Ok, anyone who knows me knows I am not a religious person. It’s not the same as saying I don’t believe in God. I just prefer to live my life under a self-directed philosophy that uses reason to ascertain what’s right. I have no problem with other people choosing religion so long as they’re not doing it just because they were told to by their family or friends.
I found an interesting article by Allen Galbraith, entitled “10 Commandments for Everyday Life“. In it he suggests that most people have no real difficulty following (at least the majority of) the original commandments. So he tried to come up with some modern day commandments for how to live life. Funnily enough, most of them fall into my existing approach to life so I thought I would share them here.
- Thou shall think for one’s self - Ahh yes, independent thought - a long-standing part of my personality. As a friend of mine says “be a shepherd, not a sheep”.
- Thou shall develop compassion, patience, tolerance, love and forgiveness in all aspects of ones’ life - Some of the eternal values that help humans relate, I have been working on these for a while.
- Thou shall remember that life is a classroom and thou are the student - Learning is one of my passions as my bookshelf will testify. Life means little if we don’t learn from it.
- Thou shall eat well and find a physical exercise that one will enjoy and practice regularly - This is a work in progress for me as I am a bit lazy but I will keep trying. The food part is easier with my principles of moderation.
- Thou shall remember there is more to life than work - No question here, work alone will never sustain me. A girl’s gotta lyme!!
- Thou shall practice a relaxation exercise daily - Not currently having an issue with relaxation
but I have incorporated this in the past.
- Thou shall not worship material things and remember that they shall bring only short term peace - Learnt my lesson properly last year after I lost 2 expensive phones in 2 weeks, but never really been a material girl.
- Thou shall be the person one is meant to be not the person one thinks one should be - One of my current projects is trying to identify who exactly I am meant to be, both personally and professionally.
- Thou shall remember that thou are unique and have one’s own thoughts and feelings and have the right to be uniquely you - Loving me for me with all my thoguhts and feelings is something I figured out a while back. If you want to be in my life you gotta do the same.
- Thou shall not forget about the Spirit. Thou are more than flesh and bone. Thou have a deep need to find meaning and a connection with a higher power. Find one’s own path to that higher power and do not necessarily follow the path one has inherited. - What did I say up top??
