Ten Suggestions For The Good Life

Picture from ★ spunkinator on Flickr

The Internet is full of lists, and this blog is no exception. I’ve written about the 10 things I wish I knew earlier, the top 5 reasons never to become an expert, 15 ways to help you wake up and 25 ways to become more productive. I find these posts to be interesting to write and plan for as they force you into finding exactly that amount of things on the subject you’re writing about. In this entry, I’m going to focus on the ten things that I believe anybody can do to improve the quality of their life. Feel free to comment with your thoughts and ideas about this.

First and foremost, I think, is that it’s important to chose the people you spend time with. They say that you can’t pick your family, but that’s about it – you can pick everybody else. Don’t spend too much time on people who bring you down, who take far more than they give and who are far below your intellectual level or your energy level. These are people who will slow your momentum or stop you from becoming all you can be.
Always give people more than they are expecting. When you regularly out-perform people’s expectations – and do so with an honest smile on your face – people’s opinions of you will rise. No doubt about it. They will, in fact, become so used to your over performance that their requests and demands of you will, in fact, drop.
Forgive yourself and others. This is, in the minds of many people, one of the most important things we can learn. If we hold grudges and stay angry at people, we’re building emotional blocks that hinder us from becoming truly happy. Is there really a reason to be angry at that ex-girlfriend who hurt you seven years ago and whom you haven’t even talked to any more? I know that I, for one, have spent days of my life being angry or annoyed at people who I had no real reason to be angry or annoyed at. If I had only known early enough that it would have been so much easier to forgive them and move on with my life.
Be brave. Tricky advice, I know, but very important, too. Never be afraid to try out a new venture, a new restaurant, a new drink, a new friendship or anything else. If you settle with what you have for long enough, you’ll stagnate and nothing new will ever enter your life unless it’s forced upon you.
Most of the things you worry about never happen. Also, most of the bad things that happen are things you never thought to worry about. Worry is – most of the time – quite a pointless venture; the things you worry about probably won’t happen. I know that some people excuse themselves with things like “Well, then at least I can be prepared if it does happen”, but I believe they’re fooling themselves. Worrying takes up way too much of the time that could be spent getting somewhere useful in life. Take risks but don’t worry about what might happen if things don’t work out.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the Golden Rule, and well named. There are those who say that the main topic of the Bible is this one sentence and that the rest is commentary. If you consistently treat people as well as you want them to treat you – or better! – you will invariably have good results. When some people will walk all over you for being so pleasant and kind around them, refer to point one on this list.
Be decisive. This is important. Even if you’re wrong, at least you made a decision and stuck to it. Nothing is worse than sitting with your friends and doing nothing because nobody can make up their mind. “Should we go to a movie?”, “Hm.. There’s this movie, this movie and this movie”, “We could go to a pub?”, “Which one?” and so on and so on. Just stand up and say “We’re going to do this!” and start walking. People will follow you and they will appreciate that you made the decision. If the movie you decided that everybody should go see was awful, just apologize and move on with your life. Decide to do something better next time.
Surround yourself with happiness. Remember, happiness does not come from the things you own, the power you have, the position you have at the office, the prestige people shower upon you or the amount of money you’re earning every month. True happiness only comes from the relationships you have with people whom you love, respect and honor. Your closest friends will always be your most direct source of happiness.
Take care of them. This ties in with point 2 above, but deserves a point of its own. Take care of your friends. Many of them will not be around in a year for reasons entirely unrelated to anything happening today; make sure that the reason they are no longer in your life is not something you did. Don’t anger them, don’t upset them, don’t provoke them needlessly, and don’t insult them. These are the people who give you your most important commodity; happiness. Thank them for it and treat them well.
Improve yourself constantly. Never let a day pass that you’re not improving something in your life. It may be something as silly as getting a new record in a computer game or something very important. At the end of every day, you should be able to fall asleep knowing that your day was useful because you improved yourself in one way or another.