(author unknown)
- Live beneath your means and within your seams (having trouble here).
- Return everything you borrow (and remind those who borrow from you…?).
- Donate blood (as O-neg, they send out the vampires for me every 8 weeks).
- Stop blaming other people (It just pissed them off).
- Admit it when you make a mistake (basic survival skill with my wife)
- Give all the clothes you haven’t worn in the last three years to charity (great idea. I’l get right on that one… sometime).
- Every day do something nice and try not to get caught (and don’t expect reciprocity).
- Listen more; talk less (very hard to do, but keeps me out of trouble).
- Every day take a 30 minute walk in your neighborhood (I keep making excuses, but the principal is right-on).
- Skip two meals a week and give food money to the homeless (Messing with my food touches a sensitive spot).
- Strive for excellence, not perfection (this resonates with me).
- Be on time (especially for meetings with me).
- Don’t make excuses (they are really boring).
- Don’t argue (being right is boring too).
- Get organized (but not obsessively so).
- Be kind to people (tends to encourage them to be kind to me).
- Be even kinder to unkind people (this may be a stretch).
- Let someone cut ahead of you in line(or pay for coffee for the person behind you).
- Take time to be alone (If I can’t be alone with my, why would anybody else want to be?).
- Reread a favorite book (Often much better this time around).
- Cultivate good manners (my dad tried, but I have not stepped up well to this one).
- Be humble (working on it…).
- Understand and accept that life isn’t always fair (or as I told my son, the only thing you are actually entitled to is a public defender).
- Know when to say something (<50% of the time).
- Know when to keep your mouth shut (way > 50% of the time).
- Don’t criticize for 24 hours (starting right now).
- Learn from the past, plan for the future and live in the present (check, check, whoops!).
- Don’t sweat the small stuff (and it’s all small stuff)
