Your life is your own and no one else can make it better or worse for yourself. Taking the leash of your life in hand is not something everyone can do. But once you learn that art, every success will be right at your feet. Life is full of ups and downs. It can easily distract us, hurt us, betray us and derail us from our goal. Sometimes the goal itself turns out to be futile. But none of them should be able to pull you down.

Here are 4 important things that one needs to learn to lead a happier, better life, as told by Zach Biddle of San Diego.

1. Learn to accept success and failure

Life is going to be difficult at times, and it is going to be easy at times. Success and failure are the two sides of the same coin. The toss can sometimes fall on heads, and sometimes fall on tails. Nevertheless, life goes on. The important thing is to learn how to treat both win and loss equally, from the point of view of a neutral audience rather than getting flooded with overjoy or drown in the abyss of despair. Once you learn that life is like a wheel where happiness and sorrow goes round and round by the rule of the world – it will stay with you forever, helping you through life.

2. Learn from your mistakes

To err is human, says Alexander Pope in his work ‘An Essay on Criticism’. And indeed it is. Any individual makes mistakes and more often than not, they have to pay for those mistakes. But what is more important is to learn from those mistakes and never repeat them ever again. As children, if we write the ABC wrong or write ‘dog’ where the picture is of a ‘cat’, we are easily forgiven. But as we grow, our mistakes tend to become less and less worthy of forgiving. And that is why we need to learn the very first time; and instead of treating it as a failure, look at it as a lesson learnt.

3. Learn to forgive, but not to forget

To forgive diving, says the other half of the quote from Pope’s essay. It means that to forgive is the job of God, and when humans forgive someone who wronged them, they are being as close to divinity as they can get. And given how difficult the task of forgiving is, it indeed makes us a better person. But Zachary Biddle tells you to forgive, but not always to forget. There will be many occasions in life when you are hurt, betrayed, wronged. To hold on to the grief and grudge would be a burden on your mind only, so forgive. But to forget it would push you to the same situation once again, so do not forget.

4. Learn to learn

We all on the earth are ignorant. Keeping our minds open to the possibility of learning new things, ideas, perceptions everyday is what helps us grow. The day you stop learning is the day you yourself draw an ending line to your life.