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.

Inspiration For Life - Chris Guillebeau

"If consensus is overrated, I think balance is, too. I have no interest in living a balanced life. I want a life of adventure." 

--Chris Guillebeau, The Art of Non-Conformity

Inspiration For Life - Jim Rohn

Start from wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got.

~ Jim Rohn

http://www.getorganizedwizard.com/blog/2012/12/the-secret-to-achieving-goals-and-keeping-new-years-resolutions

Inspiration For Life - Bob Greene

"You need to know what life you want (as well as what life you don’t want), then you have to muster up the will and the drive to go after it." 

— Bob Greene

From today's Oprah newsletter

Inspiration for Life - Two quotes about spiritual practice

"The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self."

- Marianne Williamson

"If you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis."

- Doug Coupland

From The Daily Love email today

Inspiration For Life - William Edward Hartpole Lecky

“That which gives the strongest habitual pleasure, whether it be innate or acquired, will in the great majority of cases ultimately dominate.”

-The Map of Life, William Edward Hartpole Lecky

From The Happiness Project email today

How to be happy

I'm learning more and more what I've let slide, and today I feel like I've made progress. Here's some things that I know I need for happiness, that I've been ignoring too long:

• Integrity--Not just honesty, but standing up for what I think is right--or against what I think is wrong. I've been too passive here.
• A feeling of growth--I have most definitely just let myself drift. Getting back in school has made me notice that this one is really lacking. I need to grow in all directions; my life needs to be improved by all the work I do.
• Finding and following my Passion--I've got writing, but I need other passions. Other things easier to build a life on. What do I really care about?
• Comfort in my own skin--I've literally spent years now going 'ugh, I'm so fat', but not doing much about it. I need to find active things I like doing, because I'm lazy and I won't do it if I don't like doing it. And people to do those things with, who matter to me. As soon as J moved out, I lost all interest in the gym.
• Less structure, more fun--Also, more exploration, and less worrying about not getting stuff done. Or, more precisely, a way of getting things done that isn't a strict schedule, because those kill me after only a week or two. And then I'm useless for an equal mount of time, and that's not good for anyone.
• A life outside the home--But one on my own terms. One where I'm doing things I chose to do because I wanted to do them, rather than things that are really someone else's idea of fun. I have no idea what my own are just yet, but I recognize that I need to find them, and that's a step in the right direction.
• Inner peace--I'm too worryful, too anxious. I need to reconnect with the small amounts of spirituality and philosophical thinking I'm inclined to, and work on rising out of the funk. Again. 

On a certain level, I feel a bit like I'm 16 again, looking for the same things, but with different ideas of what they are. I suppose that it makes sense, since I'm 32 this year, which is twice-sixteen. Parallels and all that. But this time around, I'm going to do better. You watch me.

Girl Crush / Inspiration: Felicia Day

She is everything I want to be, except, like, replace 'actress' with 'full-time writer'. The rest all applies: geeky, awesome, active in the internet community, well-loved, smart, thoughtful...I'll stop now.

robin mckinley reminds me of more life requirements

I want to live somewhere...

close enough to it's natural and pastoral heritage to have decent agricultural fairs, preferably of something I like, like corn or strawberries or bread. Or all of the above.

where I can have a huge garden to build my little writing cottage in, and where roses will grow without me having to constatly worry about them.

where the cats can go outside without having to worry about fleas too much, and where they won't be squashed by cars, in-rabied by squirrels, or attacked by dogs.

with a proximity to something not-writing-related where I can dive in and really get into it-- beekeeping, silversmithing, jam-making coops, a tea plantastion, an old library of rare finds that needs a curator and archivist, something. Something I want to do and can't do here for whatver reason, so I can love it as much as she loves bells.

inspiration for the new life i want, 4

All of these are from *Lovely Clusters, which is totally one of my new favorite blogs. Some of them are by her, and the rest are ones she found and I borrowed.

Is there such a place as a cross between Hawaii and Indiscriminate Miazaki Europe? Because that's where I really want to live.

inspiration for the new life i want, 3

This taken from Previously Inaudible, which is one of my favorite blogs.

inspiration for the new life i want, 2

(As before, all the pictures are borrowed from around the web, with much gratitude. They should link to where they're from.)

inspiration for the new life i want

I know what my ideal life would look like, and I want to share bits of it with you. Maybe you can point me in the direction of where and how to get it?

So, in no particular order:

(you know I had to go through eight pages of google before I found this one, slightly blurry image of what I wanted?)

Here's what I see here: Two people utterly in love, kissing like they mean it, in a growing vinyard in a beautiful country. They're happy, they're passionate, and they have what they want. I want that.

Other images (all borrowed from around the webs), because I think in images:

More will follow, I assure you!