Rule of Life (3 page)

D O N ’ T P R E AC H ,

P R O PAGAT E ,

O R E V E N M E N T I O N T H I S .

R U L E 2

You’ll Get Older But Not

Necessarily Wiser

There is an assumption that as we get older we will get wiser; not true, I’m afraid. But we can carry on being just as foolish, still making plenty of mistakes. It’s just that we make new ones, different ones. We do learn from experience and may not make the same mistakes again, but there is a whole new pickle jar of fresh ones just lying in wait for us to trip up and fall into. The secret is to accept this and not to beat yourself up when you do make new ones. The Rule really is: Be kind to yourself when you do muck things up. Be forgiving, and accept that it’s all part of that growing older but no wiser routine.

Looking back, we can always see the mistakes we made, but we fail to see the ones looming up. Wisdom isn’t about not making mistakes, but about learning to escape afterward with our dignity and sanity intact.

When we are young, aging seems to be something that happens to, well, old people. But it does happen to us all, and we have no choice but to embrace it and roll with it. Whatever we do and however we are, the fact is we are going to get older.

And this aging process does seem to speed up as we get older.

You can look at it this way—the older you get, the more areas you’ve covered to make mistakes in. There will always be new areas of experience where we have no guidelines and where we’ll handle things badly, overreact, get it wrong. And the more flexible we are, the more adventurous, the more life-embracing, then the more new avenues there will be to explore—and make mistakes in, of course.

R U L E 2

As long as we look back and see where we went wrong and resolve not to repeat such mistakes, there is little else we need to do. Remember that any Rules that apply to you also apply to everyone else around you. Others are all getting older, too.

And not any wiser particularly. Once you accept this, you’ll be more forgiving and kinder toward yourself and others.

Finally, yes, time does heal, and things do get better as you get older. After all, the more mistakes you’ve made, the less likely that you’ll come up with new ones. The best thing is that if you get a lot of your mistakes over and done with early on in life, there will be less to learn the hard way later on. And that’s what youth is all about: a chance to make all the mistakes you can and get them out of the way.

W I S D O M I S N ’ T A B O U T N OT

M A K I N G M I S TA K E S B U T

A B O U T L E A R N I N G TO

E S CA P E A F T E R WA R D W I T H

O U R D I G N I T Y A N D S A N I T Y

I N TACT.

R U L E 3

Accept What Is Done Is Done

People make mistakes. Sometimes very serious ones. As often as not, the mistakes aren’t deliberate or personal. Sometimes people just don’t know what they are doing. This means that if, in the past, people have behaved badly toward you, it wasn’t necessarily because they meant to be horrid, but because they were as naïve, as foolish, as human as the rest of us. They made mistakes in the way they brought you up or finished a relationship with you or whatever, not because they wanted to do it that way, but because they didn’t know any different.

If you want to, you can let go of any feelings of resentment, of regret, of anger. You can accept that you are a fabulous human being because of all the bad things that have happened to you, not in spite of them. What is done is done, and you need to just get on with your life. Don’t use the labels “good” and

“bad.” Yes, I know some of it is indeed bad, but it is how we let it affect us that is the real “bad.” You could let all these things get you down, fizzle away internally like some emotional acid making you ill and resentful and stuck. But you will let them go, embrace them as character forming, and in general as positive rather then negative.

On paper I had a seriously dysfunctional childhood and for a while was resentful. I blamed my bizarre upbringing for all that was weak or dispirited or badly formed in me. It’s so easy to do. But once I accepted that what was done was done, and that I could choose to forgive and get on with my life, things improved enormously. Not all of my siblings chose the same route, and they carried on building up the resentment until it overwhelmed them.

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For me it was essential, if I wanted more out of my life, to embrace all the bad things as being an important part of me and to move on. In fact, I wanted them to fuel me into my future, to become positive to such an extent that I couldn’t imagine being me without them. Now, if given the choice, I wouldn’t change a thing. Yes, looking back, it was tough being the kid I was, living the life I did, but it has certainly helped make me, me.

I think the change occurred once I realized that even if I could get in front of me all the people who had “done me wrong,”

there would still be nothing they could do. I could shout at them, berate them, rant at them, but there would be nothing they could do to make amends or put things right. They, too, would have to accept that what’s done is done. There is no going back, only forward. Make it a motto for life—keep moving forward.

W H AT I S D O N E I S D O N E , A N D YO U N E E D TO

J U S T G E T O N

W I T H YO U R L I F E .

R U L E 4

Accept Yourself

If you accept that what’s done is done, you are left with yourself exactly as you are. You can’t go back and change anything, so you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. I’m not suggesting anything New Age here such as love yourself—that’s far too ambitious. No, let’s begin with simple accepting. Accepting is easy because it is exactly what it says—accepting. You don’t have to improve or change or strive for perfection. Quite the opposite. Just accept.

That means accepting all the warts and emotional lumps and bumps, the bad parts, the weaknesses, and the rest of it. This doesn’t mean we are happy with everything about ourselves, or that we are going to be lazy and lead a bad life. We are going to accept the way we are, initially, and then build on that. What we are not going to do is beat ourselves up because we don’t like some parts. Yes, we can change lots, but that will come later. We’re only up to Rule 4 here.

This has to be a Rule because there can be no choice here. We have to accept that we are the way we are—the result of everything that has happened. It all just is. You, like me, like all of us, are human. That means you’re pretty complex. You come fully loaded with desires, anguish, sins, pettiness at times, mistakes, ill temper, rudeness, deviation, hesitation, and repe-tition. That’s what makes a human being so wonderful:s the complexity. None of us can ever be perfect. We start with what we’ve got and who we are and then we can only make a choice, each day, to strive for some kind of better. And that’s all people can ask of us—to make that choice. To be awake and aware, to be ready to do the right thing. And accept that some days you aren’t going to make it. Some days you will, R U L E 4

like all of us, fall far short. That’s OK; don’t beat yourself up.

Pick yourself up and start again. Accept that you will fail from time to time and that you are human.

I know it can be hard at times, but once you have picked up the gauntlet of becoming a Rules Player, you’re well on the path to improvement. Stop picking faults with yourself or giving yourself a hard time. Instead, accept that you are what you are. You’re doing the best you can at this point in time, so give yourself a pat on the back and move on.

YO U D O N ’ T H AV E TO

I M P R OV E O R C H A N G E O R

S T R I V E FO R P E R F E CT I O N .

Q U I T E T H E O P P O S I T E .

J U S T AC C E P T.

R U L E 5

Know What Counts and

What Doesn’t

Being here counts. Being kind and considerate counts. Getting through each day without seriously offending anyone or hurting anyone counts. Having the latest technology doesn’t.

Sorry, I don’t hate technology. In fact, I probably have pretty much all the latest gizmos. I just (a) don’t overly rely too much on any of it and (b) see them all as useful tools rather than having any intrinsic meaning in themselves, in a status symbol or one-up kind of way.

Doing something useful with your life counts. Going shopping because you’re bored doesn’t. Yes, by all means go shopping, but see what you do as counting or not counting, being real or not being real, having real value or not, being of some benefit or not. This does not mean chucking it all up and going off to some fly-infested swamp to work with the locals and catch malaria—although that in itself would count, but you don’t have to go to quite those extremes to make your life meaningful.

I guess the Rule means focusing on what is important to you in your life and making positive changes to ensure you feel happy with what you are dedicating your life to (see Rule 6).

This doesn’t mean long-term plans mapped out to the smallest detail. It means knowing, roughly, where you are going and what you are doing. Be awake rather than asleep. A fellow author, Tim Freke, calls it “lucid living”*—a perfect term for what we are talking about.

* Lucid Living by Tim Freke (Books for Burning, 2005).

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There are some things in this life that are important and a whole lot of things that aren’t. It doesn’t take too much dis-crimination to work out which are which. And there are a whole lot more things that don’t count, aren’t really important, to choose from. I’m not saying we can’t have trivia in our lives—we can and it’s fine. Just don’t go mistaking the trivia for what is really important. Having time for loved ones and friends is important; watching the latest soap isn’t. Repaying a debt is important; what brand of detergent you use isn’t.

Nurturing our children and teaching them real values is important; dressing them in designer fashion isn’t. You get the idea. Think about what you do that counts—and do more of it.

T H E R E A R E S O M E T H I N G S

I N T H I S L I F E T H AT A R E

I M P O R TA N T A N D A W H O L E

LOT O F T H I N G S T H AT

A R E N ’ T.

R U L E 6

Dedicate Your Life to Something

To know what counts and what doesn’t, you have to know what you are dedicating your life to. There are, of course, no right or wrong answers to this one because it’s a very personal choice—but it’s really useful to have an answer, rather than not really knowing.

As an example, my own life has been driven by two things: (a) someone once told me that if my soul or spirit was the only thing I was likely to be taking with me when I went, then it ought to be the best thing I had; (b) my curious upbringing.

The first one isn’t, for me at least, in any way religious. It just struck a chord with me, triggered something. Whatever it was I was taking with me, then perhaps I ought to do a bit of work on it. Make sure it really is the very best thing about me. That got me thinking. How on earth do you go about that? The answer still is that I haven’t got a clue. I have explored and experimented, learned and made mistakes, been a seeker and a follower, read and observed, and wrestled with this great problem all my life. How do you go about improving your life on that level? I think the only conclusion I have come to is to live as decent a life as possible, to go through causing as little damage as possible, to treat everyone with whom you come into contact with respect and dignity. It’s something to dedicate my life to, and it works for me.

And how can my curious upbringing cause me to focus on what I am dedicating my life to? Well, having had a “dysfunctional” upbringing and having chosen to let it motivate me rather than affect me, I am acutely aware that many people also need to discard that feeling of being badly affected by R U L E 6

what has gone before. This is what I dedicate my life to. Yes, it might be crazy; I might be crazy. But at least I have something I can focus on, something (for me) that counts.

Now, none of this is big stuff, and by that I mean I don’t go around with this emblazoned on my forehead—”Templar dedicates his life to …” sort of thing. It’s more that quietly, in my heart, I have something that I can devote my attention to. It’s a yardstick by which I can measure (a) how I’m doing, (b) what I’m doing, and (c) where I’m going. You don’t need to trumpet it. You don’t need to tell anyone (see Rule 1). You don’t even need to think it out in too much detail. A simple internal mission statement will do. Disney’s mission, for example, is: “To make people happy.” Decide what it is you are dedicating your life to. It makes the rest much easier.

I T ’ S A YA R D S T I C K

TO M E A S U R E

( A ) H OW I ’ M D O I N G ,

( B ) W H AT I ’ M D O I N G , A N D

( C ) W H E R E I ’ M G O I N G .

R U L E 7

Be Flexible in Your Thinking

Once your thinking gets crystallized, rigid, and formed, you’ve lost the battle. Once you think you have all the answers, you might as well hang up your boots. Once you get set in your ways, you’re already part of history.

To get the most out of life, you have to keep all your options open, keep your thinking and life flexible. You have to be ready to roll as the storm breaks—and, by golly, it always breaks when you least expect it. The instant you are established in a set pattern, you set yourself up for being knocked off-course. You might need to examine your thinking pretty closely to understand what I mean. Flexible thinking is a bit like mental martial arts—being ready to duck and weave, dodge and flow. Try to see life not as the enemy, but as a friendly sparring partner. If you’re flexible, you’ll have fun.

If you stand your ground, you’re likely to get knocked about a bit.

We all have set patterns in life. We like to label ourselves as this or that and are quite proud of our opinions and beliefs.