Some people try to follow the Golden Rule as much as they can. Others try living each day to the fullest. Still others work to give more than they receive.
There are many principles you can choose to practice habitually. Some believe that if you don’t have such a code, life guides you rather than you guiding your life.
Related: Listen to an episode of the Intellectual Roundtable Podcast, where Lee and Michael discuss this question: ‘Is happiness the most important purpose in life?’ We discuss another question as well, ‘How do you define success?’
Do you have a principle that governs your actions? If so, what is it, and how has it helped you in day-to-day experiences? Has it helped you in personal growth? Does living your life according to a principle make life easier? Or do you accept that choosing to live life this way requires sacrifice, but that’s okay? If you don’t have a principle to guide your life, is there one (or more) that you would like to have the willpower to practice?
So, have at it, dear readers: Is there a principle according to which you try to live your life?
Related questions: What are our responsibilities to others? How do you set priorities? To what should we aspire? What five ideals are most important to you?
There are at least two principles I try to live my life by:
• Compassion and support for others: Cheer people on when they have or are trying to accomplish a goal, complete a project, or finish a difficult task.
• Advancing justice: I can make a difference in advancing justice. My foci are:
• ending homelessness;
• increasing affordable housing and healthy housing stability;
• reducing the shame some people feel and the discrimination some people are subjected to because they have a mental illness;
• building a more sustainable future–the primary way I do this is by purchasing heirloom seeds and growing them in my garden while using this as an example for others to see that growing some of your own food is possible (which is good on so many levels).
If I had to try and boil my life’s philosophy down to one guiding principle, it would probably be this: Keep an open mind.
I think we, as individuals, and as a species, think we know more than we do. And yet there is always more to learn, more things to experience, and more ways to grow.
It is to my benefit to practice this in my everyday life. I don’t always succeed, but I’m making the effort.
Be kind to people who are kind to you and take pity on the others. (Kind of a take from the Golden Rule.)
For myself, I tend to live according to my beliefs about what is “a life”: There’s only this life I have. I should try to enjoy it while I have it. When it’s over, it’s over.
It’s a balance between “enjoy my life” and “leave the world better for my presence.”
That said, how does one “enjoy” life? Finding beauty, keeping my mind engaged, and making others happy.
Also, I find the Seven Tenets of The Satanic Temple to be inspirational:
I) One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II) The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III) One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV) The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
V) Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
VI) People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
VII) Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.