1. Expect adversaries.

Meet your adversaries head-on. Stand for values. Take your defeats whatever way you can. Grow by them. Do not try to defeat your adversaries. If you have sufficient power, at least try to neutralize them.

2. Tell the truth in conflicts . . .

because honesty is one of the only tools that creates reality, rather than deception, among people. Help heal those who come to you for that commitment. Let the rest go.

3. Don’t fight too many battles, for they take your energy.

Instead, create positive values where you can.

4. For yourself, don’t walk away, walk around.

Start a new and better path. Accept your defeats. Mourn your loses. Celebrate your gains. Learn from everything.

5. Know who your true friends are by their practice of honesty.

Avoid deception yourself. If you are willing to lose, you will not attempt to deceive in order to gain. If you are not willing to lose you will make life a hell for yourself and sometimes another.

6. What matters in life is not what people say,

but what you produce in life that has positive results for yourself and others.

7. You are not alone.

But be vigilant and search out those of like values so that you can truly support each other.

8. Accept everybody with a bit of irony at what life brings you,

yet don’t let the dishonest and the deceptive get close to you or they will take your energy. Test those who want to be close to you by their willingness to change in your presence.

9. Be non-possessive.

Nothing matters that much. The Greater Purpose is all. You are nothing.

by Strephon Kaplan-Williams