Lifes Ground Rules Part 2

Life’s Ground Rules, Part 2

30 Essential Caveats of Successful Being
David Krueger MD

  1. Our experiences are always consistent with our theories, so it is helpful to know our theories quite well.
  2. We are always teaching people how to respond to us.
  3. The only people who seem perfect are the ones we really don’t know.
  4. Remember that we are always and inevitably comparing our inside with everyone else’s outside.
  5. Lessons are repeated, though perhaps in different forms, until they are learned. The relationship is always the greatest teacher.
  6. The things we learn we knew all along, though perhaps in a different form.
  7. We are always a novice at each new step and stage of life. (By the time we’ve got certain things down, like parenting, we aren’t it anymore).
  8. Each person will always give you the answers; sometimes, you have to listen very carefully to learn the questions.
  9. Remember what’s really important.
  10. We learn to love by loving.
  11. The more love you give away, the more you have left.
  12. Being effective and experiencing mastery is the most fundamental of all human needs.
  13. A good teacher shows you step-by-step that what you’re looking for is what you already have.
  14. Keep your eye on the ball and your head in the game.
    This adage from my favorite coach spoke of life as well: one focused step at a time, yet with a direction and destination.
  15. You don’t have to know all the answers, just get inside your experience and you will be informed. When your head and your gut both agree, you’ll never go wrong.
  16. Not everything we learn is necessarily something we want to learn.
  17. For each new stage of life, we are so young at being older.
  18. Flowers blossom toward the sunshine, not away from the dark.
  19. Every lived experience is important and is stored in some way, though not all is retrievable by words and conscious memory.
  20. Just as a child gives birth to parents, two people give birth to a relationship. Both are more work than you ever imagined, and both are more rewarding than you ever could have imagined.
  21. We need not be filled with knowing, but of caring to learn. Preserve the curiosity and openness of a beginner’s mind.
  22. It may not be necessary to understand everything, just as there are some things which can be understood only after it has happened. Sometimes you can only get ready for something after it has already occurred.
  23. The most fundamental need children have is to look into the mirror of their parents’ belief in them. Same with adults. Our belief in our children is eternalized to become their belief in themselves, so that they do not dream too little, imagine too low, or play too small. Same with adults.
  24. Nothing in the world is more important than the bond that the child develops in the relationship with each parent. Later, the same with adults in significant relationships.
  25. Bertrand Russell said, “The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.” Same with mothers. Same with spouses. Same with CEO’s.
  26. Everything we do matters. A corollary: what we do always comes back, though sometimes in altered forms.
  27. Focus. Don’t water last year’s crops. Don’t go to the hardware store for milk. Wishes don’t wash dishes. (My grandmother).
  28. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
  29. A true freedom is not needing someone else to respond in a particular way in order to proceed or to be happy.
  30. .We define ourselves by the choices we made, chose what information we receive, and decide who we follow to influence us. Destiny is a step-by-step choice.