不去锻炼，不断积攒脂肪，又不断去减肥。但仍是毫无效果。为什么？因为他们不拿自己的身体当回事，因为他们没有付出任何代价就拥有了身体。我们在车上花了成千上万元，所以会好好保管车。假如人的身体是有价的，那我们得付出多少钱呢？然后再想一下，如果我们得付出很大一笔钱才能得到自己的身体，我们会怎样对待自己的身体呢？