From Sexually Abused Girl From A Broken Home To Record Breaking Achievement

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6 Life Lessons To Learn From The Life Of Maya Angelou


Marguerite Annie Johnson Angelou is best known for her popular memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” which made literary history as the first non-fiction bestseller by an African-American woman. But beyond that, she holds several awards and record-breaking ranks in her literary, artistic, and other work.

The following are 7 top life lessons, coined out of her favorite and popular quotations. Hopefully, you find the needed inspiration and motivation to live your best life.


1. Life Is Not Merely To Survive.

Most people live as though the goal of life is to survive, but Maya thinks differently. Little wonder how she was able to overcome the limitation of her youth having been molested at age 7.

Taking Maya’s advice, it is time to start thinking beyond survival and start thriving by taking advantage of your passion, compassion, humor, and style.


" Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope." — Maya Angelou



2. Attitude Is Everything.

We all have things we wish we could change. There are some we have even attempted to change but without results. It is at such times that the words of Maya should ring loudly in our minds.

When things don’t seem to change like we would have wanted them to, then there is one thing we can change quite easily – Our Attitude!

Changing our attitude towards unchanging circumstances suddenly enables us to see them with different eyes and bear them more manfully.


" I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."— Maya Angelou


3. Failing Doesn’t Make You A Failure.

At one point or the other, we have all felt defeated in some way or form. But according to Angelou, encountering defeat is not a license for us to be defeated. You can, in fact, experience defeat and refuse to be defeated.

Learning to rise to your feet from a position of failure and forging ahead is a virtue, best known to the top successful people in the world.

Like they say, “Show me someone who has never failed, and I will show you someone who has never tried!”



" A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim." — Maya Angelou


4. How To Deal With Life’s Eventualities.

This is a great life lesson to follow, considering that it is coming from someone like Maya with her background of being molested, growing up without her parents, fighting through racial discrimination, and facing all manner of odds.

It probably explains how Maya was able to surmount all the opposition that she faced, growing up to become the icon in her lifetime.

While you have no control over what happens to you, Maya says you can definitely decide not to allow what had happened to reduce you to nothing. You can always get up, dust yourself, and move on, no matter what might have happened.

" History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." — Maya Angelou


5. Courage Is The Most Important Virtue.

There are definitely a number of virtues to develop in life in order to thrive and not just survive. But from Maya’s view, courage is the most important of them all.

She holds this position because it actually does take courage to manifest virtually every other goodness out there. As such, she affirms that we must develop courage in order to practice any other virtue consistently.

6. Embrace Diversity.

Parents often have that experience where their children return from school worried about something their peers might have said to them in school. Children often have the tendency to want to be seen as the same as their classmates and others around them.

It is at such times that we should remember the words of this iconic woman. We should be able to show our kids that they are not weird for being different from everyone else. We should show them that there is indeed beauty and strength in their difference from everyone around them and they should never come under the pressure to want to be like everyone else.

Imagine what life will be like if everyone knew and applied these principles to their lives! We have Maya Angelou to thank for penning these down and sharing them with the world.

Which of these lessons stands out to you?