Ideas collected along the way

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks. 
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer. 
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, give her fancy lingerie. 
22. Don't save it for a special occasion, today is special.
23. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
24. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
25. The most important sex organ is the brain.
26. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
27. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
28. Always choose life.
29. Forgive everyone everything.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Time heals almost everything. Give time.
32. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
33. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
34. Your Dad loves you because of who he is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
38. Get outside every day. Wonder and Awe are waiting everywhere.
39. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
40. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
41. The best is yet to come.
42. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
43. Yield.
44. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

RESPONSIBLE

I recognize that each of us have everything we need; all the love, all the power, all the intelligence, all the tools needed in order to be happy, are already existing inside each one of us. God/Life has given us exactly what we need in order to live the life we are here to lead. We need nothing external in order to be complete. The idea that someone else “completes us”, that someone else is our “other half” is simply a lie we have been taught which allows us to shirk the responsibility of our own happiness. We are all responsible for our own happiness. No one else has the ability to MAKE us unhappy, and no one but ourselves can every truly make us happy. The only one who can complete me, is me. Expecting someone else to do that is simply fantasy and will ALWAYS lead me to disappointment.

RESPONSE - ABLE

I recognize that we have the power to choose our response to any experience. No one has the power to MAKE me happy, MAKE me sad, or MAKE me angry. We may feel a certain emotion in response to an experience, but we, as human beings, have the ability to choose how we will respond to that feeling.

RIGHT NOW

I recognize that right now is the only moment there is. Stress, worry, anger are all about either something that has happened in the past or something we THINK will happen in the future. We are all healthy, happy and perfect if we are in the never ending moment of NOW.

GIVE not GET

I recognize that since we already have everything we need, there is no reason for us to look to what we can GET out of relationships, or for us to lay expectations on others. Relationships exist in order to give us opportunities to GIVE. Happiness comes when we take the opportunities in any of our relationships to express who we really are, and the only way we can express who we really are is by giving of ourselves to others.

True Love vs. the Fairy Tale myth of being "In Love"

I recognize that these two are actually polar opposites and are easily identifiable once we understand how to see the difference. One is ALL about what you can give to the other person, the other is ALL about what you hope to get or possess. One is TOTALLY selfless, the other TOTALLY selfish. One ALWAYS says YES the other usually says NO.

Fairytale love, or that feeling, at the beginning of a new romantic relationship, of being “in love”, is a myth that we have all been taught to chase, through movies, television and stories. It is a six million year old lie our bodies tell us, a trick our brain plays on us, in order to ensure the continuation of the species. When we meet someone, our brain subconsciously evaluates them and rates their potential as a biological mate. If our brain decides they are a good potential mate then it automatically begins releasing chemicals into our system that we initially experience as “interest” in the other person. As the amount of these chemicals build up we begin to experience being “in love” with this other person. We might think about them all the time, feel light headed or short of breath when we’re around them, feel an overpowering need to be with them, to hear their voice, to touch them, to get lost in them. Some people call love a drug and when someone feels “in love” that is exactly what is happening. Their own brain is drugging them and causing them not to think clearly. This process can, and usually does, cause people who have very little, if anything at all, in common, to think they love each other. In actuality the only thing they really have in common might be that they subconsciously believe the other to be a good biological mate. This type of love is chemically/biologically driven at a subconscious level and is about possessing the other completely so that your genes can be passed down to the next generation. This type of love says, “I want you”, “I want to be with you”, “you complete me”, “you are my soul mate”, “you are the ONE who is meant for me”, “I want you to want me”, “I want you to want ONLY me.” Science now knows that the brain slows down or even stops the creation of these “in love” chemicals usually after between 12-18 months. It is at this point, as those chemicals are no longer in our systems, that most people are usually left with two thoughts, “why don’t I love my partner like I used to” and “why on earth didn’t those things about my partner that bug me to death now, bother me when we were first together”? The answer to both is that our brain was lying to us before and now it’s not.

True love, on the other hand, is something all together different. It is not reserved for that mystical “one true soul mate”. True love is “wanting the other person to have what they want for themselves, MORE than you want them to have what YOU want them to have.” If you truly love someone you will never get in the way of their expressing their highest vision of who they really are, even if that expression means they are no longer with you. You can truly love anyone as long as they allow you to be who you really are. If your thoughts and feelings are about what you want, then you don’t truly love the other, you simply want to possess them and control them like you might a car. If your thoughts and feelings are about how you can help the other have what they want, then you love them. The difference is easy to spot.

Doesn’t make much sense to get angry at a bear for being a bear

Bears act like bears because of their biology and what they were taught by the other bears they were around as they grew up. Individual people act like they do, and make the unique decisions they make, because of their biology and the other people they were around, and learned from, as they grew up. Bears have no choice but to act like bears, and people have no other option than to act like they do, and make the decisions they make. It is not realistic and is also very dangerous to expect a bear to act like a horse. Once we learn another person’s true nature, it is also just as unrealistic, and potentially dangerous, for us to expect that they will act or make decisions in a way that is contrary to their true nature. Once we realize someone is a bear, if we continue to expect them to act like a horse, and we end up bitten or mauled, we have absolutely no right whatsoever to be, even the slightest bit, angry at the other person. They were just being who they really are. We can only be angry with ourselves for thinking a bear could or would act like a horse.