Life Lessons, framed for those in their twenties, but more timeless than all that.

You can read the author’s list of 13 life lessons at the link, which makes me feel fine about using those 13 as a starting point for a slightly modified list here.  This is not really ‘my list,’ but only my take on the list that was provided.

1. Know Accept Yourself As You Are, Warts and All.  Acceptance and a letting go of ego attachments frees us from being repeatedly surprised when we are victimized by our own weaknesses and from living a life where we self-deluded into thinking happiness comes from outside ourselves. 

2. Whenever possible learn to let go of failures, being let down or hurt, and the past. Build on failure and learn from your mistakes. Give up all hope of a better past.

3. Neither working hard nor working smart are sufficient on their own to produce success, contentment, or satisfying relationships. Intelligence without effort ensures mediocrity. Effort without intelligence ensures frustration.

4. Be grateful. For everything. Don’t just think it, feel it. A deep appreciation prevents taking things for granted.

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. – Eckhart Tolle

5. Be humble. If you lack humility, learn it. Acknowledge you don’t know everything…not even close.  Instead, like everyone else, you depend on others and live in an interdependent world.

6. Play your game, not theirs. Blaze your own path. Be a leader in your own life. Celebrate other people’s success and don’t be too hard on yourself if you misstep.  When others try to drag you into ungrateful, arrogant, self-righteous, denial, either/or thinking…change the game.

7. Do what you love.  When you love your job you never work another day in your life.

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8. Be fully present in each moment, celebrating your chance to engage with the people and challenges in your life. Some people wait their whole lives. For what, who knows, but they’re still waiting. You remember that really inspiring movie about the guy who sat on his ass? Yeah, me neither.  Carpe Diem. 

9. Career and Money are not everything in life: You get that promotion, hit the sales goal, or that record contract and you have no one to call …

10. Be spontaneous.  Surprise yourself and others, because engaging with the new and different is a source of learning and excitement and living fully.  The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.

11. Be willing to listen and learn. Life is a series of choices. Be willing to make them and learn from them. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

12. Surround yourself with good people and put yourself in situations where you are more likely to be the person you want to be. Your environment matters and you can impact your own environment.

13. Think before you make important decisions.  Try to live a thinking and thoughtful life.