30 Years. 30 Life Lessons.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

What I have learnt in life.

1. The loving person awakens love. Happiness has been defined as loving and being loved. When we speak of love shining in the dark, we mean that it will give us help and comfort in trouble. It will make us able to do and suffer things that we never could do without it.
2. One may be golden-mouthed and silver-tongued in eloquence. To know when and where to speak and to be silent is better than diamonds. The overweening vanity of some prompts them to speak on every subject, as though nothing could be rightly done without the light of their wisdom.
3. Our nature is intensely assimilative. The mind becomes what it feeds on. Alexander the Great was incited to his deeds of conquest by reading Homer’s “Iliad.” Julius Caesar and Charles the Twelfth of Sweden derived much of their military enthusiasm from studying the life of Alexander.
4. The character of the human world is to us what we make of it. To the selfish all are selfish. To the dishonest all are dishonest. To the false all are false. To the generous all are generous.
5. Everyone fears death, more or less. The fear of death has established itself over the human heart something like a reign of terror. We collapse under the conviction that the grave is inevitable. We are afraid to name death plainly and hide our fear under that euphemistic commonplace, ‘If anything should happen to me.’
6. When we come into the world we bring all the world with us. Shakespeare, without any classical culture, was able with his Roman play to enter into the very spirit of the ancient world and in all his works to anticipate forms of society and describe how all possible forms of character would act in all possible circumstances.
7. Great is the satisfaction which the beautiful world gives to the mind. Yet it is not a complete satisfaction. The questions of the mind are never all answered. The desires of the heart are never all satisfied.
8. Time will not change the nature, but only afford an opportunity for a change. We will never be learned without study. We will never be purged of bad habits without discipline and perseverance.
9. How often little things are indicative of one’s character. Some small attention when we least expect it, some kind word in the midst of trouble, some generous thought anticipating a need. These things influence many lives in a way undreamed of by those who have so acted. A drop of oil may make all the difference to a great locomotive engine. Is not this so, too, with human society? We can all be lubricators of the wheels of life.
10. ‘Little more’ is the principle of life. Let me get a little more of it (Wealth, Honor, Knowledge etc), and keep what I get, and I shall be all right. So then-‘a little more’ is wanted, is it? And that ‘little more’ will always be wanted.
11. Confidence is good. Humility is better. The wise in the world that are most able to teach others are those who have been willing first to stoop to learn.
12. We are all of us, to a great extent, made by the company we keep. There is a natural readiness in us all to reflect and respond to the emotions expressed in our presence. If another person laughs, we can scarcely refrain from laughing. If we see a person in pain, our face reflects what is passing in them.
13. A life of ease is commonly stagnant. It is only those whose lives suffer much, that are rich in experience and in resources. Pain and sorrow are necessary medicines of the impetuosity of nature. Without these, we act as if everything must give way to our own wishes and conveniences.
14. We carry our world in our heart as a mental image. People we have known. The villages, towns, cities, which we have visited. The landscapes we have observed — in truth, all outside of us that have ever come under our notice has stamped its image on the heart. The photographs of all are within. Thus we carry within us all those parts and phases of the world that have ever come within the sweep of our observation. The world is in everyone’s heart as a great reality.
15. The most truly happy are those who are most benevolent. Whatever pleasure there may be in gratitude, there is far more pleasure in benevolence. It is sometimes hard for us who have devoted the best part of our time and energy in life to earn money to spend it on others, but practice it, and keep on practicing it, and I assure you it becomes a pleasure.
16. It is the law of human nature that whatever we habitually, intelligently, and lovingly contemplate gives a color to our minds, and affects our character for good or evil.
17. No one has absolute truths in them. All that they have are opinions formed by them concerning those truths.
18. There is nothing made for itself — nothing whose powers and influences, are entirely circumscribed to self. Whatever a creature receives it gives out, with the modification and increase of its own force. The clouds borrow water of the ocean, but they pour it forth again in refreshing showers upon the thirsty hills, which, in their turn, send them amongst the valleys. The tree borrows from every part of the world in order to build up itself, but it gives out, in return, beauty, fragrance, and fruit.
19. Disappointments stem usually out of a false and exaggerated estimate of self. We must always find our level. We must come to realities.
20. We understand and appreciate only what we love. No one can understand and appreciate a poem or an essay on patriotism, who is not a lover of the country.
21. All life will reproduce itself. After a tree has decayed and gone to dust, others will be in full life and vigor that were seedlings of the old tree. Intellectual life is reproductive. Mighty genius leaves disciples to carry out their ideas after they are gone.
22. Humans by nature are social beings. They cannot live without their fellow citizens. We cannot come into this world and live in this world without being first of all touched by or touching somebody else.
23. All the events of life get their real beauty or ugliness from the times in which they come to us or in which we come to them.
24. Have we never experienced that wonderful sense of relief and refreshment when we unburden some terrible trouble we have upon us into the ears of love and sympathy? To better our lives what we need is not more technology and more security but more love and sympathy.
25. The wonders and mysteries of the human body are little understood. The human body is an affair of beauty, symmetry, utility, and of mystery. Our body is a collection of wonders from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. The heart contracting four thousand times in an hour, and sending out with unerring accuracy at every contraction one ounce of blood, is proof of the fact.
26. Human character is a precipitate of actions. It takes acres of roses to make a jar of perfume. All the long life of a human is represented in ultimate character. You are making your character. Your habits. Your opinions. And you are making your reputation too. And you will not be able to get rid of that.
27. Happiness(State Of No Anxiety) is the best promoter of health. A Happy mind is reflected in the Happy expression of countenance. The connection between the mind and the body is so striking as to force itself upon the notice.
28. Poverty is isolation. Rich are loved and respected how undeserving they may be. Nothing upon earth is as powerful as money. It is a force before which everything bows.
29. As surely as water will find its level, so a truly skilled person will find some outlet for his talents. Talent opens up to many opportunities for advancement.
30. How prone are humans to forget and neglect in prosperity, those who have been their companions in adversity. Prosperity hardens the heart against the wants and miseries of others and stops it from exercising sympathy and compassion.