Colin’s A Short Manifesto For Life

This is a copy. To read more about life, positiveness and self-awareness, read Colin’s site.

I copied it here, because I find it high-quality and my own experience supports it. And site come and go, so it is here also for archival purposes and a quick access.

Beginning

Be open-minded. Learn from everyone. Never say “I know.”

Question everything. Challenge your beliefs. Understand both sides. Play Devil’s advocate.

Read 10x more than you do now. Study people. Study psychology and philosophy. Read biographies.

Get your hands dirty. Deliberately practice.

Read fiction.

Train your mental resilience. Test your mind with your body. Test your body with your mind.

Always take the hard way. Forget what’s easy because it has no value.

Set mini goals on a daily basis and crush them. Set 6-month, 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, and 10-year goals and crush them.

Play mind games (like sudoku or Boggle, not with people). Play physical games. Always play to win.

Argue both sides of every point, then choose the one that makes the most sense to you.

Never accept things at face value… there is always something you don’t know.

Realize that nothing is permanent. Accept that you are eventually going to die, then live a life that shows you aren’t afraid.

Practice voluntary discomfort: regularly restrict things in your life that are making you too comfortable.

Practice negative visualization: imagine the worst that can happen to remind yourself that most things don’t really matter.

Be vulnerable and open with yourself and others.

Don’t succumb to peer pressure—lie if you have to, honesty is better.

Be honest and direct. Seek the painful truth. Never accept the comfortable lie.

Move on when you know you should. Hang on when you know you should.

What is in the way is the way. Do things that scare you over and over until they don’t scare you anymore.

Learn how to listen; this will make you a diamond in the rough. Be interested in other people.

Reflect on your past. Learn from your mistakes.

Laugh as much as freaking possible.

Share what you’ve learned with others.

Write something that will outlive you. Build something that will outlive you. Raise someone that will outlive you.

Be in the moment. Don’t waste time fretting over the past or future.

Help a friend move at least once, then accept that they may not return the favor when you move. Lose your expectations of people and life: Nothing ever works out the way you want it to.

Spend more time with your friends and family and less with stuff.

Cry sometimes because it’s healthy but not because you can’t let go.

Keep your phone away when you are interacting with others—the most interesting creation in the universe is sitting in front of you… enjoy it.

Be happy by choice, not by circumstance because circumstance can change and choice is… well… choice.

by Colin Stuckert

End

I have my own manifesto (currently in Slovak language only, even after years I feel it’s still work in progress).