Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2016. This was part 1 of 2; part 2 is not available on this site, so the closing line promises a sequel that may not exist here.
1. What brings you to tears today is what will make you happy tomorrow.
Many people find this hard to understand. I know it sometimes sounds like cheap philosophy, but if we look at relationships, the fact that the person you were in love with has left you today is not the end of the world. It is an incredible opportunity that person has given you to find someone who truly loves you back.
Great companies have been created because one day their founder was fired from a company. Today that founder is glad they were fired. Great loves have been found because that person was left by someone else. Understand as soon as possible that many “misfortunes” are blessings in disguise. Only then will you understand that some losses are gains.
2. Good and evil are subjective truths.
What is right is right, even if nobody else is doing it. What is wrong is wrong, even if lots of people are doing it. Everything we think we know about life can change from one moment to the next, just like our perception.
For example, it is clear that killing is not right. But if someone is about to take the life of a person we love, and the only way to stop it is to take that person’s life, we would most likely end up killing them. In other words, we would do the right thing even though killing is not right.
In principle we are not cannibals, and eating a travelling companion would be outside our frameworks and values, but in order to survive we could end up doing what we once found abhorrent. Just ask the 16 people who survived the plane crash of 13 October 1972 in the Andes by eating human flesh. Specifically, the flesh of their own companions.
3. Gambling your physical and mental health to chase wealth is a bad deal.
Take a hundred people who are fighting cancer right now. You will see that none of them is worried about chasing wealth at the moment. They are fighting to keep their most important asset: their health and their life.
Look after your body and what you eat. Look after your brain. There is no point in living if the life you lead doesn’t make you happy. If you spend a lot of time on something you don’t like, consider changing your life before change gets harder. As Bill Gates puts it, we are not trees, so if you don’t like what you do and where you are right now, move.
4. But money does matter.
One thing doesn’t rule out the other. You will need to make money. And indeed, wealth won’t make you happier, but financial freedom will. Fewer worries and more independence. Perhaps not more happiness, but certainly fewer of the problems that a lack of money brings and that can make you unhappy.
5. People die, people drift away, people fail, people are people.
Most of the people you know will one day be gone. It doesn’t matter how tightly you cling to others. Some will die; others will leave you even though you want them to stay by your side. In the same way, we also leave other people’s lives. That is the cycle of life. We are all people. And so there is no point stressing about the future. All that matters is what we do here and now, at this very moment.
6. Action is the best antidote to fear.
Some people think brave people are those who feel no fear, but that is not true. Brave people are afraid too, but they act in spite of their fear. Cowards are sometimes paralysed by it. So if you are planning to do something, do it. And if you are afraid, do it anyway. Fears fade as we face them. They grow as we turn our backs on them.
7. Time is the most valuable resource.
The good thing about the “time factor” is that we all have the same amount of it. Nobody can gain a competitive advantage here, because the day has 24 hours for everyone. One thing you should know about time, and that many people forget, is that it never stops: it always moves forward, and it gives no refunds and no second chances for the time that has already gone.
How you spend it is up to you. Some people waste their time while others make the most of it. Start analysing how you spend the hours of your day and, above all, pay attention to how many hours a day you lose on WhatsApp and Facebook.
8. Think before you act. Don’t be an idiot.
Some people must have read strange books or watched films whose message is “think with your heart”. Let me tell you a secret: there is no such thing as thinking with your heart. You think with your head, and it is your head that will either get you into trouble or make good decisions.
I know it is fashionable to say “let me fail, because we learn from our mistakes”, but as I always say, making a decision knowing that you are getting it wrong is not brave, it is idiotic. Some small decisions can have severe consequences.
Examples: a guy is in a pub with his partner, and the local drunk is picking on them. In principle he has two options:
- Leave.
- Confront the drunk.
If we think with our heads, I call people like that “trouble-seekers”, because you already know that once it comes to a confrontation you can end up either in hospital or at the police station.
But we often let pride take over: “nobody disrespects me or my partner”. You get into it with the drunk, one bad punch, one bad fall, and you will lose years of your life in prison or paying him a monthly allowance.
A 17-year-old girl starts going out with a “real piece of work”. She ignores everyone who tells her he is trouble. She thinks with her heart. She gets pregnant by him and falls into a spiral of abuse that she struggles to get out of. And even if she does get out, she will be tied to him for life, since he is the father of her child.
These are small decisions that can harm you for life. By the way, both examples are real cases of people I know. Always think about the consequences of your actions. People will call you cold for not thinking with your heart, but it is the smartest thing to do.
9. Let’s talk about alcohol.
If Al Capone came back and discovered that the thing he was once hunted down for is now part of our daily routine and sold legally in shops, I think he would be stunned.
In a previous article ranking the most dangerous and harmful drugs, alcohol took first place by a wide margin, ahead of heroin, cocaine and amphetamines.
Alcohol impairs our judgement. It causes irreversible neuronal damage and harms our cognitive abilities. And nobody is warning our young people about many of the real dangers of alcohol, to the point that everything suggests our young people already have a serious dependence on it. We are creating an alcoholic society.
Scientific studies about the benefits of wine and beer are often extremely manipulated. When people say red wine fights cancer, it is true, but it is also a lie. The property we are after in red wine is resveratrol, a substance found in grapes (in greater quantities in black grapes). In other words, it is grape juice that fights cancer, not wine.
Try this: don’t drink any alcohol for three months, not even a beer with lunch. If you can’t manage it, that is the alarm bell. Most people won’t even try, thinking that since they know they could do it, there is no need to try. And that is the same excuse a drug addict uses.
10. The chains of bad habits.
The chain of bad habits is too thin for us to notice the danger, but over time it becomes too thick to break.
In other words, we pick up bad habits without realising it, and by the time we notice and want to break them, it is already hard to do. Fortunately, ending bad habits may be difficult but it is not impossible; you just need to know how to attack the problem intelligently. It is often a question of mindset: rather than trying to end the bad habit, try to replace it with another one. See: Want to break your bad habits? 6 reasons you might fail.
To keep this article from getting too long, we will do a second part.
See also: 10 pieces of life advice you’ll be grateful for once you’re past 30
Featured image: William Warby, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
