I received this from a colleague of mine in Virginia and thought it was so powerful that I had a duty to pay it forward.
This piece speaks to me on so many different levels, reminding me of the power of the present moment and that I get to keep repeating a lesson until I learn it. The choice is mine how many times it takes and truthfully, I can often be a slow learner.
I hope you find as many morsels in it as I did!
Rules for Being Human
You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for as long as you live. How you take care of it or fail to take care of it can make an enormous difference in the quality of your life.
You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time school called Life. Each day, you will be presented with opportunities to learn what you need to know. The lessons presented are often completely different from those you think you need.
There are no mistakes—only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error and experimentation. You can learn as much from failure as you can from success.
A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it (as evidenced by a change in your attitude and behavior), then you can go on to the next lesson.
Leaning lessons does not end. There is no stage of life that does not contain some lessons. As long as you live, there will be something more to learn.
“There” is no better than “here.” When your “there” has become “here,” you will obtain another “there” that will again look better than your “here.” Don’t be fooled by believing that “there” is always better than what you now have “here.”
Others are often merely mirrors of you. When you love or hate something about another person, it is often a reflection of something you love or hate about yourself. When tempted to criticize others, ask yourself why you feel so strongly.
What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. Remember that through desire, goal-setting, and unflagging effort, you can have anything you want. Persistence is the key to success.
The answers lie within you. The solution to all of life’s problems lie within your grasp. All you need to do is ask, look, listen and trust.
You will forget all this unless you consistently stay focused on the goals you have set for yourself.
My commentary is that I recently learned you don’t set goals to achieve the goal, you set goals to change your behavior. Intuitively, this made sense to me because I know that you can only Act your way into right thinking, but you cannot Think your way into right acting.
And if all of our choices, decisions and behaviors are made in accordance with our beliefs, then it probably pays to have beliefs in accordance with the way we want to act. Sort of funny how that works that way. The illusion is that it is paradoxical, but the reality is that is how it works.
And as a coach, I have witnessed in my life and in the lives of my clients that we already have the answers within us. Sometimes we just need a little help finding them.
I know about myself that I am a forget artist, so gentle reminders like these are always wise. There is serenity in consistency despite however yucky it may feel at the time. Once again, I am reminded that everything, absolutely everything is a temporary condition.