Sebs Rules for a Good Life
This is a question that mostly my spirit following pester me with; how to live a good life. If there are no clear rules in life and everyone is equal and different and everyone is supposed to wing it… How do you know how to live a good life? Here’s my attempt to create rules for the state of anarchy.
You are supposed to enjoy your life
Your life’s main goal is to simply enjoy it and allow others to enjoy theirs. Your task is to maximise your level of happiness and enjoyment while causing minimal discomfort, unhappiness, or loss of enjoyment to other people. As a member of your society, your main goal in life should be to maximise enjoyability of life to all INDIVIDUALS alike.
You also must ensure you do not ASSUME that all of the people you know are happy the same way you are. You must ask them to approve and validate your decisions and plans for them… Apart from a surprise party or two. Those are OK.
Make yourself happy first, then help others
You must protect your own happiness and enjoyment from other’s interference because everyone is different. Because everyone is different, but people tend to believe everyone is like them, they may try and push you into roles that do not make you happy because these roles or approaches made them happy. Do not allow them to do so.
Please know this kink about humans: We are prone to taking the advice that sounds counterproductive to happiness because it seems there must be a greater wisdom behind a seemingly odd advice. For instance: A man who has always wanted a family is prone to follow an advice of a sworn womanizer who has gotten disenchanted with the married life he never wanted. The womanizer wants to save the wannabe husband from a wasted life, and broken-hearted, this man becomes a womanizer, only to discover such life is empty and joyless, gets married and then, after finding happiness, advice every young womanizer enjoying their lives to give up their shallow existence and get married… Both advice comes from experience but from completely different kind of a person!
We tend to have a pretty good idea of what it is that we wish for… And when going gets tough, we tend to give up the fight and try the worst possible advice… Like “get married!” or “don’t get married!”
Another popular piece of advice is about sex… Women who do not like sex fear on behalf of women who love sex so much they are magnets for men. Many men also protect women from sex, particularly their own daughters. The protectors think they are doing the poor girl a favor by protecting them from sex, at the same time as that poor girl feels like a fish being rescued from drowning.
Mind Your Own Business
Related to the above, you are not to cause unhappiness on others.
You are free to comment on what others are doing and to voice your opinion on things. That said, you are not to push your opinion on other people, other than to say YOU will not do something others are trying to force or coerce you to do. You may choose to do as told, and I fully recommend following all and any laws you are a subject to.
You are free to offer your own perspective, your own view on things, share your beliefs and so forth, but you should not seek certainty from others by FORCING THEM to believe what you believe just so you’d feel safer.
You can offer your guidance but not push it down people’s throats
Writing of public blogs, hosting TV shows and the like is fully encouraged. Spreading information and your own ideas is more than welcome in any state of their development, however, do not force people to take your guidance at any state. Advertise all you like, promote all you like, but do not force or coerce them to believe you.
Examples of forcing: Telling your child that if he or she doesn’t adapt to your ideas you will throw them out or punish them otherwise, or that there is some other force that will deliver a punishment on them if they do not believe you. This is different from corrective punishments, particularly if the child is putting themselves in danger by disobedience.
Examples of what IS NOT forcing: Telling a non-related sexual/romantic partner that you will have to break up with them because they do not believe what you believe. (Adults SHOULD be expected to survive on their own, and this should not be considered forcing or coercing but a simple misalignment of beliefs between adults.)
You cannot demand anyone to take care of you
Acute emergencies excluded. You can demand or push a person to provide you immediate help when your life is in danger (or if someone else’s life is in immediate danger) (although most people will freely provide help to you in such situations).
However, do not obligate anyone, your children included, to provide you continual help. Should they offer to help, that is alright, but do not obligate others to go out of their way to help you. Live your life so that people will be willing to help you when you need them, so they will do so with their entire heart rather than because they have to. If you have failed to endear them to you, that is your bad, not theirs.
Your friends and partners with whom you have created a friendship with the mutual understanding that love is a sacrifice are exempt from this rule. Do not assume all people in your life feel the same way.
Further, you cannot demand anyone to love you (love is an emotion, and not controllable)
Understand that “taking care of someone” “caring for someone” and “loving someone” are different things. Love is an emotion. Taking care of someone is an action. Caring for someone is a combination of both depending on context. You cannot obligate someone to feel certain feelings for you. You understand this if you notice how absurd it would be to command someone to feel angry at you when they are feeling good around you.
Do not attempt to control or dictate other’s feelings
Feelings are like bug reports. They simply tell how a person is being treated or how they feel about their company or their situation. It is lunacy to try and dictate what a certain person should be feeling in a certain situation, ie. “you have a job, a loving family, you have a beautiful house and a car, you should feel happy.” There’s nothing wrong with a person who doesn’t feel happy in a situation someone else would thrive in. Each individual is different.
Also note that if you ask someone to talk about their emotions, you cannot dictate which emotions they should speak about. (Anger and frustration are emotions, too.)
Things do not “get better with time”
Things get better by change, by action, by understanding the situations and then changing them. Things do not get better with time, people simply get used to the misery and lose hope of happiness. A person who has been insisting on doing something or not doing something may finally yield under pressure, but that is not things getting better, that is things have been bad for so long they have run out of energy to fight for a change, and there is NOTHING worse than that! Never push your loved ones into that kind of a place.
Never pressure or coerce people into having children of their own
Simply DO NOT. This has nothing to do with you. Not all people are meant to have children, particularly not in a situation where they feel reluctant to do so for a reason or another. (It’s a part of a functioning parenting instinct to avoid having children in the wrong circumstances, whatever they may be. Trust nature!) Nothing is worse than the regret of HAVING HAD children, people can live with the regret of not having children, but there is NOTHING comparable to regretting giving life to another human being you’re responsible for.
Never trick another person into parenthood with you
Less commonly but even more importantly than the above… There is no excuse in tricking another person into parenthood with you. A person, women included, who would use trickery (like sabotaging a condom) to start a pregnancy against the other person’s will should not be considered a suitable parent for that child…
ENTIRELY INEXCUSABLE.
(If you wonder if this is true, “because sometimes men need a little push”, consider the reversed situation: In this situation, a woman would be unable to end the pregnancy and a man would break a condom deliberately thinking “her mothering instincts will kick in once the baby is born”… Still cool in your books?)
Learn to notice gender bias against men
We are aiming towards gender-equal society, which is good. To make this a reality, learn to notice gender bias against men as well. It is everywhere to be seen. Similarly to the above example, reverse the statements that are made about men or women, and if they still hold water, it’s OK, but if the result makes you gag, it’s gender bias.
For instance… “Every woman deserves a man who is willing to shout from the rooftops ‘she’s my only one and I love her’.” Reverse that and see if you can spot gender bias. Every man deserves… Every man deserves… Each and every man deserves..? Why do we assume all women are deserving but men are not?
While you are supposed to enjoy life, others do not owe you a happy life
Refusal to offer you a happy enjoyable life is not a crime against you. It would be a crime against them for you to force them into giving you something you need when giving that to you will make them unhappy.
Please trust that there are people who will want to make you happy because they love you. They want to see you smile BECAUSE they love you. Sometimes these people are the same people you are currently trying to force into caring for you because you don’t trust them to love you without pointing a figurative gun at them.
If the people in your life do not wish to give you happiness, waste no time waiting for them to change their minds, look for another person to enjoy life with.
The world is full of friends who haven’t met yet
Although the above sounds harsh, I say it because I know and trust that this world is full of good people and friends who haven’t met yet. There is NO POINT or justification hanging onto people who do not see things the way you do when the world is absolutely brimming with people who do. They do not need to be your relatives or your old friends, they can be new friends, sometimes they HAVE TO BE. If your relatives and old friends cannot see things the way you do, it’s time to move on and find new people to enjoy life to the fullest with.
This is called letting go. Trusting that the world is full of opportunities to make yourself happy, you’ll simply have to trust it to guide you where you want to go, but hanging onto relationships and situations that make you unhappy will guarantee you will never be happy.
Understand that rejection doesn’t mean you’re a bad person
Rejection doesn’t mean that you are a bad, insufficient person or somehow lacking as a person. A rejection simply means that THIS one particular person doesn’t see a future between you two. They may be psychic for all you know and save you a lot of drama ending the relationship now rather than later. You may not understand their logic, but you don’t have to, it’s their life and they choose to live it without you. This simply means you will have to find someone else to enjoy life with.
Some people are irreplaceable, but you had the privilege of knowing them
The greatest courage is to love (to feel love for) a person who doesn’t love you back. If you truly feel someone is irreplaceable to you, you must learn the pleasure of loving someone who doesn’t return that love to you. You must learn this for your own good because it makes life easier. There isn’t a greater power as to feel grateful for having known someone who made your world a better place simply by having had the blessing of having met them and to feel grateful for such privilege.
And, if you do not feel that way about a person, you might as well let them go.
Learn to understand the difference between your true self and your idea of yourself
What is actual and what is a belief or a myth you tell yourself about yourself. For example, we keep telling each other that women are maternal and loving and giving people. Yet, this is not necessarily so. Mothers are not always right, and sometimes fathers are better parents than mothers. Sometimes a person who considers them angelic is nothing but a hypocrite, and sometimes a person who keeps scolding themselves for being the worst person in the world is actually close to a saint. (Why? Because people who consider themselves an angel tend to forgive themselves for a lot of sins, while a person who is constantly self-checking is downright unforgiving toward themselves, gradually making themselves a saint.)
Learn to judge yourself fairly. This is important in both directions; it is not any wiser to give yourself a failing score when you deserve a passing grade as it is to give yourself a pass when you deserve a failing grade. Be fair, as in just, as in accurate in your self-assessment, not merciful or cruel. Be fair on yourself. FAIR. Give yourself no praise you do not deserve any more than scolding yourself over things you do not deserve a scolding for. Be fair on yourself.
Do not lie to yourself about yourself one way or another. If you lie to others, at least do not lie to yourself.
Correct people when they are wrong about you
Do not allow people to have incorrect ideas about you, even if you are a celebrity! This will bite you in the ass at some stage when people base their ideas of you on gossip and stupid assumptions. Even in normal person’s life of 50 -person social circle one person’s false idea about you may spread like wildfire as people talk. Don’t be too proud to correct their view on you… Even if they said nice things that aren’t exactly true. All lies can have unexpected consequences.
If you (white) lie to others, prepare to face the consequences
White lies are at the top of dangers. White lies are designed to make people think you like them more than you do. This creates karmic soulmate bonds that you should avoid at all cost. False friends, in other words.
Also, when a person fully believes your white lies, they create a false ego for themselves “this person thinks I am X therefore, I must be”. This is not good for them. White lies may save you some unpleasantness in the moment, but it is actually not helpful to the other person. NOT EVEN in the case of them not being able to change things even if they knew.
Do not allow others to hold false ideas about your feelings towards them
Do not allow a person think you do not like them for a reason X if you actually dislike them for reason Y. They deserve to know. Remind them it’s only your opinion, but it is still true that is the way you feel. It may tell more about yourself than it tells about them, but that, again, is a fair game.
An obvious example: “I don’t want to date you because you’re too fat.” Vs. dumping someone because they are a bitch while they console themselves by thinking you are so shallow you wouldn’t date them because they were fat. (You see?) So imagine this fat person loses weight. She comes back to you and expects you to date them now that they’re thin, or expects you to want them now that they’re thin. How would you feel? If the only reason you dumped them was their weight, you should now take them on (provided you’re still single), however, if the true reason was that they’re a bitch, now they’re a thin bitch and you’re faced with the need to tell them they’re still a bitch.
How to make sure you’re always welcome
Make sure you know when you are NOT welcome and honor those times. NOBODY is always welcome everywhere, but everybody is sometimes welcome somewhere. Make sure you only spend time in company in which you are welcome. Try to work out the need of choosing “better company than yourself” which is what rejection junkies do; they choose company that doesn’t want them, making them always unwanted everywhere they go.
Be sensitive to “go away” energy. Respect it. Going away when you are not wanted will make you tons more friends than pushing yourself into company of people who do not want you ever will.
Know the difference between someone being insecure and someone rejecting you
If you always interpret someone pushing you away as a sign of rejection and someone arguing with you as flirtation, you’ve got a faulty meter. Similarly, if you always interpret people not talking to you as a sign of insecurity rather than the unwillingness to talk to you or the other way around, you’ve got a faulty meter.
Sometimes people are too shy or insecure to talk to you, sometimes they simply don’t want to talk to you for a reason or another even though they are neither shy or insecure. Sometimes they have nothing against you, they simply aren’t interested in you as a person, perhaps because they are not interested in people, or they are not interested in you in particular.
If that person isn’t that important to you, move on. Your world will not fall off its own axis if one person doesn’t want to make friends with you. However, if you feel there is love in there, some unexplainable connection that you feel goes both ways, explore it. Go talk to them instead. They might be dying to talk to you but are too insecure to talk to you… (Especially if you’re both good looking… 8-10. It is incredible how insecure beautiful people are among each other.)
Be honest with yourself, seek for authentic life plans and friends
A good life is largely dependent on who you spend it with. A good life is never spent in a company in which you are not welcome those times you are in that company.
Choose your life plan honestly according to what you truly want even if you were embarrassed about it. A hometown chosen randomly or for the obscure reasons maybe the reason for your unhappiness in this time.
Like attracts like: go where your kind is going and living in. Near perfect love situations can be frustrating when they are locked into the wrong places, wrong jobs, and wrong hobbies.
Seek for your authentic place from youth onwards. Try not to get derailed for long periods of time.
Know that true love exists
In whatever way you define it, that love exists. You may have not found it yet, but it exists. Do not compromise when you are feeling lost. If you are feeling defeated and unable to find the love you want, state it clearer what it is that you want. Also state it clearly in your mind WHO you wish you were with and why. It is important to be absolutely honest about what (and who) you want and why and for what kind of a relationship.
The two main confusions in relationships are that two thinker type define “true love” differently. While two people on a date “are serious” they both look for true love that means nearly the opposite things. The first group feels: “we kinda dislike each other but we want to be together forever. My happiness means more to me than theirs, and we are both hungrily demanding each other to fulfill our needs. Love is a sacrifice and it’s fun to be unhappily in love.” The other group feels true love is something akin to: “We love everything about each other and want to be together forever because we cannot get enough of each other but would never stop the other from leaving if their happiness is elsewhere. Their happiness means more to me than my own.” Hold onto your definition, people who think alike exist. Avoid the other type. They can’t make you happy and you can’t make them happy.
My blog is full of true love conundrums, please stick around to read more.
Time is the most precious thing you’ve got. Do not squander it.
Although time is infinite, although we have as many lifetimes ahead of us as we can possibly stomach, it is the only thing that is worth anything. Do not sell yours for cheap. Do not give it to causes that are not worth your time. Do not waste your time, but remember that a time spent enjoying yourself is a time well spent. Always, always seek for the height of enjoyment, happiness, and joy. Whatever it takes, but do not obsess, obsession is never good for happiness. Chill. Relax. Enjoy the road getting to your ultimate bliss. Do not waste time on lost causes. Do not waste time on people who do not care about you or understand you. Your time is valuable.
Even though it is infinite, you will never again get to live THIS moment of it again. (And this is why I saved this one to last. Hahah. Don’t waste time reading my blog unless you enjoy it. 😉 )
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*) Term changed after this post was originally written. Fractions of old terms may exist elsewhere in the post. Read about term updates.
**) Narcissists are Young Souls left alone to survive and they're doing their best. Their emotional age ranges from 3 to 17 -year old. The younger, the more severe the narcissism.
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