Rules for Being a Hero

As I mentioned, I'm reading Brian Luke Seaward's book Quiet Mind, Fearless Heart. I so love this book that I ordered a copy for myself. There is a passage on almost every page that I want to send to someone or highlight and remember for myself. I even took the book to the gym with me to read while doing cardio. (this is something I've never done before! And I must do more of it.)

The early part of the book, Seaward is talking about Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth; how every life is a Hero's Journey. If we examine our life in this context, it gives us power to know how to proceed. After speaking at an eighth grade assembly, Seaward was handed a list rules by one of the students. They were originally called the Rules for Being Human, but the student suggested they could just as easily be called:

The Rules for Being a Hero

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You wil learn lessons. You are enrolled in the a full-time informal school called life. Each dayof this school, you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error and experimentation. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as are the experiments that ultimately work.

4. A lesson is repeated until it's learned. A lesson will present itself to you in various forms until you have learned. When you have mastered the lesson, then you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better place than "Here." When your "There" has become "Here" you will simply obtain another "There" that will again look better than "Here."

7. Others are simply a mirror of yourself. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and the resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside of you. The answers to all of life's questions lie inside of you. All you need do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Cherie Carter-Scott

How did I forget this??

I also blog at: A Stitch In Time throughout the week and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.