Criticism:
Life is full of struggles. It is always necessary to not lose hope, even when the entire universe is seemingly falling apart. I saw unexpected people cross my life path and then contribute to building or destroying my life trajectory. Early in career, when I was new to struggle and still learning about how to handle things by myself, I took every hurdle as an offensive attack targeting me. I spent more time hurting those who criticized me than seeing meaning in what they said and learning from their comments. The more I defended myself without making progress, the more criticism I received. It is always important to understand critics. Life's critics make a person successful and powerful. Eventually, I slowly learned. It is never too late to realize the capability of criticism. Oftentimes, I reach out for those around me for comment. It is also important to identify helpful comments.
Association:
I always choose carefully with whom I associate. I refrain from associating with a crowd. So far, publicly, I associate with the maximum of one person at any particular phase in my life. I think human association is critical in shaping one's life path and progress. Multiple personalities and thoughts from associating with different people and friends can be a distraction from one goal. It is always a good idea to at times stay alone and be lonely in contrast to being distracted and disoriented with respect to life goals. I am very careful in choosing a friend too. Most phases of my life passed without constructive and similar minded friends. It taught me to deal with any situation based on my own instincts and come up with the best solution to suit me.
Help:
At an earlier time during my career, I found myself extremely lucky to get help from completely unfamiliar and unrelated people to my situation. Those more familiar where either laughing at my situation or just didn't care. When strangers helped without wanting explicitly or implicitly anything in return, I reached a turning point in my life where I learned to live. I knew things happen without a reason and people cross the path for a reason. This aspect highlighted to me how and why to choose the people with whom I associate. I now am going far and beyond to help those especially who believe in themselves and are struggling to achieve their goal. In the entire process of help, I learned to continually remember: DO NOT EXPECT ANYTHING IN RETURN!