1.  The past year has been the most fulfilling, exciting, joyous year of my life.
2.  I never wanted to live the life that I am living today.

Seriously.  If you would’ve told me 12 years ago that I would spend my Friday nights hanging around with family, eating dinner and playing board games, I would’ve cried.  I had a very clear cut vision of what I thought I wanted.  Adventure, excitement, live music, boat trips, exotic travel, lots of girlfriends, debauchery and of course, expensive stuff.

You could call my life a lot of things today but debaucherous is not one of them.  I go to bed early.  I wake up even earlier.  I really enjoy playing bananagrams with my girlfriend on the weekends.  My idea of a late night is anything approaching midnight.  I don’t drink or smoke.  I hang out with my orthodox Jewish family members, talking about being of service to family and God…maybe even singing some songs together.

The motives behind my desire for fame, financial wealth and debauchery were to be happy and feel successful.  The irony is that I find more satisfaction and fulfillment from things that I would have wanted the very least.

This is more confirmation for me that when I live my life trying to make myself happy, I end up more miserable.  Yet, when I focus more on being of service to others (my friends, family and community), I end up feeling a sense of peace, serenity and fulfillment that is greater than anything I could have imagined.  Through service and an honest effort to be more humble, I get what I need instead of what I want.  And when I get what I need, I’m learning that it’s what I’ve always wanted.

1.  Does the course of action I plan to follow seem logical and reasonable?  Never mind what anyone else has to say. Does it make sense to me?  If it does, it is probably right.

2.  Does it pass the test of sportsmanship?  In other words, if everyone followed this same course of action, would the results be beneficial for all?

3.  Where will my plan of action lead?  How will it affect others?

4.  Will I think well of myself when I look back at what I have done?

5.  I try to separate myself from the problem.  I pretend, for one moment, it is the problem of the person I most admire.  I ask myself how that person would handle it.

6. I hold up the final decision to the glaring light of publicity.  Would I want my family and friends to know what I have done? (Just one example: What if it were the headline on page 1 of the Chicago Tribune?) The decisions I make in the hope that no one will find out are usually wrong.

Hope this helps somebody in their decision making.  Above all, I pray for the right answer, and the answer usually comes.  Sometimes very quickly and other times very slowly but it always comes, if I wait for it.

1. Use the response “It’s My Pleasure” when someone thanks you for doing something.
2. Use the response “I’d be honored” when someone asks you to help them or do something with them.
3. Listen more than you talk
4. Count to 3 before adding to a conversation to ensure the other person is done
5. Be willing to follow another person in conversation even if you don’t get to talk about your idea
6. Always offer to improve someone else’s idea and give them credit
7. Give credit for other’s ideas that you are carrying through on
8. Ask others for the opinion of others
9. Ask others to join conversations and contribute
Artwork by Adam Stone

10. It’s OK to be wrong and so admit it
11. Admit when you don’t understand or know something
12. Appreciate others who learn something quickly and say so
13. Be quick to apologize when you do something wrong
14. Study moral principles
15. Use moral principles to guide you
16. You are God’s creation, not your own
17. Recognize your talents as gifts, not your own ability
18. Know how your skills have only be developed by the help of others
19. Share your own knowledge to pass on what you have learned
20. Pass on thanks when you receive it to those who helped you achieve what was thanked
21. Value other people’s time as much as your own
22. Never equate time spent with people to a dollar value
23. Don’t boast about your achievements, let others recognize them instead
24. Keep your goals to yourself
25. Help other people with their goals
26. Realize the potential in others
27. Know that timing is everything and everyone excels at different times in life
28. Being the 1st follower is often the best way to lead
29. Since winning isn’t everything, you don’t have to win
30. Recognize that you have faults
31. Remember you are a sinner, as we all are
32. Ignore first impressions of people
33. Give others the benefit of the doubt
34. Provide positive and encouraging feedback instead of criticism
35. Make a choice to act more humbly
36. Practice at least one humble act each day
37. Be grateful for successes without boasting about them
38. Know how to accept praise with a simple thank you, don’t elaborate on it or talk more about it
39. Recognize the individualism of others and yourself, there is no need to conform
40. Share your core values and live them accordingly regardless of the circumstances
41. Prioritize things in your life and rate your actions on whether to followed that priority or not
42. Rate other people as first, be less significant
43. Forgive those who wrong you and move on without revenge or lashing back
44. Serve others and not yourself first
45. Seek wisdom, which is knowledge of what is true coupled with just judgment of action
46. Recognize and know that you know little and there is always more to learn
47. Avoid explosive reactions, and subside any aggression
48. Accept new ideas and change, not being stuck on what you knew before
49. Teach all that you can for the benefit of others
50. Learn from and model the life of the most humble man known in history, Jesus!

by Henrik Edberg

“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.”

You may know Mark Twain for some of his very popular books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He was a writer and also a humorist, satirist and lecturer.

Twain is known for his many – and often funny – quotes. Here are a few of my favourite tips from him.

1. Approve of yourself.

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

If you don’t approve of yourself, of your behaviour and actions then you’ll probably walk around most of the day with a sort of uncomfortable feeling. If you, on the other hand, approve of yourself then you tend to become relaxed and gain inner freedom to do more of what you really want.

This can, in a related way, be a big obstacle in personal growth. You may have all the right tools to grow in some way but you feel an inner resistance. You can’t get there.

What you may be bumping into there are success barriers. You are putting up barriers in your own mind of what you may or may not deserve. Or barriers that tell you what you are capable of. They might tell you that you aren’t really that kind of person that could this thing that you’re attempting.

Or if you make some headway in the direction you want to go you may start to sabotage for yourself. To keep yourself in a place that is familiar for you.

So you need give yourself approval and allow yourself to be who you want to be. Not look for the approval from others. But from yourself. To dissolve that inner barrier or let go of that self-sabotaging tendency. This is no easy task and it can take time.

2. Your limitations may just be in your mind.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

So many limitations are mostly in our minds. We may for instance think that people will disapprove because we are too tall, too old or balding. But these things mostly matter when you think they matter. Because you become self-conscious and worried about what people may think.

And people pick up on that and may react in negative ways. Or you may interpret anything they do as a negative reaction because you are so fearful of a bad reaction and so focused inward on yourself.

If you, on the other hand, don’t mind then people tend to not mind that much either. And if you don’t mind then you won’t let that part of yourself become a self-imposed roadblock in your life.

It is, for instance, seldom too late to do what you want to do.

3. Lighten up and have some fun.

“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”

“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

Humor and laughter are amazing tools. They can turn any serious situation into something to laugh about. They can lighten the mood just about anywhere.

And a lighter mood is often a better space to work in because now your body and mind isn’t filled to the brim with negative emotions. When you are more light-hearted and relaxed then the solution to a situation is often easier to both come up with and implement. Have a look at Lighten Up! for more on this topic.

4. Let go of anger.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Anger is most of the time pretty pointless. It can cause situations to get out of hand. And from a selfish perspective it often more hurtful for the one being angry then the person s/he’s angry at.

So even if you feel angry at someone for days recognize that you are mostly just hurting yourself. The other person may not even be aware that you are angry at him or her. So either talking to the person and resolving the conflict or letting go of anger as quickly as possible are pretty good tips to make your life more pleasurable.

5. Release yourself from entitlement.

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

When you are young your mom and dad may give a lot of things. As you grow older you may have a sort of entitlement. You may feel like the world should just give you what you want or that it owes you something.

This belief can cause a lot of anger and frustration in your life. Because the world may not give you what expect it to. On the other hand, this can be liberating too. You realize that it is up to you to shape your own life and for you to work towards what you want. You are not a kid anymore, waiting for your parents or the world to give you something.

You are in the driver’s seat now. And you can go pretty much wherever you want.

6. If you’re taking a different path, prepare for reactions.

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

I think this has quite a bit of relevance to self-improvement.

If you start to change or do something different than you usually do then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. How they feel about themselves is coming through in the words they use and judgements they make.

And that’s OK. I think it’s pretty likely that they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

So what other people may say and think and letting that hold you back is probably just fantasy and barrier you build in your mind.

You may find that when you finally cross that inner threshold you created then people around you may not shun you or go chasing after you with pitchforks. They might just go: “OK”.

7. Keep your focus steadily on what you want.

“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

What you focus your mind on greatly determines how things play out. You can focus on your problems and dwell in suffering and a victim mentality. Or you can focus on the positive in situation, what you can learn from that situation or just focus your mind on something entirely else.

It may be “normal” to dwell on problems and swim around in a sea of negativity. But that is a choice. And a thought habit. You may reflexively start to dwell on problems instead of refocusing your mind on something more useful. But you can also start to build a habit of learning to gain more and more control of where you put your focus.

8. Don’t focus so much on making yourself feel good.

“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”

This may be a bit of a counter-intuitive tip. But as I wrote yesterday, one of the best ways to feel good about yourself is to make someone else feel good or to help them in some way.

This is a great way to look at things to create an upward spiral of positivity and exchange of value between people. You help someone and both of you feel good. The person you helped feels inclined to give you a hand later on since people tend to want to reciprocate. And so the both of you are feeling good and helping each other.

Those positive feelings are contagious to other people and so you may end up making them feel good too. And the help you received from your friend may inspire you to go and help another friend. And so the upward spiral grows and continues.

9. Do what you want to do.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Awesome quote. And I really don’t have much to add to that one. Well, maybe to write it down and keep it as a daily reminder – on your fridge or bathroom door – of what you can actually do with your life.

Courtesy of the Positivity Blog

All of our instinctive desires are naturally healthy.  We have social instincts which give us a need for companionship, prestige and recognition from others.  We need self esteem.  If we didn’t feel a need for companionship, we would never come together to cooperate.  We wouldn’t accomplish much.  This is necessary to our survival.

We have a security instinct, both emotional and material.  If it weren’t for our basic need of security, we wouldn’t seek out food, shelter or warm clothing.  Emotionally, we have a need to either depend on or provide for another person.  Sometimes we do both.

We also have a sex instinct which gives us the ambition to procreate.  Without this, we’d be unable to continue as a species.

All of these instincts are god-given and healthy.  The problem is that I can take any instinct way too far.  When my naturally healthy instincts are blown out of proportion, I become a self-seeker who cares less about other people and more about fulfilling my own selfish desires.  This is when I step on the toes of others in order to get ahead.

When I took my social instinct too far, instead of feeling a need for acceptance, I sought to be the best in the world.  I wanted to be the most prestigious, respected man in the world.  I became envious of others who had what I wanted.  Instead of appreciating them, I secretly wished they would lose and I would take up their position as the best.

When my security instinct went too far, I hoarded money.  I stole.  I spent most of my days determined to make money, regardless of the cost it had on myself or others. This was the biggest problem.  Life became more about making money and less about my relationships.  Instead of spending time with family, I worked.  Instead of focusing on my relationships,  I focused on how people could help me make more money.  This had a huge cost on me both emotionally and mentally.  This kind of thinking is draining and I don’t believe how we are intended to live.

When my sexual instinct went too far, I used women.  It became less about building a mental and emotional connection and more about the physical actions.  I looked at women as objects and means to fulfill my sexual desires.  It disconnected me to women as people and replaced logic with a strong desire to hook up.

I am not “cured” of these instinctive drives.  I can still take any instinct way too far.  It is a daily effort to connect to the universe and ask for strength and guidance to live a balanced life.  Every morning, I pray that my thinking be divorced from self pity, dishonest and self-seeking thoughts.  Then, I think about my day ahead.

Right away, I start to feel better.  After realizing that my problems are miniscule compared to many others, self-pity leaves me.  I try moment to moment to say things that are truthful, kind and necessary rather than lies to make myself look good.  The most difficult principle to practice is to be less self-seeking.  I am inherently selfish.  But as I take actions every day which are based more on being of service and less on selfishness, it gets easier.

Ultimately, I am a selfish person.  And the real, honest reason of why I try to live life based on what is best for all….is simple.  It makes ME feel BETTER.  Being of service.  Doing what is best for ALL, not just me.  Helping others.  Getting outside my own head.  All of these things bring me more joy and happiness than getting nice things, making money or being with a beautiful girl.  And I’ve also found that the more I focus on others, the more I get those things anyway.

That is part of the reason this blog is entitled Shared Experience.  I dislike it when people blast their opinions in my face as fact.  I sincerely don’t know if I’m “right”, so all I can do is share my experience.