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CHAPTER.3
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What done is done and you need to just get on with things
People make mistakes. Sometimes very serious ones. As often as not, the mistakes aren't deliberate or personal. Sometimes people just don't know what they are doing. This means that if, in the past, people have behaved badly towards you, it wasn't necessarily because they meant to be horrid, but because they were as navie, as foolish, as human as the rest of us. They made mistakes in the way they brought you up or finished a relationship with you or whatever, not because they wanted to do it that way, but because they didn't know any different.
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CHAPTER.7
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Try to see life not as the enemy, but as a friendly sparring partner
Once your thinking gets crystallized, rigid, formed, you've lost the battle. Once you think you have all the answers, you might as well hang up your boots. Once you get set in your ways, you're already par of history.
To get the most out of life you have to keep all your options open, keep thinking and life flexible. You have to be ready to roll as the storm breaks. The instant you are established in a set pattern, you set yourself up for being knocked off-course. Flexible thinking is a bit like mental martial arts, being ready to duck and weave, dodge and flow.
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CHAPTER.10
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Only dead fish swim with the stream
Life is difficult. If it was all fluffy and easy we wouldn't be tested, tried, forged in the fire of life. If life were a series of lovely days, we'd soon get bored. If it was all easy we couldn't get stronger. So, be thankful it is a struggle some of the time, and recognize that only dead fish swim with the stream. We have to keep swimming or get swept away and each flick of our tail, each surge of our fins makes us stronger and fitter, learner and happier. Try to see each setback as a chance to improve.
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CHAPTER.14
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I wish I'd done that and I will
As regret happens, they can be very useful if you choose to use them to make a difference going forward. The world is divided into those who look at others enviously and those who look at others as a motivational tool.
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CHAPTER.16
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Change what you can change, let go of the rest
Time is short. This is another of those facts you can't escape; it's a given. If time is short then it makes sense not to go wasting any of it, not a single lovely drop of it. Pay attention to what, in your life, you have some control over and they simply, economically (time-wise), let go of the rest.
If you waste time struggling to change stuff that is obviously never going to be changed, then life will whizz past and you'll miss it. Dedicate yourself personally to things you can change, areas where you can make a difference.
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CHAPTER.19
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Don't dwell on the past
Whatever the past was, it's gone. There is nothing you can do to change anything that has gone before and so you must turn your attention to the here and now. It is hard to resist the allure of dwelling on what has gone before. But if you want to be successful in your life, you have to turn your attention to what is happening for you right now. You might be tempted to dwell on the past because it was awful or because it was wonderful. Either way, you have to leave it behind because the only way to live is in the present.
[PEACE]
