Never do anything permanent to my body, unless it is medically necessary.

People come in and out of life… Let them.

Do not date at work.

Under absolutely no circumstance do I mess with people in relationships.

Friends that are dating:
If they break up and I’m interested in her… I give one month per year of time, one month minimum, before I approach her. That helps prevent hurt feelings, it also prevents being the “rebound”. Although, one time it cost me a possible relationship as she broke up with her fiancee’ and immediately approached me. Unfortunately, she never came out an positively stated they were broken up and it caused quite a bit of awkwardness on my part. She ended up hating my guts, but honestly I probably just dodged a bullet.

Give yourself the respect you deserve. Corollary: Behave in a manner that you can respect.

There are more, but this is what I have time to type out right now.

Work on diagnosing and fixing the problem first, worry about appointing blame later (if at all).

If you don’t know what you want, make a choice instead of just waiting. If it’s not the right one, change your mind. It’s always ok to change your mind. Sitting in stasis means the ice cream shop closes before you ordered and now you don’t get any.

“First is best”

To avoid overthinking decisions that don’t really matter, the first acceptable choice is the correct one.

Save your indecision for stuff that matters.

Stay curious. No one is over educated to the point that they can’t learn.

The other side of this is that anyone, no matter their background, can teach you something.

I have two main moral guidelines by which I try to live:

A. Try to leave everything better than it was before, or at least avoid making it worse. It doesn’t have to be by much, but if every person makes things just one tiny bit better, the culminating effect will be great. Do your part.

B. The difference between a moral person and an immoral one usually doesn’t lie in the ability/inability to know right from wrong, rather in the ability to rationalize their immoral actions. Therefore:

• Doing bad things once in a while does not make you a bad person, it makes you human.
• Avoiding doing bad things 100% of the time will make you a bad person, as you’ll inevitably fail and will be forced to rationalize your actions, making it easier to do more bad things.
• What makes you a good person is the ability to know when you’re acting wrong.

From there, there are a few rules that help me along the way:

1. Everyone are wrong. Assume you’re wrong about some important things/core beliefs, you’ve just yet to discover which ones. Don’t hesitate to act according to what you think is right, but understand you’re probably doing something wrong somewhere. Look for signs that show that’s the case.

2. Making mistakes is fine and inevitable. Reflect on your mistakes and try not to make the same mistake twice.

3. Use everything as an opportunity to learn. The best way to learn is from other people’s mistakes - it provides a visceral lesson without you having to pay the price.

4. People’s opinions of you are their business, not yours. Though you should choose to use them to improve yourself when applicable.

5. Admitting being wrong or admitting a mistake will not only improve things, but is a sign of strength. Not doing so is a sign of weakness. This is true both for yourself and for other people.

6. Give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t be quick to judge them. Wait until you have enough data and then come to conclusions.

7. No rule is correct in all situations.

8. External rules (and laws) exist for a reason. If you’re going to break one of them, first understand why it’s there in the first place and why it should be ignored. Do not assume you know better than the people who came up with it.

9. Blanket statements can be correct or incorrect for the most part, but they can’t be used to solely justify an action or an opinion.

I have no more right to interfere in someone else’s life than they have to interfere in mine.

Avoid people who don’t share that view.

Forgive yourself when you fuck up

Admit when I’m wrong.

Never admire an entire person, only the aspects of the person you find admirable.

Embrace the difficulty, because it’s not going to go away.

Don’t do anything you’re going to have to lie about. If you do, don’t lie about it. If you do, make it right as soon as possible.

This is something I learned from experience. I have plenty of problems in my life but a heavy conscience isn’t one of them.

Everyone deserves respect.

Respect is in fact, not earned.

One loses respect due to their behavior.

As a counter to perfectionism:

If it’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing poorly. [source: a reddit user]

When I was a teenager, I encountered a bunch of different perspectives that contradicted the beliefs and ideas that I was raised with, and I realized that if you had wrong ideas about reality and tried to be a good person based on those ideas, you could easily wind up doing more harm than good. So I made a vow to myself to always pursue the truth - to learn about the world, to examine myself and my biases, to seek out and understand different perspectives, to ground my beliefs on evidence, and to reject peer pressure and comforting lies and to face reality even when it disturbed me.