Principles-of-Adult-Behavior.md

Principles of Adult Behavior

1. Be patient. No matter what.
2. Don’t badmouth: Assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you wouldn’t say to him.
3. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
4. Expand your sense of the possible.
5. Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
6. Expect no more of anyone than you can deliver yourself.
7. Tolerate ambiguity.
8. Laugh at yourself frequently.
9. Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
10. Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
11. Give up blood sports.
12. Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Don’t risk it frivolously.
13. Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.)
14. Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
16. Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.
17. Praise at least as often as you disparage.
18. Admit your errors freely and soon.
19. Become less suspicious of joy.
20. Understand humility.
21. Remember that love forgives everything.
22. Foster dignity.
23. Live memorably.
24. Love yourself.
25. Endure.

~John Perry Barlow, 2013

@jamestomasino Thanks for the reference.
@petdance, @Xiddler: As I posted, I realized that I was being too oblique. Sorry. What I was trying to say was that I think that if someone wanted something badly enough, then they could get it. Gandhi, Mandela, MLK, went up against the most powerful forces in their worlds, forces that others said they couldn't control. Yet, in some fashion, all were successful; well, maybe not MLK, sadly.

There are millions of examples of people only realizing they dreams after 20, 30 years of effort, when everyone around them said, "Give up. You can't win." But they didn't and they did.

I think Barlow underestimates what people can do. That being said, there are many times when I think the effort of changing someone's mind isn't worth it, and here, Barlow's advice is apt: Don't waste your energy on it. But this is small potatoes stuff. I don't think Barlow's (or the Stoics, for that matter) are right for Big Picture issues.

I don't understand #19 Become less suspicious of joy. Can somebody explain?

@lsaffree, I understanding it as "enjoy life."

Thanks @Fastidious. TIL: to be suspicious of sth = to distrust sth. I now understand #19 better.

@fuaxio I didn't know about it, too, but here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sport

He actually wrote this in 1977 just before his 30th birthday:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1kgmes/i_am_john_perry_barlow_cofounder_of_the/cboqatv/

Edit: And thanks for posting it!

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