Proper posture is key. Be conscious of how you are holding your body.
The end of cigarettes. Whenever you feel a craving, drink a glass of water instead.
Remember, everything in moderation! This includes food, alcohol and fun. Too much of anything all at once ruins it.
Communing with nature is important for the soul. Use what’s available to you at each time of the year. Even taking care of my houseplant in winter is something.
Organization is a good think but only when it is a helpful tool — not the be all and end all of life. Remember that your mind works better when it is clutter free and knows where it is going.
It is important to feel and look your best every day. Feeling and looking put-together go a long way towards making things happen. Manifestation.
Respect everyone else just as much as you respect yourself. Though cliché, the saying is true: Treat others how you would wish to be treated.
Patience is a virtue.
Pictures are important. Take as many as you can as often as you can. Pictures will still be there long after your memories have faded.
Have no regrets over the little things. It’s the mistakes that make you into who you are just as much as the successes.
Remember that the world is very big and that you are very small. Never take yourself too seriously.
Music is southing to the soul. It is reflective and helps you to see things inside yourself.
Recognize your obsessions. How many of them are a product of the culture and/or subculture you live in? Keep things in perspective and remember the grand scheme. What is really important? There can sometimes be a fine line between help and hinderance.
If you are going to be in school, then homework must come first! Until summer, aim for 5 hours a day. Perfection is not required, only completion.
Remember that fear is your worst enemy. To be driven by fear is to move forward blindly. Thought, meditation and deliberateness of action are all important. It is better to do in thoughtful trepidation than to be paralyzed into inaction by fear of the unknown — or worse, the assumed!
Look for the connections. There is nothing that hasn’t been said or done before. Again, remember the grand scheme. You were once a collection of atoms and elements inside a dying star — and so was everyone and everything else!
Be conscious to the fact that money does make this world go around but you don’t have to be a slave to it. It’s composite parts are an idea and a piece of paper.
Finding pleasure in ife is important, otherwise what’s the point? If you are not having some kind of fun/amusement/pleasure each day, you should be asking yourself, why not? Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.
Everything is relative. There are very few absolutes. It is important to open your eyes to this. For example: I may consider myself old, but old compared to what? To how old I used to be? To my mother? My grandmother? The house I live in? The country? The continent? The planet? The solar system? The universe? Get a grip on reality.
Culture, society, religion and all the other trappings of everyday life (that separate me from my dog) are simply human creations. They are as fallible and as impermanent as the people who created them.
Platonic love is probably the most important because it assumes respect! You must love and respect everything and everyone if you are to every expect love and respect in return. For example: If I mistreat my dog, what will happen? If I refuse to water my little plant, what will happen? I am my dog and I am my little plant. Cause and effect
Meditation is something that I seriously need to learn to do. Without a consciousness of self there can be little consciousness of anything else. Clearing the mind makes room for other things.
Symbols are important. They speak to both the subconscious and conscious minds. They evoke memories and emotions. They create meaning where there might only be confusion. Meaning is the greatest quest that the human mind can go on. Everyone is looking for meaning in one way or another. It is the reason behind science, behind religion. Behind everything that makes life worth living is the search for, and the creation of, meaning in each individual person’s life. It is how our brains are made.
Memory is a funny thing. It is not absolute, but rather temporal and relative. Memory is a muscle that you must flex every once in a while lest it atrophy. You are your memories — conscious or not. Do not let yourself atrophy.
Another cliché: Your body is a temple. Cliché but true. As far as we can be sure, you only get one body. Take care of it! (What goes in it, what goes on it, what goes around it.) Putting thought into all of these things can make a world of difference to your well-being.
Every once in a while remember to just let loose. Fallibility is part of being human — nothing can be perfect but if that is your aim at least you know you tried your best — no regrets. Do not regret just going with the flow either. Fallibility and spontaneity are aspects of humanity.
Make the most of your time. Though we have named it and use it and treat it like a commodity, we don’t actually have time. Time has us and it is best to remember that. Always forward, never backwards. (As far as we can tell.)
Entertainment — though important — has, in my opinion, become too central to our culture and to me in particular. I am addicted to entertainment and must slowly wean myself off of such a high dose. As I mentioned, time is constantly moving and if I spend all my time ‘being entertained’ by everything from the internet to TV, trashy books, games, etc., what time do I have for my life? If finding and making meaning are so important to humanity (and me in particular) then what meaning am I getting from all this? I must confront my compulsion to be distracted from my life.
Speak up! You are the only one who hears that little voice inside your head and if you don’t vocalize, you just live inside your head! And then who is speaking for you?
Don’t complain about the things you aren’t really willing to do anything about! Value the words you say — don’t throw them around foolishly.
Those who don’t lie to be alone with themselves should confront the reason for such emotions and behaviour. Those who don’t like being amongst other people should confront their reasons for such emotions and behaviour.
We live in a culture of extremes: Extreme sports, extreme wealth, extreme emotions, ‘extreme makeovers’? I think we need to ask the question why? What is it about the lives we lead? What is it about this culture that makes us go to such ‘extremes’? I thin k it’s about testing the limits — just like petulant children who test the limits of their parents’ authority — we are testing the limits of the world in which we live. This may very well prove fatal. Look up the word “limit” in the dictionary and maybe you will start to understand why.
Moderation, meaning, deliberate thought and action, love of your fellow atoms — that is my manifesto.
