Sami's top ten rules for life

1. Be nice. Read as Wil Wheaton's "Don't be a dick". When faced with any situation where you can be nice or be a dick, pick nice.
1. Note that 'nice' does not mean 'be a pushover' or 'be a victim'; it means 'don't needlessly be hurtful or rude'.
2. Pay attention. Learn to know when people are tying to pull one over on you, but also learn when you should see the wonderfulness around you.
3. Ask questions and get answers. Don't take things at face value just because someone said them with a strong voice; ask why, ask when, ask 'how does that even start to make sense'. Learn how to find the answers, and teach others how to.
4. Do you. Aside from being a psychopath or something, you know what you want to do, so do it. Build the life you want. Live in accordance to your own beliefs. Don't be damaging to society, but also don't excuse the badness of society just because it's your culture.
5. Aim for healthy. For yourself, but also for the world, for your community, for your house and your kids and your pets and your garden. For conflict-resolution. For mental state.
6. Lessen your footprint. There's always a cleaner, kinder way to live. You don't have to turn eco-terrorist overnight, but think about these things--choose to be better. Pick farm-raised over battery-raised. Pick gas-saving over gas-guzzling. Pick walking over driving less than a mile. Pick up your trash. Recycle. Buy local.
7. Remember your lessons. Life is made of lessons, and if you aren't learning them--and the lessons your culture should have learned, you aren't doing your best to improve and avoid past mistakes, big and small.
8. Share. Knowledge, funds, food, stories, art, your talents, your gifts, your experience, this article you just read, this beautiful thing you just saw, this terrible news we can do something about. Share it all. Be open and ambitious with your sharing.
1. Don't ruin yourself, though; remember "Aim for healthy".
9. Build family. Not hate. Find the people you would have in your family if you got to choose, and keep those people around you.
10. Love. It's harder than hate, but it's so much better. Fight against the piles of bullshit that make people keep being mean and hurtful and scared and crazy, and replace them with love.