Instructions For Life

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

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2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

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3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.

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4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

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5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

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6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

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7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

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8. Spend some time alone every day.

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9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

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10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

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11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.

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12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

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13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

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14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.

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15. Be gentle with the earth.

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16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

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17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

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18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

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19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

 

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I received these rules in a chain mail together with a statement, that their origin is the Dalai Lama and they were his "Mantra for the Millennium".
However, it seems that this is a "web legend" and their actual origin is not His Holiness but the compilation
"Life's Little Instruction Book, Vol. II" by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Here all these rules can be found, some of them in slightly different wording, among 498 others like "Watch less TV"...
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Anyway, I believe these 19 instructions do carry a holy spirit and they can be truly wonderful guidelines for many people's lifes!
That is why I publish them here as a very first step towards my own homepage.