1. When you lack self respect, people will tend to follow your lead. It seems as though people who struggle with self-respect routinely put themselves in a position to get walked on (i.e. taken advantage of, neglected, abused). Though many folks may be willing to step over them for a while, eventually they begin to blend in with the carpet.
2. Most arguments aren’t worth having. It is truly rare that two people come to a conversation, with differing viewpoints and a genuine openness to consider a contrasting perspective. Generally, we enter such discourses with our minds made up, listening only well enough to develop our next counterpoint.
3. Often times the drive-thru isn’t the quickest path to the food. We have become so focused on convenience in America that we’ll often take twenty minutes to go through the drive-thru, just to avoid a five minute walk to the counter. While that might seem to be a trivial matter, it appears to be having a profound impact on generations of kids, who are being raised with the idea that everything should be quick, easy and accessible from a sitting position.
4. It’s doubtful that anyone is really “out to get you”. Generally, a person (and/or their circumstance) has to be of consequence before someone is willing to invest the time and energy it takes to conspire against them. I would suggest that we are more often damaged because people aren’t considerate of our position than we are because people have made a conscious effort to hurt us. Though this knowledge doesn’t necessarily dampen the pain, it should aid with forgiveness.
5. Life and relationships pretty much deliver in proportion to your investment in them. While little is generally expected of a child, the demands of life increase dramatically with age. Those who are unwilling to work in school will undoubtedly struggle to get a good education; those who are unwilling to work at their vocation, will surely struggle to make a living; and those who are unwilling to invest themselves in relationships will most certainly struggle to be a meaningful member of a family, a community or even a team.
6. Not everyone who agrees with you is for you and not everyone who disagrees with you is against you. In this era of political correctness, openly disagreeing with someone is often viewed as being “intolerant” of their beliefs; but there are times when caring for a person dictates that we confront and contradict them. Conversely, there are those who are perfectly willing to allow you to drive headlong into disaster, as long as it serves their own selfish agenda.
7. When you keep your own score, you always feel as though you’re losing. The problem with keeping score is that we naturally tend to under-appreciate our blessings and to have an exaggerated sense of our hardships. Because of that, people who keep score in life generally feel as though they’re never quite being given their due. Ultimately, it’s better to simply give our best in any given situation and to let someone else keep the scorecard.
8. It’s worth the time to read the instructions first. This is hard fought wisdom for most of us, especially those of the male persuasion. But after living through a few botched projects, you begin to understand that reading through the instructions, before you begin, is generally a much more reasonable price to pay.
9. Self pity is the first step toward self destruction. While self pity can begin as a fairly innocuous emotion, it tends to quickly build momentum over time. As we become focused on ourselves and our troubles, the balance in our perspective is lost; often causing a rapidly descending spiral. While most of us would admit to throwing the occasional “pity party”, self pity is an emotion that few of us can afford to indulge for very long.
10.The best things in life cannot be held in our hands or necessarily even be seen. A young person’s dreams are often rooted in tangible gains, like a mate, income, a career, a family, a home… But as a person attains those kinds of things, values seem to shift from the tangible to the transcendent. At the end of a long life, it is things like friendship, faith, love and hope that are ultimately treasured.
priceless lessons to learn & remind yourself of!
If only we would take these lessons and put them into positive actions could our lives be more fullfilling! Well stated Bryan!
Amazing insights worth instilling in the fiber of our daily walk.
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