“Ten Life Lessons I Learned from My Mom, OK Eleven” by R. Craig David
(1) The truth is an absolute powerful force in the universe. It will remain so despite acknowledgement, understanding or respect for it. So be careful when you seek it, because you may not be prepared for the responsibility of knowing it.
(2.) A good chef always cooks as an expression of himself to others. We eat thousands of times a year, but when you share a meal that tastes amazing with people we know, we are forever influenced by the chef who made it, not the package it came in. Unrelated to when I once proclaimed to her "Best Bologna Sandwich I ever ate" at age 4, that was simply love.
(3.) You taught me that it takes more than creativity to yield great works. You have to respect the process and the amount of dedication required to get results.
(4.) You don’t always love what you do, even if you're good at it or do what you love, even if you're bad at it. You must balance this with hope and love or you will fail being good at either.
(5.) At some point in your life, you’ll need to reconcile your inability to control God, Death, Time and Love. Best to deal with these absolutes, and our powerless influence on them, early in life, though very few people do.
(6.) Unless you are self-aware, you will spend most of your life trying to make people proud of who you are, have respect for you, acknowledge your worth, and give your works value. Outside of family, fear of rejection often pushes us to spend this time on people we are not proud of, have no respect for, have little worth and whose works have no value, yet we seek their approval. Recognize this before you ask someone to rate the quality of anything you feel is a major accomplishment.
(7.) When your health is weak, one of three things is wrong with your body's systems internally:
You do not have enough of something.
There is too much of something.
Something is present that is not supposed to be in your system.
Determining which one it is takes time, hope, patience and a sense of self-preservation. Please note, building a foundation in these values is easier when we are strong, so stock up.
(8.) Choose a mate who encourages you to be a better human. Usually, a girl who only wants you to always pay attention to her and her alone in life, will rarely influence you to do anything else and ultimately you will become a stranger to your own heart.
(9.) Tons of high tech software, faster creative tools, new media outlets and new mediums are invented each year to communicate our ideas. However, you still have to have an actual, original idea to be communicated... as such, spend your time accordingly.
(10.) Learn to respect the time, energy and effort needed to take a thought provoking, complex, creative idea from inception to fruition before trying to gain an audience.
(11.) Also have respect for the patience, perseverance and commitment required to positively influence others to exchange something of value for this complex idea. This can be just as challenging as the energy it takes to create.