Over my life I have thought about what are the key points to achieving a better life filled with joy, health, fulfillment and prosperity. For your reading pleasure, they are condensed below.
- Start with the body. Of course you have heard all of the clichés about a good diet and exercise. Believe it or not, they are actually true; you need both. Some simple tips are to incorporate exercise into your daily routine. You can start with just three days per week. If you are not in good shape, begin with walking to the end of your street and build up from there. There are plenty of free resources on the Internet that demonstrate various exercise techniques. The key is to get your heart pumping, using your muscles and moving your lymphatic system around. As for diet, eliminate all fake foods. That means no sugar, pasta, sodas or anything that cannot be found in nature. If you are vegetarian or vegan you probably already eat fairly healthy, but try to buy organic produce. If you are not, then focus on fruits, vegetables and good quality meats (not cold cuts) such as organic and free range beef, chicken (including the eggs) and wild fish. The key is to reduce, as much as possible, all of the chemicals, toxins, pesticides, herbicides and heavy metals found in a lot of food today. Also watch your portions. You do not need to eat massive amounts that make you feel like you cannot even move.
- Quit smoking and drinking. This may sound easy, but for many it might not be. There are many resources available to help you with this. There are no benefits to these and they simply waste your money. Even the supposed benefits (like heart health) of a little bit of alcohol are, in my opinion, not worth the money spent when there are better forms of health control that you can employ. Of course, these studies that claim health benefits are not fact since other studies contradict them.
- Learn to control and eliminate all addictions. If you are addicted to various things like drugs, porn, sex, gambling, or others, then this is not helping you grow. Think about the wasted time spent on these activities. Identify the root cause for these addictions and learn to stop them. Again, there are many resources available to help you with this. You need the intent to make it happen.
- Focus on being the best that you can be. Think positively. Make good choices. Those choices are driven by your intent. If you want to “screw over” the other guy, that is an example of a bad choice. Meditation and introspection can help immensely here. This is actually the most crucial point of these 10. If you don’t work on yourself and reducing your ego, beliefs and fears, you will not make much progress elsewhere.
- Share love and participate in loving relationships. If you are surrounding yourself with negative people or folks that do not encourage you to better yourself, then terminate those relationships or start having deep discussions as to what you find needs to be worked on. Of course, you need to fix your intent to be a more giving and loving person too (see #4 above).
- Simplify your life as much as possible. Do you need to eat out at restaurants all of the time? Do you need to blow money on senseless material objects? Essentially, try to focus on the things and activities that will help you be more useful to others and hence, the world. Focusing time and money on material things like fancy clothes, vacations and cars won’t bring you much joy or fulfillment. That is not to say that you should live like a poor monk, just keep your senses about you as to how you spend money and how you spend your time. Invest in yourself rather than on stuff.
- Stop watching the news and television. This may sound like crazy talk, but there is actually negative value in doing these activities. With the news, all you get is a stream of fear and propaganda which limits your ability to think clearly about the world and your life. With TV programs, these are just a waste of time. Instead spend that time reading, playing sports, or learning a new subject. Note that I am excluding documentaries as these can spur on ideas and motivate you to do more research into improving your life.
- Have a goal to be self-employed. This offers you more freedom over your time and it is a direct way to add value to the world. When you have a job, your salary is capped; not so with a business. When you are reporting to a boss you are told what to do with little say in the direction of a project or of the company. Plus, if you have a job you are at more risk financially because you can be laid off and now your financial situation may turn dire. On the other hand, if you run a business with several customers, losing one or two will probably not set you back as much. Of course, it takes time to build up a business, so start working on that. Find your interests and skills and find out which new skills you need to acquire. Use these to solve a problem that others will pay you for.
- Try to limit your interactions with the government as much as possible. Forget voting as this is a complete waste of time. The politicians have been lying to us for hundreds of years and most people still cling to the idea that if we just get the right person in office, everything will get better. That is fantasy land! There is no right person because most of these liars are in the political arena for their friends’ and their own benefit. If enough people focus their energy on improving themselves and their lives, government will become obsolete as we will learn to care for each other as a society. As an extension the same can be said of corporations you deem as evil. Simply stop purchasing their goods and services and they will wither away.
- Learn about and start using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. By using these on a more frequent basis you are helping to take back control of your money. You will not need to rely on third parties to exchange value with others. You will retain your privacy, and your bank cannot arbitrarily close down your account as you are the bank. This is an exciting space and is only going to keep growing. Might as well be an early adopter and use that to improve your life.
I know that I only gave a brief outline for each point and that I could write entire articles on each one, but this should suffice as a starting point for those wishing to achieve more freedom, more health and more prosperity in their lives. Hope you enjoy and please share your thoughts. Are there any that I missed?