OK. The Sarah Green Rules for Living have been brewing for a good, long time now... thanks to many a thinker, a decent amount of life experience, and a little help from the people in my life I hold dear, I think I've got a good set (OK, at least a starting point) of basic concepts I apply to make life (more) bearable.
Rule #1: Chase your happy.
Alright. I haven't been around for 100 years or anything, but in the meager years I have been around, I have learned perhaps the one thing we all want to do, and usually do not, is chase our happy. We take jobs we don't want because it would be too hard to do what we want to do. We stay in crappy relationships because it's easier than being alone. We live in places we don't like, we drive cars when we'd rather walk, we choose the salad when we want the steak.
Screw it, folks. Chase your happy. After all, we're only here for a few short moments... why not maximize delight while we're around?
Rule #2: The best way out is through.
Thanks to Robert Frost for this one. When we do not chase our happy, or otherwise find ourselves in crapola situations (sometimes we make them ourselves and sometimes crapola is just hoisted on us), the best way out is to bear down and live through it. There often aren't any shortcuts to enlightenment or growth. But living it is always worth it. You come out on the other side polished by the fire, a little stronger, a little more honest with yourself, and perhaps just a little more tempered for it.
Rule #3: The only person respsonible for your life is you.
We spend so much of life trying to attach responsibility for situations to others...
My boss doesn't like meBlah blah blah. Ultimately, Scooter: you are an adult and you make your own choices. That includes the choice to be either delighted or repulsed about life. You can either grumble about the state of your life or you can unceremoniously just do something to change it. I have found that once I took responsibility for my own life -- took matters into my own hands and just owned my personal responsibility for things -- life looked immediately brighter. I also had to lean a lot more heavily on Rule #2, but at least I was in charge. That allowed me to employ Rule #1 a lot more often. Which ends up being wicked sweet.
My landlord is out to get me
My ex is a jerk
My parents really screwed up
Rule #4: Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.
I owe this one to a quote, as well. I can't remember who said it, but I'm doing my best here to avoid plagarism. Anyway, this rule is about honesty. Always being candid (though respectful) with and to others... and also candid and respectfully honest with yourself. Even (and perhaps especially) when it is difficult. The feedback you get in a shaking voice might just be the feedback you most need to attend... even if it is your own.
Rule #5: When you can't change it, learn to laugh with it.
Here's my modern, non-AA take on the serenity prayer. The Cliff Notes version: Change what you can. Don't bother trying to change the things you cannot. Instead, find the humor - the lesson - the whatever, in those things you cannot control. And just embrace that life IS. No judgements -- not good or bad -- just IS.
Rule #6: Excuses are like a*holes.
Thanks to Dad for this one. I remember when I was in junior high and got a not-so-hot grade in typing (you'd never know this now that I type nearly 80 wpm, thank you, lifelong career writing on a PC), I started making excuses (this may correspond to rule #4 closely) for my outcomes. Dad immediately stopped me. Sarah, he said, I want to tell you something important. Excuses are like assholes. Everyone has one, and no one wants to know about yours.
Oh.
Well, he's right. That's exactly what excuses are. So I don't make them (or, I try not to. I am imperfectly human... though that's sort of an excuse in itself. Crap.)
Rule #7: Relatively deep love brings about relatively deep heartache.
Credit to Great-Grandma Alice here. While working through the why, oh why do my parents hate each other so bloody much, as a 10-year-old, I remember Grandma Alice telling me:
G: Sarah, you have to remember that relatively deep love brings about relatively deep heartache.'Nuff said.
S: So why love at all, Grandma?
G: Because once you love deeply, you wouldn't trade that deep love for all the heartache you might experience. The deep love makes the risk worthwhile.
Rule #8: We are all inherently lazy.
That's right: humans are inherently lazy. I know this sounds negative -- but it's not; it is a simple matter of psychology. Our gray matter is hard-wired to take shortcuts, to get someone else to do it for us, to make generalizations and categorizations. I (we) should remember that, especially when we're at that "people are idiots/mean/bad/etc" place (as I often get while driving through Milwaukee). It isn't personal. We're all just lazy.
Rule #9: You never regret going above and beyond the call of duty.
Another Dad-ism. As Dad was rearing teenage Sarah, the one thing he lectured the crap out of was work ethic. Doing your best. Doing more than what is expected. Going beyond people's expectations. We were sitting outside, where the pine trees used to line the boulevard at home in Elbow Lake, and the sun was nearly setting. Dad was a bit disappointed in the less-than-acceptable job of lawn-mowing I had completed. I remember him saying:
Sarah, you must remember 4 letters when completing a job: ABCD.And he's right. I never have.
Above and
Beyond the
Call of
Duty.
You'll never regret exceeding expecations.
Rule #10: Create something beautiful every day.
I'm going to mostly thank Paper Source for this one. Well, at least for its roots, as the Paper Source slogan is "do something creative every day". Well, yah, but for me, personally, it goes beyond that. I always feel most accomplished and fulfilled when I hit the pillow if I have made something beautiful that day... creative, sometimes... but sometimes it might be a beautiful conversation, or a nice arrangement of words on this blog or in a journal, and sometimes it's just the beauty of raising my daughter to be an intelligent, spunky, indepdenent grrl. But it is about finding and contributing to the beauty in my world, every single day. Because if not for the beautiful - the art, the music, the words, the relationships - what do we have to relish in life?
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