If you can't be good, be good at it

According to "Rate My Life" quiz that a fellow blogger Lx recommended in his blog "Phases", my life is an 8 out of 10. Not as bad as I thought, really.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	8.9
Mind:	8.4
Body:	8.6
Spirit:	9.2
Friends/Family:	6.1
Love:	7.7
Finance:	8.4
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

In retrospect, life is like a coin, you can spend it any way you want but you can only spend it once. Think what you want of me, I don't really care because I know about myself more than anyone else does.

The Red Indians used to say, never judge a person before you walked in his moccasins for two moons. Errr correction...I dunno if the Red Indians actually said that. Hehehe I just made it up :)

No matter! The point is, you may never ever walk in my moccasins. Neither will I be walking in your moccasins, ever in my whole life. Talking about life, I just wanna share with you some profound lessons that I've learned in my 35 years. Setahun jagung, maybe to some of you. But I think I've earned some rights to crack a few nuts here and there :)

First lesson that I've learned is, that we must never ever judge another person against our own set of values. If you really have to judge a person, be fair. Judge him or her against their own set of values. Practically, human beings have a strong tendency to become ethnocentric and egocentric. Even animals do. But unlike animals, human beings are blessed with a thinking brain. Use it well, as my mom used to say. Hehehe probably the reason why she started me reading at four years old!

During reunions and get togethers, I've heard old friends complain about not being happy and content. Especially when their friends are doing much better than them. I think, as much as we sometimes think that our lives is worse off than other people, or otherwise, we never know for sure until we live other people's lives.

Keeping up with the Joneses is very tiring, as you would be in the rat race, perpetually running life's treadmill. I would rather keep up with my own pace, I may not be the best, the richest, the most successful, the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most whatever!

The race is against myself, not others. I'm improving so that I'd be better today than I was yesterday. Then I'd be happy and content. Sometimes, it's better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who your not.

To recap, the second lesson that I've learned, is to be happy and content with your life, be grateful for what you have, rather than complaining and pining for what you don't have. On that note, we either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same. If we can actually open our hearts, there's no difficulty in being happy. Laugh all you want while you still can, because laughter is the shortest distance between two people. I'd say, frown not, unless it is for a very worthy reason.

How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and that there will never be a time when it is not now.

English novelist and essayist Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894- 1963) once said, "most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted". On that note, I think you should value the people who you have in your life, and not the things that you own. Life is too short to be worrying about things which have little meaning. As one wise old man told me, "the real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money."

Having survived a bitter divorce and financial struggles that ensued such a tragedy, it is true that God would never give us something that we can't handle. From my experience, I have also learned that we can keep going long after we can't. Just keep telling yourself, just another step, just another step. Before you know it, you've arrived!

Be not afraid to live but be not foolish with it either for we get but one chance. But don't be afraid of making a mistake. It is not the end of the world. Unless you end your life, then it would be the end of your universe. But the world goes on, with or without you in it, until armageddon. I have learned that if you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.

Like I said, life is like a coin, spend it any way you want but you can only spend it once. We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel. If You Can't Be Good; Be Good At It. At living your life, I mean :)