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. So learn to like it.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full time informal school called life. Each day in this school you have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think they are irrelevant and stupid. So learn to like the lessons.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error and 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 to the next lesson. Periodically, the lesson will be represented to see if you still remember it.
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 learnt. If no lessons is being presented, it is likely that you are no longer alive.
6. 'There' is no better than 'here'. When your 'there' has become a 'here', you will simply acquire another 'there'. That will again look better than 'here'.
7. Others are simply mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects 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 make of them is up to you; the choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to life's questions lie inside you. All you have to do is look, listen and trust yourself.
10. You will forget all this. That fact is itself a lesson.
-An email extraction from a friend-
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4 comments:
That was excellent... especially number 10. But what i feel strongly these days, and am 38 now, is that i am getting old! Otherwise, why do i need philosophy to get along with life? I am looking for simple quick-fixes in philosophy, to tide over the small tensions and upheavals that my mind creates... Looking back, I realise that I have gone through all these in my younger days, and I got over them all without the need for a philosopher or guide. I could live life fuller then because life, then, was much easier. Today, as you so well wrote, it is a big No 10 - We forget everything and repeat the cycle of mistakes and learn no lessons!
We forget so we can learn and yet we learn so we can forget.
I see No.1-9 as check points to keep me sane in this somewhat insane world we live in!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for your reply. I fully agree. I re-read 1 to 9 and I agree. But why is this self-realization such a fleeting feeling? These days, I am very aware of my thoughts, the way I react and even why I react to externalities. Yet, what I know must be a rational reaction does not occur all the time. Isn't because we only seek to learn the lessons we want rather than what life wants us to learn?
I find the fleeting AHA moments comes and goes like waves when it stays in my head 'intellectually' - just like we know things by the book but yet fail to experience it. I have found knowing and practicing are two completely different processes. When I'm aware of my thoughts and my reactions to my outside world (the knowing) and I then can choose to change my respond to my environment (the practicing) - the more I do this, the more I fine tune my responses and my view of the world broadens with it.
Thanks!
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