Assalamu Alaikum Steemian friends. Hope you are all well. Every new week of this season's Steemit Challenge competition is going well. So today I have come to participate in the first part of this wonderful contest organized by this community. Our teacher @fannyescobar has put up a topic called "SLC-S24/W5 - Thoughts and reflections. So I will share my opinion on this wonderful topic.

Our life always likes to move in a straight line. If there is a break in life, then the price of it is very heavy. But if you have an honest mind, life is always beautiful. Of course, the main basis of character formation is life experience. Without experience, we cannot understand the true form of life's complexity, betrayal, love, pain or joy.

When someone uses us, that painful experience creates a kind of realistic understanding of who is real and who is masked. And this realization helps to become more mature, strong and aware in the future.

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We can never understand the mind of a person, because we do not have the ability to understand it, only the Creator can understand it. However, we can guess what the next step might be by listening to the person's gestures and conversation. We only keep looking for answers according to that question. However, sometimes we unknowingly get caught up in something unknown.

If someone only looks out for us when we need them but doesn't care about our feelings or situation, then they are selfish. If you observe their behavior, you will see that they are taking things over and over again, but giving nothing in return, neither respect nor sympathy. And the biggest sign is that if they disagree with our decisions, they blame us, cause us stress, or become isolated.

Since we are not children anymore, we all have had some incidents that we will never forget in our entire lives. However, there are some incidents from which we can learn lessons.

A close friend of mine, named Rafi, at one point in his life sacrificed a lot for his girlfriend. She was studying in a foreign country. They had a long-distance relationship. Rafi took a job instead of his studies so that he could save money and visit her at least once a year. The girl left all her expenses on Rafi, including the mess rent, study expenses, and even personal shopping. But as time went by, the girl made her own life abroad and one day suddenly decided to end the relationship. There was no advance warning. She just said, You are not right for me.

Rafi was mentally broken. But later he admitted that if he had not broken the relationship, he might never have understood who loved him and who was just taking advantage of his sympathy. Today, Rafi is a successful entrepreneur. He says that the hurt was my lesson.

This experience proves that people only mature when they face real life challenges. Being used is painful, but it is one of the main means of character development. It teaches us how to say no and how to protect our self-respect.

In my opinion, experience makes people cry, but from those tears comes new understanding, learning to love yourself, and the wisdom to protect yourself. If we give everything selflessly in a relationship, after a while an emptiness forms inside us because we get nothing in return.

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I am a very ordinary person. From my personal understanding and experience, I believe that love or any relationship cannot be based on giving or sacrificing alone. The foundation of a healthy relationship should be mutual cooperation, understanding and respect. If a relationship is one-sided, only one person gives and the other only takes, then it is no longer love, but exploitation, which eventually leads to mental and spiritual decay.

At different times in life, many of us sacrifice our own choices, desires, and even self-respect to keep someone happy. We think that one day that person will understand, change, and reciprocate our love. But the reality is that if we do not draw the line of this giving, people easily take advantage of our good hearts. Gradually, we get tired, lose ourselves, and eventually return empty-handed.

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No matter how tender your heart is, set your own limits. Learn to love yourself because a person who does not love himself can never truly love anyone else. If you have to sacrifice your dreams, self-respect or mental peace to please someone else, then that is not love, it is self-destruction.

Be bold and make your position clear. If you see that the relationship is becoming one-sided, you are giving your emotions, time, effort and everything but getting nothing back, then it is time to protect yourself, to move away from that relationship. Because the purpose of a relationship is never to enlighten someone by burning yourself. Remember that you only have one life and reserve it for people who understand your value, respect you and love you back.

So I am Inviting my lovely Steemian friends @karianaporras, @abdullahw2, @radjasalman, @selina1 @afzalqamar, @solperez, @walictd, @artist1111 to Participate in this STEEMIT CHALLENGE.