The Rules for Being Human

I was cleaning out some things and came across the following. I have had it for decades and can' recall where I first got it. I did a google search and found that it had been included in the book "If Life is a Game, These are the Rules" by Cherie Carter-Scott. The copy that I had held onto all these years is a little different. The below rendition is a merger of the copy I had and the copy I found online.

The Rules for Being Human

When you were born, you didn't come with an owner's manual; these guidelines make life work better.

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life on Planet Earth". Every person or incident is a potential teacher. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error - experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "succeeds."

4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it -- then you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that again looks better than "here."

7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need; what you do with them is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life -- or someone else will. The choice is yours.

9. The answers lie inside you. The answers to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn't help. Judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.