21st Rule of Thumb

Just because you have a mind to do something is no reason to assume that you should.

Life's Guarantees Are Written By Us

There are no natural guarantees in life except the struggle between the stark, cold reality of survival and the dream of paradise that lurks within us all.

Freedom is not guaranteed to any of us. It must be fought for and, once secured, it must be guarded with the highest conscience and the purest values we can muster toward its survival in the dynamic and evolving culture in which we live our daily lives.

Like freedom, peace comes with no guarantee of longevity. Peace must be nourished with a continued absence of conflict between ourselves and others and cultivated with the benefit of prosperity, which is the fruit of peace.

And when peace is harvested and enjoyed on a daily basis, alongside the prosperity that a lasting peace inevitably produces, a guarantee of freedom is being written for us each and every day.

Doing The Next Best Thing

Sometimes, doing the best thing is actually doing the obvious thing, or the easiest thing, or the expected thing. This can be as commonplace as being and acting like the person everyone expects you to be. Doing the best thing is often doing the unfruitful thing, as far as any benefit to you is concerned. Do not allow yourself to live up to the label that people and life have bestowed upon you. Most people deserve better than that.

When someone angers you to the point of retaliation, do not retaliate. When you feel like cussing and swearing, praise some one or something instead. If using the law against someone is your most logical choice, then let their own karma call them to accountability instead.

Doing the next best thing is not always the best thing to do. But, in many cases, it is the thing that will work the best. For you and for everyone involved.

Knowing when to do the next best thing instead of the best thing is having wisdom and that is applying knowledge that can only ever be earned.

The choice is not only yours, it is you.

Now that you suspect that you are not the prettiest or the most handsome, I will tell you a secret. Do not squander it. It is a simple thing and they are the most overlooked and, once seen or heard, the most easily forgotten.

Forget what you look like and focus on what you think and on what you say and especially on what you do. All are choices that you make. And nothing in life carries more weight than making a choice.

Your face was given to you by someone and something else. But what you will choose to do with your precious time on Earth is the life you will give yourself.