Life Lessons & Wisdom

In my life, I've learned quite a few "gems" of wisdom in my time. I'm hoping to maybe share some I've learned personally, and perhaps start a discussion on certain things you've all learned within your life... all said:

1. Always be aware of what you are putting on or in your body.
   
   Meaning: "You are what you eat." (Essentially).
   
   As a person with both Bipolar I Disorder and Schizophrenia, I cannot begin to tell you that most of the "mental" battle is not fought with "medications," (although they do help significantly)... but if you're eating or consuming unnatural, highly processed, "engineered" foods, (like with dyes or ingredients you can't necessarily read), it will begin to affect you. Not only physically. But mentally too.
   
   In fact,
   
   If in recent days I'm going on a tail-spin, (which I'm prone to do from time to time), it usually has "less" to do with the medicine I'm on, (because that's all fine and good), but it's "more" likely that I ate something that didn't agree with me. To quote Scrooge from A Christmas Carol upon seeing Jacob Marley for the first time: "Must be bad mutton."
   
   I've also taken this to such a degree that I'm even being more cautious about what soaps and shampoos I rinse with, (as my skin is my largest organ), and same with toothpaste and mouth wash.
   
   Do I stumble from this grace from time to time... Eat something bad? I sure do... but I ended up regretting it and acting a fool. Which leads to my second word of wisdom:
   
   
2. If you've wronged or someone has wronged you... Quickly apologize to, (or forgive), that person.
   
   There's a slight "exception" to this rule: If someone wrongs you, and you forgive them, and they continue to hurt you and hurt you. It's okay to set "boundaries" on the person, but forgive them. Better to "let them go" in forgiveness than dwell and dwell in the hurts and angers that they caused you.
   
   And, if you've wronged a person. (As I have done many times, believe me, people are like pencils. They make mistakes, but that's why we have erasers)... Ask forgiveness. Admit your wrong and do your best to try to change. You're not perfect, but if you've got a chance to make a wrong right, I'd say take it. And on the topic of forgiveness:
   
   
3. Find God.
   
   I happen to believe in Jesus these days, and I was baptized in the Holy Ghost... but I find life is much easier, and miracles abound occur, if you give yourself to a "Higher Power." I used to be an Atheist, but I found it very difficult to juggle all the things I had to juggle in my life. Schizo-affective Disorder. Diabetes that was out of control. I was addicted to benzodiazepines, (think the "opiod" epidemic were facing in the medical arena right now). All of it was basically "cured" as soon as I was baptized. I still "struggle" with certain things from time to time. But I used to be a rotating door in mental hospitals, now no-longer. My blood sugars and A1c's are that of a person without diabetes basically. And I fought a withdrawal worse than heroin withdrawal for "nine whole months" through the power of prayer and thanksgiving. Thanksgivings kept me sane when internally and in my mind I was facing the deepest darkest Hell. So all said,
   
   This helped me too.

This is all I have, (for now), but I have a few more.

Anyone else have such "Life Wisdom?" (Again, keep it positive).

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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage

Good stuff. Thank you for sharing.

The food thing is underrated. A lot of people agree it matters, but still seem to harbor this belief that the physical and the mental are nearly separate things, but they really aren't. I saw a little list once, something about depression. I'll butcher it, but it was something like:

You feel depressed.
Okay, how did you sleep?
Drink some water.
Make sure you're not hungry/low on blood sugar. Eat a piece of fruit.
Have you had any contact with another person recently?
Go outside for a few minutes, get some sun.

...and so on. And the idea is to run through this each time you feel bad to see if you "actually" feel bad or if you've just neglected something basic in a way that's having downstream effects on your mental well-being.

I "know" this and I still "forget" it all the time, at least in the sense of underrating it. Heck, sometimes I'm in a strangely good mood and I realize it's because I'd just finished listening to Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" or something.

I'll think a bit more about which little nuggets I'd pick if I had to pick just a few, but initially I just wanted to echo that one.

Most all of my life's wisdom I learned from Star Trek, (but not the JJ Abraham's crap).

'You can't free a fish from water.'

More, (I'll try to make this quick for now than maybe elaborate on it later as I have some place to be soon, but...):

• Find Your "Story" in a "Universal Story/Mythos":
  
  Joseph Campbell talks about this quite a bit, but religions, stories, "myth." They share more "similar" ground than they do in being "different." Sure maybe it's a "different skin" but the "David and Goliath" story could be seen as the "Damsel in Distress" mythos. David, (the Hero), needs to rescue Israel, (the Damsel), from Goliath, (the Dragon)...
  
  
  ... but its more than that...
  
  In battling addiction, (which I have overcome a five pack a day cigarette addiction, caffeine addiction, benzo addiction, etc.), same "rules"/"story"/"myth" apply.
  
  When you see that your "addiction" is the "Dragon." And the "Dragon" only devours "victims," YOU must become the "Hero" to slay that "Dragon" and rescue the "Damsel." (Which in reality in "The New You").

I'll add more to this later, but for now I got to go. Peace be with you all! Looking forward to hearing more from you! Great stuff so far!

__________________
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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

The greatest wisdom I could ever give is this:

When you reach the threshold of understanding that your emotions are physical fluids running through your body...

you'll never be the same again.

I mean, not understanding like you read it in a book. Understanding like you see and know whats going on.

- When times get tough always give yourself a moment of pause (or a timeout) before making any rash decisions.

- Forgiveness is for you, not the person you're forgiving.

- Never go it alone. Always have backup. As they say in the military, "Two is one and one is none."

- Your word is the only thing you truly have in life.

- Whatever you're facing, it's not as bad as you think it is.

- Never allow other people to rent space in your head or control your emotions.

- To be great you must fail a lot.

- In regards to excuses vs results, "Don't talk about the labor pains, just show me the baby."

- Asking for help is a sign of strength.

- If you have one foot in the future and one foot in the past, you're pissing on the present.

- Don't live in the past but don't forget it either.

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“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Gandhi​

What I've learned is that wisdom doesn't come from other people, from books, from Star Trek, from greeting cards, or from inspirational posters featuring seagulls or rainbows. Each person figures it out for himself, through experience.