HALT

HALT: Hungry Angry Lonely Tired. I got this from a good friend of mine. It means never make any major decisions if you're in any of these states and especially if you're in all of them at the same time. That is when we have the poorest judgment and make the worst decisions. The kind of decisions that we could regret and/or having a big mess to clean up afterwords if it can even be fixed. My suggestion is if you're feeling any of these feelings while faced with an important decision is to tell that person you'll have to get back to them when you've dealt with one or more of the negative feelings you're experiencing. You could solve 2 of them quit easily by getting something to eat and getting some sleep. The other 2 could involve spending time meditating to get rid of the anger and spending time with a really good friend to take care of the loneliness. Notice how I said friend, not potential love interest. This could lead to a big mistake, if you know what I mean.

Always be willing to learn

No matter how old you are, you can always learn something from someone. That includes having the humility to learn something from someone younger than us and or less experienced than us. My samurai sword trainer is 63 years old and he's still willing to learn something from me. I'm 29. He really inspires me. I'm striving to be like that. My best friend is 5 years younger than me and she's taught me so much. It can be difficult at times to learn from someone younger than us because our ego will want to get in the way. It takes strength and humility. We all have different experiences and we can all learn from each other if we're willing to be open to it. Bruce Lee once said "Empty your tea cup and I'll let you have a drink out of mine".

Live Backwards

Ben's first duty as a new pastor was to conduct a funeral service for Albert, a man who had died in his eighties. Since he didn't know the deceased, he invited members of the congregation to say a few kind words about Albert.
No one budged. "Many of you knew Albert for years," Ben prompted them. "Surely someone can say something nice."
After an uncomfortable pause, a voice from the back of the room said, "Well, his brother was worse."
If you died tomorrow, what would people say about you? Would their comments make you proud of the way you lived and the choices you made?
There's an old saying: "If you want to know how to live your life, think about what you'd like people to say about you after you die, and live backwards."
Thinking about the legacy we want to leave can help us keep our priorities straight. When the end is near, it's not likely any of us will say, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office." Unfortunately, many of us only begin to realize the value of the time we have after we've frittered much of it away in shallow ruts going nowhere important.
It's hard to think now what will matter later. But doing so can dramatically improve our chances of living a full and meaningful life with few regrets.
Knowing how we want to be remembered also allows us to make a strategic plan for our lives. How much wiser would our choices be if we had the wisdom and discipline to regularly ask ourselves whether all the things we do and say are taking us where we want to be at the end?
In a sense, we write our eulogies by the choices we make every day.
Michael Josephson

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you

It's a cliche statement, but it's so true. Often times someone does something to us and we are hurt by it. Our knee jerk reaction is to do something back to them to get even. Getting even with them doesn't take the pain away of what they did to us. We need to forgive them for what they did to us and move on. We need to be the bigger and better man and act honorably no matter what they did to us. That can be a difficult, especially when someone has really hurt us. I've taken both paths in many instances and I can tell you from experience that acting honorably is way more peaceful then taking revenge. That to me is a real man.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force him or her to drink

There are many times that I'm frustrated by peoples actions. I'm frustrated when I see them doing something that's wrong in my opinion and if they just did what I believe is right then all their problems would go away. I'm not always right though, as much as I want to be. We can lead the horse to water, but we can't force them to drink as much as we would just love to shove them in the well. Who's to say that I'm right? I'm basing what I think on my life experience. Even if I am right, that person has to make that decision for themselves. They can't do it just because I said it; then they're not doing it for themselves. This could cause resentment against me for making that decision. Each of us is on our own journey. We all have our own process and speed for our lives. I find that if I make little changes in my life, I'm good... but if I'm given too much to handle, I'll run as fast and as far as I can. I'm keeping this in mind when dealing with others. They may feel the same way as me. There may be a deeper reason that I don't know about as to why they won't take that next step. Everybody's got a story, who am I to say how that story is to be written?