For your consideration, I recommend 50 Things I've Learned in 50 Years by Eric Zorn (via The Happiness Project). Here are some of Zorn's lessons:
- It’s better to sing off key than not to sing at all.
- The Golden Rule is the greatest moral truth. If you don’t believe in it, at least try to fake it.
- Keeping perspective is the greatest key to happiness. From a distance, even a bumpy road looks smooth.
- It’s not “political correctness” that dictates that we try not to insult others’ beliefs and identities. It’s common decency.
- Don’t waste your breath proclaiming what’s really important to you. How you spend your time says it all.
- If you’re in a conversation and you’re not asking questions, then it’s not a conversation, it’s a monologue.
- The 10-minute jump start is the best way to get going on a big task you’ve been avoiding. Set a timer and begin, promising yourself that you’ll quit after 10 minutes and do something else. The momentum will carry you forward.
- Candor is overrated. It’s hard to unsay what you’ve said in anger and almost impossible to take back what you’ve written.
- In crisis or conflict, always think and act strategically. Take time to figure out what the “winning” outcome is for you, then work toward it.
- The store-brand jelly, cereal, paper goods, baking supplies and pharmacy products are good enough.
- Your education isn’t complete until you’ve learned to take a hint.
- Whatever your passion, pursue it as though your days were numbered. Because they are.
And 16 More Lessons from Zorn's readers include these:
- Dan Wasser: Always behave in public as though your kids were watching you.
- H.L.: "People skills" without integrity is just manipulation.
- Jim: Everybody makes mistakes. The measure of character is how you make things right.
- Martin Jacobs: Manners count. Use them.
What lessons have you learned in life?
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