I was just writing this – this list of personal vantage points. The most important rules in life cannot sell books, because they’re that simple. If you want me to write a narrative with anecdotes based on these philosophies, I’ll have to quit my job. =)
Here are my rules I’ve been thinking about a lot in the last two months. Someone asked why I seem happy, and it’s just who I am. It’s how I live, and sad to say, it’s how I’ve always been. That’s sad, because maybe outlook and demeanor isn’t about “willing” your reality to a better place, but it’s just a baseline genetic predisposition to live happily, *or*.. to live with toxic drama. I don’t know if it’s a choice, but if you are in the latter camp, I sure hope so.
Michael’s Rules:
1. Get over the concept of legacy. Stop it. The most relevant and important thinkers, writers, business people and more from just 50-100 years ago are already irrelevant. Free yourself from this archaic notion of exceptionalism, and you will break through these shackles of your ego to be at exceptional peace and calm. When you get past ego, & forget about quaint notions of legacy, that’s when it all begins…. free yourself. I read a twitter bio, “I am no one, and I love it”. Own it. Some of us will be someone. Others can simply choose happiness.
2. Be kind & patient. It’s easier.
3. Be happy. If you aren’t happy, try to find a joke, or impulse, to laugh at. It changes your whole demeanor, body language and more. Even a fake laugh jump starts your endorphins and starts with the tingly fulfilled feeling. Try to be happy. I know it’s not always easy for people.
4. Accountability – especially to yourself. No lazy morals! No crimes of opportunity – be consistent with how you apply your ethics. If you find something, and it’s not yours – it doesn’t matter if someone saw you find it or not. Be your own big brother, and your own watchful eyes. You aren’t allowed to equivocate based off of desire or other emotions. If you apply accountability consistently, your life will be easier and simpler. It’s irresponsible and lazy to think you don’t have to self-attenuate.
5. Focus on community. Break out of the idea that you are the center of your world. You are the center of how you interpret your world…. but you aren’t close to being the center. Without community, you would cease to exist, so apply these ideas of patience, accountability, and empathic understanding to everyone surrounding you. Understand there are bigger and more complex reasons that the bitter person in front of you isn’t concerned with you, or focused on your needs. Understand community comes with good and bad, but it makes us who we are, so celebrate it, help it, and do what you can to champion empathy in understanding when things aren’t all about you.
6. Simplicity isn’t something you can passively hope for. It is an active battle, daily. From fending off someone trying to get rid of “stuff”, to gluttony in consumerism, to ridding your life of toxic people or elements. You can’t just hope for your life to be calm…. it’s a struggle and battle. It extends from physiology to psychology and more… and you need to battle the forces that want you to take on too much, suffer negativity needlessly, etc. We’re a masochistic society, and much rather share stories about scars than beautiful picnics. It’s competitive, and people will always try to bring you down a few rungs on the ladder, and take the wind out of your sails. Simplicity is about finding a peace and calm in your place, and settling in to it. Think of the old adage of being a supple reed in the wind, able to withstand all exterior pressures, when it’s the mighty oak that is felled in a storm. Be yielding, but be ferocious with your drive to maintain simplicity.
7. Give yourself time. If you buffer every meeting, every commute, and other things with a 15 minute buffer on either side, you will have built in calm and peace into your life.
8. Drop the “present-shock”. You don’t need to know everything that is happening to everyone in the world, everyone you know, and everyone around you, at every moment. Be in the now – but *your* now. Stare at the people you are around. Don’t look at your phone when you are in groups. Leave your phone at home when you are with all the people that matter at the moment. Time has become meaningless, less of a moment and more of a way to mark a waypoint.Try to immerse yourself in the present you are actually in, the one that affects you… and realize that those other “presents” you are so tied to are either past or future, but not impacting your “now”.
9. Wonder & Awe will keep you young. I annoy people with this, but everything is fascinating to me. It goes back to #7. If you develop a sense of awe and wonder in this experience of life, you will never have time for sadness or negativity. Everything is part of greater process, many of which are highly interrelated. Inquire, ponder, look at things from different angles – if the complexity doesn’t amaze, the brilliance of random chance should mystify you. There’s enough wonder and awe in this universe to negate the need in fanciful jest or bizarre belief systems. Real systems demonstrate magic all around us, and you are missing out on the adventure of living if you don’t mine these profound realizations. Have fun learning. Everything is interesting. As simple as this, a viral quote I saw the other day: “The only cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity”.
10. When all else fails, and you have no idea what is going on….. smile. At the very least, it freaks people out.