You get out of it what you put into it.

I was recently reminded of a piece of advice and given another.

The first was that in any job "you get out of it what you put into it."  I've heard this before, and absolutely believe it.  Moreover, a lot of things made me think about this with regard to life.

You get out of life what you put into it.
Investing your time into relationships with others to experience the joys of loving and being loved.
Investing your time in education and learning to become learned, insightful, and wise.
Investing your time in God, and understand love, grace, and being the person God created you to be.

Those are only a few examples.  Whatever it is you choose to do, you will get out of life what you put into it.  Life takes effort, something I think that most people fail to understand.  The world doesn't owe us anything.  We don't deserve anything on this planet.

So to you, sir or ma'am, I say stop dreaming.  Life is REAL, so we must be REAListic.

The second piece of advice I was given was that the secret of life is to enjoy it, and to have as much fun as possible.  This goes hand in hand with the former piece of advice.  What do you want to get out of life?  What will make you enjoy it more, realistically?  A secret that I've discovered about this, is that life definitely has little daily joys, and joys that come easily; however, life also has joys that come from hard work and perseverance, and I think many people fail to see that, and ultimately only taste a part of what life can offer.  Figure out what you want to get out of life, and then start pursuing the path that will get you there.  This realization can be tough to swallow, but I think it can be extremely motivating.