Discussion Life Lessons to Pass On

[terry_a_davis]

Don't get addicted to drugs. Use sparingly if you really must, but be wary of addiction.
Take a minute to reflect on what you have especially the good people in your life. Treat them the best way possible.
Empathise with others who are suffering.

I only learnt the above by going through addiction, having no foresight to my actions causing me to lose those close to me, and becoming schizophrenic then recovering. I wish someone could have given me helpful advice to prevent my mistakes but would I have listened? I think sometimes some life lessons can only be learnt by some people by making mistakes (unfortunately)

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I wish someone could have given me helpful advice to prevent my mistakes but would I have listened? I think sometimes some life lessons can only be learnt by some people by making mistakes (unfortunately)

I agree that we learn by experience. I've come to view life lessons, not as preventative, but as guidance for recognizing and affirming the most beneficial and edifying ways to do things. If the lessons are true, they reveal the truth in their application. They do not have expiration dates. So perhaps if someone had given you such helpful advice as you shared here, you would have been better equipped to identify the best path when you were ready to seek it, and more easily able return to it whenever you may have strayed.

Thank you for sharing your lessons here!

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Life lesson:

People reveal a lot about themselves by how they respond to criticism.

 

[Aeathelina]

Mine is kinda blunt and simple.
✴Do not sabotage your life to spite someone.
Learned from my own mistakes that I wasted valuable time and youth just to accomplish nothing and I hate myself for it.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

@Underscore, this made me think of you here on this thread:

"You ask what the finest life span would be? To live until you reach wisdom. The one who gets there has arrived, not at the farthest goal, but at the most important. That man, indeed, may boldly congratulate himself, and give thanks to the gods – and to himself along with them – and count in his reckoning with the universe the fact that he has lived. His account will be in credit: he has given it back a better life than he received." - Seneca

 

[itsmeagain]

Many of us here on SS are isolated. We have been shunned, or people in our lives don't hear us because of their own filters.

I don't have children to pass on life learnings. I don't have anyone in my life who doesn't have distorting filters. But at least I know that here someone may want to listen and may want the benefit.

What life lessons would you want to pass on to others?

_______________________

I'll start. I found it helpful to list them as a one-stop reference for as long as I'm still alive. And as long as I'm alive, I may benefit from the lessons someone else posts.



• Never take responsibility for the things others do to you, nor make them own what you do to them.

• Respect and stand up for yourself, even if you think you don't deserve it. The more you practice this, the more you'll realize you do deserve it.

• Respect those who respectfully stand up to you.

• If someone pushes your buttons, whenever you can, use life's ignore button on them.

• Forgive yourself, especially for what you don't know and what you had no way of knowing. Benefit yourself and others by moving forward, having learned and grown; no one benefits if you condemn yourself to staying stuck in the prison of past deeds.

• Guilt is an anchor that greatly slows forward movement.

• It is difficult to find happiness in ourselves, and almost impossible to find it elsewhere.

• Kindness should fill you up. If you feel drained, it isn't kindness.

• Always listen to and trust your gut. It is one of human biology's greatest gifts. Red flags say quickly self-protect and, whenever possible, disengage. Red flags do not have to be understood, and they NEVER have to be justified.

• Learn, without self-condemnation, from the times you did not trust your gut or red flags so that they can serve you in the future. They are always your right.

• Learn manipulation tactics so you can recognize them and more effectively protect your boundaries. There will always be someone who consciously or unconsciously resists others' boundaries for their own benefit.

• Be aware of the vampires who feed off genuine need and altruistic intentions.

• Recognize when you're making excuses for someone's bad behavior. They rely on you to allow it to keep going.

• Change usually happens because the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of change.

• Experience the joys of practicing healthy boundaries, first for yourself, then reciprocally. Recognize what does and does not belong in your yard.

• The safest and most worthy people to have in your life are those who respect and love your boundaries.

• Define yourself and your experiences. Don't allow others to define you; do allow others to define themselves.

• The best leaders are open to criticism, know their responsibility is to serve those they lead, and know the privileged burden to lead can at any time be taken from them.

• Find and practice a personal ethic like the Five Precepts of Buddhism. This gives others the gift of freedom from harm, and keeps you out of much avoidable trouble.

• Emotions encourage awareness and compel us to next actions. Once we have attained satisfaction, we have to consciously work to remain satisfied, or seek new satisfaction.

• If you have a problem with someone, rather than staying angry and impotent, try to use your reason to appeal to theirs. If they have bad breath and body odor, tell them so they can fix that shit.

• Associating with those who don't share your values and aspirations is like lying on a cliff and trying to pull them up with one hand. It is far more likely they will pull you down, and you might crash even lower than where they are. If they desire the summit, they have to learn the skills and make the effort to climb it themselves.

• Invest back into yourself what you gain in life instead of blowing it on slot-machining (use the forum search if you don't know what this means and wish to).

• Like and love yourself. Others will be more likely to follow your example and treat you well, but if they don't or won't, fuck 'em; you'll be in excellent company with yourself.

I want to cry reading this post. At one point in my life, I wanted to be able to teach this to my children. Of course, adopted. Not ones i would create to carry on my muddled bloodlines and mental issues. But... to pass on knowledge from this life to other people is something i wished to do a lot. Most of my friends use my lessons to get through the next moment, but don't hold onto it. I feel like my children I would have had would have been raised to keep this core set of applicable values and mix it with their own. Wonderful list <3.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

@Underscore, this made me think of you here on this thread:

"You ask what the finest life span would be? To live until you reach wisdom. The one who gets there has arrived, not at the farthest goal, but at the most important. That man, indeed, may boldly congratulate himself, and give thanks to the gods – and to himself along with them – and count in his reckoning with the universe the fact that he has lived. His account will be in credit: he has given it back a better life than he received." - Seneca

I sort of agree with Seneca. But (as usual, cuz I'm a know it all) I'd add that to assume wisdom is to court hubris.
I don't think there is any real wisdom, unless its the utter dissolution of ego.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I sort of agree with Seneca. But (as usual, cuz I'm a know it all) I'd add that to assume wisdom is to court hubris.

Fortunately, I was the one saying you had wisdom. Hubris trap successfully skirted. :)

And Seneca here made me think of the conversations throughout the whole thread, including @Epsilon0's lament that she had reached wisdom too late. To the Stoic, to have not reached it is the travesty. This circles back to one reason I wrote the OP, that while I'm still alive, I can use the wisdom I solicited from others in the OP.

The quote is also personal for me, so apologies, @Underscore, for projecting onto you. I felt it was reflective of some things you said, and I value you saying them as much as I value your perspective, such as that basic idea that the more you know, the more you're aware that you don't know. But some think I'm brave for doing things that come naturally to me, so I get that what I think and say about you is a reflection, really, of my inner process and values.

Being personal, the quote gave me a benchmark for being satisfied that this is the end of my life. Stoics hazard against taking on others' opinions, whether condemnation or praise, but to consider where the opinion is coming from. I respect the Stoics. I respect a lot about Seneca's writing. I would have been even more satisfied had the quote come from Marcus Aurelius, but for me, this will abundantly do. I would have never thought of myself until maybe the past five or six years as someone who would ever have wisdom, let alone seek and find comfort in it, to consider it as gold. I've always been insightful, but a personal practice of wisdom has only happened in the last couple of years. It didn't fix things, but the perspective has made challenges more manageable, and guided my actions and interactions with greater success than I've ever experienced.


(I note that I changed my description yesterday to Pensively Prolific. This post is how I roll.)

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I appreciate the

Fortunately, I was the one saying you had wisdom. Hubris trap successfully skirted. :)

And Seneca here made me think of the conversations throughout the whole thread, including @Epsilon0's lament that she had reached wisdom too late. To the Stoic, to have not reached it is the travesty. This circles back to one reason I wrote the OP, that while I'm still alive, I can use the wisdom I solicited from others in the OP.

The quote is also personal for me, so apologies, @Underscore, for projecting onto you. I felt it was reflective of some things you said, and I value you saying them as much as I value your perspective, such as that basic idea that the more you know, the more you're aware that you don't know. But some think I'm brave for doing things that come naturally to me, so I get that what I think and say about you is a reflection, really, of my inner process and values.

Being personal, the quote gave me a benchmark for being satisfied that this is the end of my life. Stoics hazard against taking on others' opinions, whether condemnation or praise, but to consider where the opinion is coming from. I respect the Stoics. I respect a lot about Seneca's writing. I would have been even more satisfied had the quote come from Marcus Aurelius, but for me, this will abundantly do. I would have never thought of myself until maybe the past five or six years as someone who would ever have wisdom, let alone seek and find comfort it, to consider it as gold. I've always been insightful, but a personal practice of wisdom has only happened in the last couple of years. It didn't fix things, but the perspective has made challenges more manageable, and guided my actions and interactions with greater success than I've ever experienced.


(I note that I changed my description yesterday to Pensively Prolific. This post is how I roll.)

I appreciate the sentiment and thank you. But I certainly have not attained any wisdom, just lots of experience that I'd rather not have. Better to be happy and ignorant. I wonder if wisdom learned is always too late. If I knew back then what I know now... well I'd probably still do the same old shit because i wouldn't listen to myself. Its good that you can meet this paradox with grace, I admire that. I can't I'm afraid. All I feel is anger and sadness, for me, for all of us, for the absurd reality we find ourselves in.

This is probably nonsense and inappropriate but hey. How I feel right now made me think of this from the Seventies. I feel like Avon at the end. I always did kind of admire that dude...

Last scene of Blake's 7