Oddworld Forums - The Rules for being Human

I saw this in another board and was really inspired by it. I thought I'd share it with you all.

When you were born, you didn't come with an owner's manual. These guidelines may help your life work better:

You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life.

You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life on Planet Earth". Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher.

There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. "Failures" are as much a part of the process as "success."

A lesson is repeated until learned. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it: then you can go on to the next lesson.

If you don't learn easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes. Pain is how the universe gets your attention.

You will know you've learned a lesson when your actions change. Wisdom is practice. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing.

"There" is no better than "here". When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that again looks better than "here."

Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.

Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life, or someone else will.

You always get what you want. Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract; therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students.

There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn't help. Judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.

Your answers lie inside you. You know more than you have heard or read or been told. All you need to do is to look, listen, and trust.

Maybe meeting the wrong people before meeting the right ones is so that when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.

Maybe when the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.

Maybe the best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch and swing with, never say a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you've ever had.

Maybe it is true that we don't know what we have got until we lose it, but it is also true that we don't know what we have been missing until it arrives.

Giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they will love you back. Don't expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart; but if it does not, be content it grew in yours.

It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone, but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

Don't go for looks; they can deceive. Don't go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright. Find the one that makes your heart smile.

There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real.

Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do.

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough hope to make you happy.

Always put yourself in others' shoes. If you feel that it hurts you, it probably hurts the other person, too.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried, for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.

Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss and ends with a tear.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you are the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

Be a good friend. A good friend...

(A)ccepts you as you are,
(B)elieves in "you",
(C)alls you just to say "HI",
(D)oesn't give up on you,
(E)nvisions the whole of you (even the unfinished
parts),
(F)orgives your mistakes,
(G)ives unconditionally,
(H)elps you,
(I)nvites you over, and will
(J)ust "be" with you,
(K)eeps you close at heart,
(L)oves you for who you are,
(M)akes a difference in your life,
(N)ever Judges,
(O)ffers support,
(P)icks you up,
(Q)uiets your fears,
(R)aises your spirits,
(S)ays nice things about you,
(T)ells you the truth when you need to hear it,
(U)nderstands you,
(V)alues you,
(W)alks beside you,
(X)-plains thing you don't understand,
(Y)ells when you won't listen and,
(Z)aps you back to reality,

Remember how lucky you actually are. If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be nonwhite
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness... you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change lying around your house somewhere... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If your parents are still alive and still married... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.

If you can read this message you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.

You will forget all this.

You can remember any time you wish.