You Are Your Choices: 50 Ways to Live the Good Life

I read this book a few weeks ago and remember marking LOTS of passages to blog. You’re welcome. 😉

Chapter 3: Be Responsible- Say No

Peace of mind is fundamental to living the good life. Our ability to say no is a major factor in our subjective well-being and our sense of satisfaction. Use NO as your teacher. Don’t you usually know what feels right for you? Until you can exercise your power to be honest with yourself and others, you are going to feel trapped…

Chapter 4: Stand on Your Own Two Feet

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Challenge yourself to mentally step outside of your family and community, get away from the superficial chitchat in your head and go into the depths of your being to discover who you are, why you are here, what choices you should make to be able to put your inner talents to the best use.

We are pure potential. Striving is our birthright. We’re here to grow, to discover, to explore and develop our full powers.

Chapter 5: Information is Not Inspiration

The important truth to remember is that how we live, how we feel, and how deeply we breathe in the divine spark, defines who we really are.

Chapter 6: Take Satisfaction in Doing the Right Thing

There is a natural rebound of contentment and a sense of accomplishment when you choose to do what’s right in each situation. Your choice is between you and you. The right think may not be convenient or easy, but when we face the truth, and act, we are building strength of character.

Chapter 8: Have Realistic Expectations

The wisest way to live is to choose to enjoy what is actually available to you right now, right here. We learn to see the world of abundance, not limits, through training our minds. Whenever we become attached to the outcome, the end result that we have preconceived, we deprive ourselves of experiencing joy. Choose not to be sad about what you don’t have but to be glad with what you have.

Chapter 11: Reevaluate Your Priorities Regularly

Be willing to give up old patterns, old familiar ways of being, in order to open up to a new way of seeing your life, with fresh beginnings that bring great meaning.

Feel free to question your core values and what you must love, what you feel are the best choices for you, as circumstances radically change for the better or worse.

All of life is paradoxical. Be ready, at any moment, to make fresh bold choices that will enable you to make the good of whatever happens.

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell

Chapter 12: Have as Few Regrets as Possible

There’s no place to go to hide in life. Your job, your duty, your responsibility, is to make the most you can of you.

Work on yourself every day. We can’t sprint at the end and catch up. We need to strengthen our intellectual muscles before our brain loses synapses. We need to build upon our virtuous habits of choice every single day in order to have fewer and fewer regrets.

What would you choose if you knew you couldn’t fail? Do that very thing, because it is there where you will develop your potential.

Don’t feel sorry for what might have been. You are your choices. Own your choices. Hear the cry and choose to follow what is the good life for you.

Chapter 19: Why Not Be Comfortable?

The greatest comfort is to be comfortable with who you are, and to surround yourself with comfortable good people.

Chapter 23: You Own Your Self

Be a student of the virtues. Seek opportunities to express them in daily life. There is so much in us that we alone must draw out. Figure it out and be true to who you are. Your finest blessing is to own your self.

Chapter 37: Move On

The most intelligent way to move in the direction of a good life is to live each day, each experience, as authentically as we can, with integrity, honesty, and courage.

We must use our minds to think the thoughts that are going to empower us, that mirror what we want to manifest in our lives.

Chapter 38: Walk Away

Bad people are not good, they are not nice, and they are not going to easily reform. Far better to be loving and walk away.

Chapter 39: See the Big in the Little

Krishnamurti wisely instructs us,  “You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you you must read, that is why you must look at skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”

Chapter 40: Surround Yourself with People You Trust

Life is far too short to spend time with shady people. Judge your own character by the people you deal with.

Aristotle believed that the people you associate with are reflections of yourself. If someone proves untrustworthy, irresponsible, and unreliable and you don’t believe what he says is true, you may have to choose to break off your relationship. Once trust is violated you can forgive, but not forget. There is no way to have a healthy relationship with people who slant the truth.

Chapter 44: Choose Love for Yourself and Others

Our responsibility as individuals on this planet is to seek and find greater ways to love ourselves, to love life more spaciously and to love and serve others more compassionately.