Lessons to live by and thoughts to ponder

• In fixing your life: Working on yourself works, and trying to change the world doesn’t.

• In relationships: Working on yourself works, and trying to change other people doesn’t.
  

• When you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you’ll change.

• There are two ways to run a relationship – one is like a team, and the other is like a contest.
  

• How do you love someone? Try substituting the word “acceptance.” Total acceptance is unconditional love.
  

• When we forgive ourselves, we stop criticizing other people.

• It seems reasonable to assume that any qualities and talents you develop in this life – love, determination, compassion, basket weaving- you’ll get to take with you. So our best bet is to develop ourselves to full potential here and now – and hope the benefits are transferable!

• If you are serious about peace of mind, at some stage you’ll need a sense of gratitude. And here’s the crunch – if you want to be grateful, you wake up grateful. If you say, “When my life gets better, then I’ll be grateful,” you never will be!

• The opposite of analysis is synthesis. Health comes from looking at things as a whole – looking at your body as a whole, looking at humanity as a whole.

• It pays to be selective about where to take your body. It’s better to go without than to eat in some restaurants, it’s better to stay home than sleep in some hotel rooms. Guard yourself jealously and trust your intuition. Stay out of places which drain you. When a place doesn’t feel right, keep walking!
  

• Start everyday with an intention to be balanced and peaceful. Some days you will cruise through until bedtime, and some days you won’t make it past breakfast. If peace of mind is your daily goal, you will get better and better.
  

• You improve your quality of life by working on your thoughts, and your thoughts affect your feelings.
  

• There are alternatives to getting angry. It is possible to be fascinated or amused. The fewer rules you have about how life ought to be, and how other people ought to behave, the easier it is to be happy.
  

• Once we make a decision to do a thing, the means appear. We might explain away these lucky breaks as coincidence. But with keen observation, we notice it happens regularly.
  

• Nobody is born with special permission to succeed. God doesn’t come down from a cloud and say: “Now is your time!” He doesn’t say: “You can,” or “You can’t.” YOU DO!

• All children should have a chance to play some sport – not for the trophies they get, but for the lessons they learn. Not the least of these is, it’s not where you start, it’s how you finish.

• It is not a negative approach to ask: “What is the worst that could happen?” It is a way of measuring your commitment. Break your vague fears into specific possibilities and risk-taking becomes more fun.

• Courage is not the absence of fear – courage is acting in spite of fear. People who do nothing with their lives are just as scared as people who take major risks. It’s just that the first group get scared over tiny things. Why not get scared over something significant?

• You get motivated by doing things, not thinking about them. Action gets you excited and action reveals opportunity. Take the plunge.

• We always have choices. If you are not doing something, it’s because you’re putting your energy elsewhere. The question is not: “Why is this impossible?” The question is: “What am I unwilling to do?” When you say: “I’ll do this thing. I don’t care how hard it is,” life then starts to support you.

• Wherever you are, you aren’t stuck – you are a human being not a tree!

• Doing what you love is not a recipe for an easier life, it is a recipe for an interesting life. Most likely you’ll take on more responsibilities and more problems!

• The joy is in doing your thing – and stretching because you choose to, not because you have to.

• If you want to earn a living doing what you love, your hobby is a possible source of income. Until you have leisure interests, you limit your options.

• Many people don’t know what they want – and they are upset because they are not getting it. If you don’t know exactly what you want, figure out what is closest to it – and go from there.

• You give your best not because you need to impress people. You give your best because that’s the only way to enjoy your work.

• Always do more than you are paid for, and one day you will be paid for more than you do.

• If you turn you life into a campaign against things, the things you fight will expand. Decide what you are for.

• Life is a mess because you think like you do.

• Our subconscious mind is a collection if all out thoughts. Our most common thoughts have created our strongest subconscious behaviors.

• The trick to giving is to give without wanting anything back. If you expect something back, you are attached to a result – and when you are attached, less happens. And should you enjoy your material possessions? Of course! Just make sure you own them and they don’t own you.

• On the mental and physical level, we are dealing with natural laws. Nature doesn’t understand desperation! Nature seeks balance, and you can’t be desperate and balanced. Life doesn’t have to be an endless struggle. Let things flow. This is not indifference; it’s not forcing things. You can say, “I don’t understand how it all works!” You don’t have to understand gravity either. Out challenge is to work with principles – we don’t have to understand them

• “…There’s such a thing as trying too hard…You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money- Love like you’ll never get hurt – You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watching – It’s got to come from the heart if you want it to work.”

• Every “disaster” in your life is not so much a disaster, as a situation waiting for you to change your mind about it. You say, “But does this apply to my illness, my bills and my drunken husband?” You bet it does.

• Prosperity is not necessarily a money thing. It is a lifestyle thing.

• In order to have something in your life and keep it, you have to be comfortable with it. To make money – and keep it, you must be comfortable with money!

• Happy people don’t just accept change, they embrace it. They are the people who say: “Why would I want my next five years to be like my last five?”

• Start anywhere you can. Give your best shot to whatever is in front of you and opportunity will begin to find you. It’s called developing a reputation. It’s called “One thing leads to another.”

• The universe rewards effort, not excuses.

• If we are honest with ourselves, we can list almost everything that’s ever happened to us – and see how we helped created it. Don’t worry about whether the laws of the universe are delivering for your neighbor. Watch the law of cause and effect at work in your life – in your own relationships, your own successes and your own disappointments. You will have greater piece of mind.

• If people aren’t asking you, they usually don’t want the information!

• Every person who walks into your life is a teacher. Even if they drive you nuts, they teach you because they show you where your limits are. Just because people are your teachers doesn’t mean you have to like them.

• We are each a cause. Our thoughts attract and create circumstances. As we change, we attract different circumstances, Until we learn a lesson about debt, about work or lovers, we either (a) stay stuck on the same lesson, or (b) keep getting the same lesson in different packages. Life goes like this. We get hit by little pebbles – as a kind of warning. When we ignore the pebbles, we get hit by a brick. Ignore the brick and we get wiped by a boulder. If we’re honest, we can see where we have ignored the warning signs. And then we have the nerve to say: “Why me?”

• We are not here to be punished. We are here to be educated. Every event has the potential to transform us and disasters have the greatest potential to change our thinking. Act as if every event has a purpose, and your life will have purpose. Figure out why you needed an experience, conquer it and you won’t need it again.