Twenty-Five Tenets of a Man

Or

A Working List

of Stuff

to Live By

     In 2008 I was hospitalized twice for Post Truamatic Stress Syndrome(PTSD). During my second stay I decided that I needed to develop a list of things I believed important to live by. A personal mission statement of sorts, that I could build on. A personal inventory of solid beliefs that myself and others would recognize as ME. Beliefs that I could pass on to my son and know that he was getting a solid foundation.

Now anyone who knows me will tell you that my memory is not the best! It truly rates right there with whats his name? I started this list with ten it grew to12 then to 25. I think at times I need to add or subtract from it. Lord knows that it would be easier to subtract. But I will start my blog with the original 25 and leave it to you to skip any, add to it or just ignore it! I just want people to get a general idea of where I am coming from.

1. Have Joy

"If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure."  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough."  Emily Dickinson

"Today I live in the quiet, joyous expectation of good." Ernest Holmen

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware."
Henry Miller

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." George Bernard Shaw

"Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing." William Shakespeare

"Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results."  James Lane Allen

There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life.
Sister Mary Rose McGeady

It is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing,interferes with nothing,
enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive
because there is nothing for which it will die. -Dorothy L. Sayers, "On Boredom"


2. Be thankful - appreciation is the most powerful fear fighter

"Gratitude is the sign of noble souls." Aesop

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." Cicero

Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. G. K. Chesterton

Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life."
Robert Louis Stevenson



3. Be a peacemaker

"Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin." Dwight David Eisenhower

"The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords, in such a just an charitable war."
William Shakespeare

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace." Amelia Earhart

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty." Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, 1780

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
-Rupert Brooke, The Soldier



4. Have understanding

"Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach." Aristotle

"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding." Kahlil Gibran


5. Be wise

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." Bertrand Russell

"Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it." David Starr Jordan

"Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable."John Patrick

"Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom."  Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"Big words are always punished, And proud men in old age learn to be wise." Sophocles

"Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous." Chuang-tzu

A Prayer For My Son:
 Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory…Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength. Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, "I have not lived in vain." -General Douglas MacArthur



6. Be quiet at the right time


7. Be loud at the right time
"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment." Benjamin Franklin

"Anybody can become angry--that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way--that is not within everybody's power and is not easy."  Aristotle


8. Be strong at the right time

9. Know the right time exercise choice, powerlessness feeds fear.


10. Be meek

"Mild of temper; not easily provoked or orritated; patient under injuries; not vain, or haughty, or resentful; forbearing; submissive."



11. Be courageous

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared."
Eddie Rickenbacker

"A coward turns away, but a brave man's choice is danger." Euripides

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt


 
12. Be a teacher


I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
Edward Estlin Cummings

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater. Gail Godwin

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Henry Brooks Adams

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. John Cotton Dana

To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler--and less trouble. Mark Twain


13. Be compassionate
Our task must be to free ourselves . . . by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."  Albert Einstein

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."  George Washington Carver


14. Be assertive

15. Be consistent

16. Be fair


17. Be patient - don’t let others live in your head rent free.


18. Be a leader


19. Have good stories, share them

20. Smile
"Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult." Ann Radcliffe,

"If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us least live so as to deserve it." Immanuel Hermann Fichte



21. Don’t let worry control you
"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight." Benjamin Franklin

"What worries you masters you". Haddon W. Robinson



22. Be able to forgive yourself & others
"Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were."
Cherie Carter-Scott,

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." Mahatma Gandhi


23. Accept that you will not know everything about your future
"In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain." Pliny the Elder 

"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next."
Ursula K. LeGuin


24. Be a man of faith
"Whatever God's dream about man may be, it seems certain it cannot come true unless man cooperates."
Stella Terrill Mann

"What I am actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly." Shakti Gawain


25. Be in the love with the best woman
"Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be."  Anton Chekhov 


"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead." Bertrand Russell

"Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves." Blaise Pascal

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be…It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for." Erica Jong

“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
 James Arthur Baldwin