These always get me riled up…
- Let all of your experiences influence your future… lessons learned are valuable, and ignoring them is just as likely as not to earn you repeated negative experiences.
- Surround yourself with healthy, supportive people and absolutely listen to them. Your relationships are the foundation of a satisfying and productive life. Don’t alienate important others by ignoring their opinions.
- Time can dull some things, but especially painful things – unprocessed – get worse with time rather than better. Regarding things like loss and grief, assume that you need to make a place for that in your life, rather than “getting over it.”
- Social comparison is important – it is one of the main ways that we manage out behavior in order to be acceptable to society and generally keep things running. Competition, when you are able to admire or be inspired by those who are “better” than you, is a valuable experience in teaching you which goals you might want to pursue and how to go about improving. Comparing yourself only to yourself is a dangerous game… closed systems accumulate errors and self-destruct.
- Being calm is generally more effective than being all worked up, except when your accurate anxiety can motivate you to prepare for danger, your accurate fear can motivate you to move away from danger, your accurate anger can motivate you to rectify injustice, your accurate disgust can motivate you to move away from bad influences, etc… Also, the only thing the passing of time advances by itself is your age. It doesn’t inherently help you figure things out, get wise, make better decisions, improve any skills, etc.
- That level of internal locus of control is inappropriate and inaccurate. Though I am the FIRST person to say that other people and/or circumstances don’t MAKE YOU FEEL, and that most people have more control over their internal, emotional experiences than they believe they do, ignoring reality-based external stimuli is not a good recipe for functioning well in the world, building an environment that supports your growth, etc.
- Smile, Frown, Laugh, Cry… Your life is meaningful and valuable even when it’s not happy or traditionally “enjoyable.” Feel free to be present for all of it.
Comment below and give us a HEALTHY “Life Rule,” if there is such a thing!