Life

Dis­claimer: I got the idea for this post from Gretchen Rubin’s per­sonal com­mand­ments –which she shares in her Hap­pi­ness Project. I learned so much doing my Life List that I fig­ured I have a go at this as well. (As for the title, I couldn’t resist.)

These ‘’com­mand­ments’’ are actu­ally just reminders to myself of the big real­iza­tions I’ve had about how to keep myself happy and mov­ing forward.

1) A clear target

Take time to con­sider what the ulti­mate sit­u­a­tion would be for me and the peo­ple I care about. I prob­a­bly do this 4 or 5 times a week and it’s actu­ally not an easy task. It IS easy to cop-out and say, “mega-rich on a trop­i­cal island,’’ but that’s not what I really want.

I try to clar­ify what my days will be like when I’ve finally arrived in my ideal sit­u­a­tion. I want to be able to read the news­pa­per, eat­ing fruit, in a sunny place. I want to have bril­liant friends who I spend a lot of time with. I want to learn a lot every day, as a part of my job. Plus about 50 other things. I think the clearer I can be about pre­cisely where I’d like to end up, the more likely I’ll get there.

2) Some­thing every day

I try to take at least a small step for­ward, toward my ulti­mate lifestyle, every day. I put some­thing on my To Do list every day that will pre­pare me for that sit­u­a­tion (I work on a lad­der), to make sure I’m mov­ing toward that target.

3) Appre­ci­ate it

Just like at Thanks­giv­ing, take a moment to think of some­thing you’re grate­ful for. It’ll remind you of how far you’ve come and that, while not every­thing is always per­fect, you’re life is mostly pretty good. As my mom used to say on cold win­ter nights, “be thank­ful that we have a nice warm place to live.” Or as Socrates said, “He is the rich­est who is con­tent with the least.”

4) Speak up

I’ve had to learn this les­son a few times in my life –that I need to share my ideas. I need to put my ideas into the world for a few rea­sons. First, it’s a way to real­ize what I know and to push my think­ing (to be con­struc­tive). It’s also a way to con­nect with peo­ple, to build com­mu­nity. The last time I real­ized this in a big way was my first trip to Aus­tralia. There peo­ple expect you to have a story to tell. I found I was so used to being a lis­tener that I didn’t know how to tell my stories.

5) Make it a good day

Even on good days, I try to think of one thing that could make the day a lit­tle bet­ter. If it’s stop­ping at the store and buy­ing some candy to eat, that’s okay. What­ever can make it a lit­tle hap­pier okay. Get­ting into my paja­mas early also makes me hap­pier. The point is that, for me, tak­ing each day as a project works.

6) Sleep on rice

This one comes from a story I heard of a poor immi­grant man who slept on rice (with his long­suf­fer­ing wife) in the back room. He did this for year so that he could save money. Even when he had saved enough to move into an apart­ment, he didn’t. He con­tin­ued to make sac­ri­fices until he could buy the store. I’m always inspired by sto­ries of peo­ple who have worked harder than they had to, so they could achieve uncom­mon ends.

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