My Life Philosophy, Live, Love and Learn

I have a guideline for my life that I roughly try to follow. I try to keep it as simple as possible, a framework that is very flexible but allows me to do what I feel is right, and what will ultimately allow me, and those around me, to have a fair and happy existence.

I call it the 3 L's. These are Live, Love and Learn. It may seem simplistic, but they can be interpreted in a number of ways. Alone they are little without respect and responsibility. Take a look at the diagram for one way that I visualise them (I am a very visual person).

Respect must be part of this, without respect, it is fairly meaningless. Also you may not see responsibility clearly in the diagram, but consider this - every pillar, and the top need to have a very solid material, the solidity of which will represent their effectiveness. This is where responsibility is - the quality of the pillars.

While this is a powerful diagram, I try not to get too hung up on the visualisation - my philosophy is nowhere near as rigid as the diagram looks, but it was the best way I can find to give a loose idea.

I am loosely a secular humanist. But I let these principles guide me more than that does. I live in a way that I think inspires hope and joy.

Life is what you make it.
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This has multiple meanings, as do all these pillars.
All life is valuable. Respect and value your own life, and those around you.

When you are busy, stressed or otherwise distracted - do not forget to live. Do not forget to make sure that you leave yourself time to enjoy life. This does not mean to go squandering it in nightclubs and casinos, but to spend time with friends, to play a little, to go take a walk in a park or forest and enjoy it. IMHO - Squandering in nughtclubs and casinos never seems to be as much fun as you are told you should be having. While I enjoy an occasional speciality beer, being really, really drunk never seemed to be such a pleasant experience to me. Don't forget to laugh, cry and smile sometimes. Especially laughing - I always try to make my wife laugh, it really is one of life's simplest pleasures.

To live also means to care for your life - as I mentioned, not squander it. Be aware of what you are doing to your mind and body. You do not need to obsess it, to the point of boredom, but gently be aware of what you eat, drink. Be aware of what lacking sleep will do to it. Having a healthy body makes you a great deal more capable of happiness, sleeping well, confidence, thinking clearly. It makes all of these concepts, living, loving, learning, respect and responsibility much easier than if you have not looked after your body.

Above all - take responsibility for living - for your life. For your body. And to some degree, for those around you - although that begins to overlap love.

"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive."

- Dalai Lama

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Love needs to go all the way around. What does that mean?
Love yourself - without compassion for yourself, you can have little for others. Do not hate, mock or put yourself down. You can not live properly if you hate your body or mind. Neither can be healthy if you treat them without compassion.

Love others - love your wife, love your family, mothers and sisters. Love or at least have compassion and respect for everyone, colleagues, friends and strangers. Without this love, there is no binding between people. A person alone is a husk of a person. Seeing someone else's joy at your kindness or compassion is one of life's pleasures.

Even those who have offended you generally only do so through ignorance, if there is malice, it is also borne of ignorance. I still have compassion for these people - difficult as it can be at times.

I love the earth and love the universe - it is truly an amazing place. Sure, it has its ups and downs, but on the whole it is what you make it. When I walk through a park and live, it is through loving the feeling of walking, through loving the good air in my lungs, through loving the sound of birds, the look of grass that I enjoy it and live.

Do what you love or better still love what you do - enjoy living, enjoy working. It is easy to say, and hard to do, but you should aspire to enjoy it. Work done well, with pride and having done your best can be another one of life's pleasures.

Love means considering the consequences of your actions on others - simply put "don't crap on others". In general, people know when they do, but without compassion they do not see reasons not to do so. There are times when I am not aware of what harm an action is causing, so learn and you will be able to love better.

Love should be more a motivator than inhibitor. I like to smile to people when I can. It can be disarming. I am sure some of them thing that I am the token nutter on the train carriage, but others will smile back - and that makes it worth it. When I say smile, do not be smug, a smug smile is also known as a sneer, and conveys little love, joy or compassion. Smile because you feel it, not because you think you are somehow better than other people. If you find it hard to smile, go love, live and learn more... I find that it gives me more to smile about.

We learn by doing.
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In my life, I am always learning. I have never stopped. When you experience, you learn. When you see something you have not noticed before, this is learning. Learning is not restricted to hallowed halls of some academic institution. While books are valuable for learning, they do not confer as much as actually doing something.

Always challenge yourself. Always try something new. With the internet I now have more ways to learn something than ever before. I can go online and research the structure of an orange, I can go and see an image of it.

Do not restrict yourself to treading only the well worn paths. While there is sense in safety and not doing anything truly daft, there is much room for exploration and trying things you have not before. There are so many foods most have not tried, in fact statistics say the Western diet is limited to only around 20 varieties. Go try a pomello, a mooli or dragon fruit, buy a few different varieties of apples or cheeses together at a farmers market and find how different they taste. I cannot guarantee you will like them all, in fact I can guarantee there may be some you don't, but you tried it, you experienced it, and for all you did not like, you will find the one that is beautiful to you.

For those you did not like, you now know why you did not like them, what they do taste like. Either way you have experienced, you have learned. And I find there to be huge joy in learning.

When you love someone, make it part of your life to experience and learn about them, from them and with them.

Never let yourself say "I already know enough" or "I don't need or want to learn anything new". In my humble opinion the day I stop learning will be the one I pass away, and not before.

Find wonder at how much there is in the universe there is to learn. It is overwhelming that there is more than any one person, perhaps even all of humanity can learn in their life time. You do not need to add anything to the universe to see how much there is in it to discover and be curious about - this to me is beauty, and means that I can never run out of things to learn. If you truly could learn everything there was to learn, about everyone and their life, about every animal and its habits, including the individuals and their individual traits, about every technology, make every discovery in one lifetime I can guarantee there will still be many things to learn, something you have not yet done, something you have not tried.

As briefly mentioned, all these are limited without respect. Respect is for me a central and fundamental part of my philosophy, without which I think it will all come tumbling down.

“most prophesies - if not all are self fulfilling.”

What should I respect?
For a start respect yourself. If you always put yourself down or consider yourself as incapable of something, then you are robbing yourself of your potential. Read Optimism for a bit more information on that. You will fail to do many things if you start them with an attitude that it will never work out. I strongly agree with the principle that most prophesies - if not all are self fulfilling.

Respect what you learn - the things you learn in life should not be neglected. A mistake you learned from was very worthwhile, even if it was costly, if you learned from it and respected that learning.

Respect those who teach you or those you can learn from - that is probably just about everybody. It includes the very bright, the very dim. It includes those you like, and those you dislike. It includes the old and the very young. It even includes animals - don't think that humans are the only creatures with a few clever tricks up their sleeves.

Respect change - the only constant in the universe is change. I can not recall who coined this quote, but it is true. Things will change, and you will too. I know I will need to change and adapt, I do not expect the universe to accommodate me when I cannot adapt. I may adapt things in the universe to my likes - but even that took an adaptation of mind and body to affect.

Respect your health - this, once it is gone, is pretty hard to get back, much harder so than money. Be careful what you sell...

Respect the health of others - what goes around comes around. Damaging someone's physical health is in my opinion among the most serious offences. This ranges up to out an out murder down to forcing unhealthy habits on someone. There are plenty of areas of controversy in this idea - ones that I constantly question and check my own opinions/feelings on.

Respect your time - this does not come easily, and can not really be regained. Finding ways to use my time well, and planning so I can leave time for enjoying, relaxing as well as learning and getting things done efficiently are things really worth spending my time on.

Respect those you do not believe - not everything you hear is correct, but even knowing that an opinion or competing concept exists, and what it is constructed on is worth learning. You do not have to believe something to learn what it is about or where it has come from.

This list is not exhaustive. I will add more as they come to me.

I always strive to be optimistic. I would strongly advise anyone of any faith to be optimistic.
What does optimism mean to me?

Optimism comes partly from expectation, and partly from action. If you are not living (you are working in anger, neglecting your body, not sleeping, eating badly), not learning (stuck turning a handle, in a rut, not growing any more, being bored by the same old experiences, not trying to learn or find new ways to do things, not trying new places or things) or not loving (living like a loner, separating/distancing yourself, refusing to depend or allow dependencies with one person) making no effort to connect with even those closest to you) then it will be hard to be optimistic.

I try (although being a person I am not smug or conceited enough to think I always succeed) to be proactive in all these areas to enjoy life more and be optimistic about the future. Do not try to rely on someone else (not even your choice of deity) to make you feel better when you cannot be bothered - a partner, significant other, family member or good friend will actively try, but if you continually dig your heels with pessimism you will drive them away. Let them love you, and show them love and respect for their attempts.

Optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same coin - if you actively live, love and learn, actively try to enjoy and get the best of life, then you will feel better about it, and actively trying to feel better is generally easier. If you give up on yourself, shun living, loving and learning in a pessimistic mood you will find you have less to be optimistic about, and will drag yourself down.

Consider both self-fulfilling properties - if you feel it and let it affect your life, you will encourage more of it.

I have bad days. But I try still to find the good things in life. I still try to live, love and learn - in fact if I want to pull myself up I try harder with those things. I do not know if it shows- but this section on optimism was written on a dark day - to pull me up a bit.

Optimisim also can be passive and active. What I mean by this is it could be based on "It'll all be fine, I wont do anything", and "It'll be great if I put my best efforts into it". For you to get the best from life, you need to put your best into it, and do so believing that you will make things better, that it will be enjoyable efforts, that it is worth doing.

The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them.
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I do not really know if there is life after death. The romantic side of my personality would like to think there is something better. The rational side of me says it is unlikely (although sci-fi works like Peter F Hamilton suggest ways it may be possible).

But here is my real point with this section. If there is or is not, we should not be poisoning or neglecting our life here on earth in the hope that things are better elsewhere. This is kind of like Pascals Wager in reverse.

Many people have committed atrocities thinking that this will guarantee things like 99 Virgins in the next life. I will make no excuses - I utterly condemn murder, brutality, oppression or similar in the hope that it will guarantee such things.

Many others have neglected this life because of the promises of the next. I have been annoyed by statements like "we should not try to make heaven on earth".

So my take on this is that whatever I may think the next life holds (depending on how rational/romantic I feel), it is personally important to me to do as much as I can in this life to improve it for myself and others. I behave as if this is the only chance, the only life. Therefore, the impression I want to leave on the world is a positive one.

This means I will try not to judge or discriminate. I will take actions where I can to make things a little (or a great deal) better. This lens donates to the Global Giving, others donate to Room To Read and Hope For Henry.

That is not to say I am not lazy, angry or judgemental from time to time (being human), but my ideals would suggest I should try not to be any of those things.

The title image is from Morguefile.com.

The pillars of 3L was drawn by me using Google Sketchup.

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What can be better in life than a very simple pleasure, laughing. At stuff, with people or even on your own, laughter is definitely a great thing.

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I have stated my philosophy to Live, Love and Learn in a number of places and what this means.
I have also made it clear I think that self respect is an important part of this.

Self respect must and should include thinking for yourself. Looking at a number of philosophies, weighing up what you know, exploring and making up your own mind. I personally regard "truths" with some suspicion, and instead take those that fit the other facts best, or those that are most useful to me to make deductions. Depending on a situation, I may also take those that are least useful to me to figure out other outcomes and ways to deal with this. That makes me both a wishful thinking optimist, a terrible pessimist and a skeptic. At the end, I avoid belief and prefer to take something as it might be this, until I find out otherwise.

Being fiercely independent, or trying to be (I'll not kid myself - I can definitely be influenced, probably more so than I am aware of) is a great value. It does not precluding loving others, it just precludes deciding that everything they say is fact because you love them.

Put another way - respecting someone else's opinion, does not require agreeing with it. It is better that you are able to articulate your disagreement, in terms that are not insulting or demeaning, and even better if you enjoy discussing the differences. But not knowing your arguments well enough is not reason enough to accept their opinion.

Accepting somebody as a person you respect, does not mean you must accept their opinion as your own- and it is also quite a dishonest thing to claim so to just keep up appearances too.

Think for yourself. Find out more - if you have time. Don't be afraid to not be sure, or not have enough facts even though you think things are one such way or another. Allow yourself to change your own mind, but do so on your terms, not because of someone else. And if you find yourself flip-flopping - step back, do something else or think about something else, perhaps you need to live more and learn more before you can come to a decision. If you must decide something now, accept that you may need to change your mind later and don't kid yourself about it.

Don't take my word for it either!

I thought I would clarify this area of my philosophy and how it affects the way I behave. Or how it would ideally do so - I still accept that these are ideals I strive for and I am not so conceited to think I always succeed in them. But I will keep trying.

After a bit of a difficult day and a bit of reading, I felt inspired to add a section on optimism. For those interested in philosophy and outlook it should make for some good reflection. I felt better for doing it.