Thanks

You want to know something funny? Until I met you, I never realized just how much was missing from my life. I'm not talking about little inconsequential frivolities either. I am talking about the essential components of life. The things that make a life worth living. I was living a hollow meaningless existence before you came around.

I still don't have everything that I truly want or need in this life, but with your help I've been able to find so much. I don't think you even realize how much you've helped me over the years, but I want to thank you for waking me up. I want to thank you for helping fill my life with joy, and I want to apologize because I know I haven't helped you even half as much as you've helped me. I can only hope that I can make it up to you eventually.

Rules for Living

I've found this in various places under various names and attributed to various authors. I didn't come up with it, but I do believe it.

1. You will receive a body - You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.
2. You will learn lessons - You are enrolled in a fulltime informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons - Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”
4. A lesson is repeated until learned - A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end - There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better than “here” - When your “there” has become a “here” you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
7. Others are merely mirrors of you - You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you - You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie inside you - The answer to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. This will often be forgotten, only to be remembered again.


I'll come back later and make some comments about the various rules and the nuances and intricacies of them, but for now, just read them and let them soak in.