We spend so much of life preparing for the next milestone. As children, we wait to grow up; as teenagers, we want to be understood. In our twenties, there is an urgency to prove ourselves, and in our thirties and forties, life becomes a busy landscape of careers, families, identities and responsibilities. Then, somewhere along the way, the questions begin to change: Did I live enough? Did I love enough? Did all that running really matter?
Between our first cry and our final transition lies this extraordinary, unpredictable journey called life—a journey marked by milestones, but also by thunderstorms.
The milestones are easier to celebrate: the first day of school, graduation, the first salary, falling in love, marriage, children, professional achievements and, perhaps one day, grandchildren. These are the moments we photograph and preserve.
But life is not made only of photographs we want to frame. There are days nobody really prepares us for—the examination we don’t clear, a friendship that changes, someone we love walking away, a career that suddenly stalls, a business that fails, an unexpected diagnosis, ageing parents, children who no longer need us in quite the same way, or the strange loneliness that can sometimes exist even in a room full of people.
These are life’s thunderstorms. Over the years, I have come to believe that our well-being is shaped less by how many such storms we encounter and more by who we become while walking through them.
So, what state of mind works forever?
I don’t think it is permanent positivity. Nobody can remain positive every day of a lifetime, nor should we expect ourselves to.
There will be mornings when we feel powerful and evenings when we feel lost; periods of extraordinary clarity and others when we simply don’t know what to do next. Perhaps, then, the healthiest mind is not one that is always happy, but one that remains flexible.
It is the ability to recognise, This hurts, but this moment is not my entire life. I don’t have all the answers today, but I can still take the next step. Something may have ended, but I have not.
That, for me, is resilience in its most human form.
Every age asks us to learn something different
Each stage of life seems to arrive with its own lesson. Childhood gives us wonder; youth brings courage, experimentation and possibility. Adulthood introduces responsibility, middle age offers perspective, and growing older may teach us perhaps the most difficult and beautiful lesson of all—letting go.
The challenge is that we sometimes carry the mindset of one stage long after we have moved into another. At 50, we may still be trying to prove something we wanted to prove at 25. At 70, we may still be carrying an anger that began at 40.
Over a lifetime, we accumulate possessions, titles and experiences, but we also accumulate emotional luggage. Well-being is therefore not only about what we add to our lives; sometimes it is about what we finally give ourselves permission to put down.
The mind needs an anchor
Almost everything we consider permanent eventually changes—our bodies, careers, relationships, appearance and roles. One day we are someone’s child; later we may become a colleague, partner, parent, leader or caregiver. With time, some of those identities change or quietly disappear.
If our entire sense of self is attached to a designation, relationship, income, appearance or achievement, every change can feel like a small earthquake. We need an anchor deeper than our roles.
For me, that anchor is self-awareness—knowing who I am when the applause stops, being comfortable enough to sit quietly with myself, and understanding what deserves my energy and what does not. It is also recognising that peace does not always come from solving everything. Sometimes it comes from accepting that everything cannot be solved.
Keep something alive inside you
At every age, we need something that makes tomorrow worth looking forward to. For a child, it may be curiosity; for a young adult, possibility. Later, it may be purpose beyond the next promotion, and in the later chapters of life, it may simply be the joy of continuing to discover.
Learn something new, teach someone what life has taught you, travel, write, grow plants, sing even if you are not particularly good at it, mentor a young person or reconnect with an old friend. Start something at 60 that you were afraid to start at 30.
Age may change our pace, but it need not extinguish our curiosity. I often feel that we don’t necessarily grow old because of the number of years we have lived; something within us begins to age when nothing excites us anymore.
And when the thunderstorms come…
Instead of immediately asking, Why me?, perhaps we can sometimes ask, What does this moment need from me?
The answer will not always be the same. One situation may require courage, another patience or decisive action. At other times, what is needed may be forgiveness, professional help or simply rest. There is immense wisdom in learning to recognise the difference.
We don’t have to win every battle, respond to every opinion, carry every relationship forever or prove our worth each morning. There comes a beautiful stage in emotional maturity when we begin choosing peace over performance.
From our first breath to our final transition
If I could wish one kind of well-being for every human being—from a little child discovering the world to someone quietly looking back upon eight or nine decades of living—it would be a mind that can bend without breaking.
A mind curious enough to keep learning, strong enough to face reality, soft enough to love, wise enough to let go, humble enough to ask for help and peaceful enough to understand that life was never supposed to be perfect in order to be beautiful.
One day, our designations will disappear. Visiting cards will become irrelevant, targets will cease to matter and the race we once considered so important will be over.
What may remain is far simpler: the people whose lives became a little better because we were there, the moments in which we were truly present, the love we gave, the laughter we created and the courage with which we walked through our thunderstorms.
Perhaps that is well-being after all—not a life without storms, but a mind that learns, again and again, to find its sky.
Do share your well-being hacks…