1. Try to avoid being indecisive. Indecision or a state of limbo can be very stressful. Also, if you don’t make your own choices in life, someone else will often make them for you.
2. Never try to explain to someone why you are worth their time. If someone is supposed to be in your life, they will stay no matter what the circumstances.
3. Avoid comparing yourself to others online or in real life. Be yourself according to your own principles, define yourself on your own terms.
4. Don’t live a sedentary life. Get up, exercise, walk, cook, play, hike. Do something. This is good for both your physical and also your mental health.
5. Try not to spend too much time in your head. This invariably equates to spending too much time dwelling in the past or too much time worrying about the future. Hang out in the present instead where you actually are and can act and actually live your life.
6. Don’t spend too much time thinking about and obsessing over how someone has mistreated you or done you harm. This may be the hardest one of all, especially that feeling of injustice which is hard to shake. Try to forgive – for yourself. It will actually do you more good to do so than the person who hurt you.
7. Never be the type to always make excuses for not doing this or that. Always take responsibility for your actions.
8. Don’t take everything in life personally. People’s words are usually a lot more about them than they are about you.
9. Don’t hold on to your past grievances. Holding on to hate only hurts you.
10. Don’t take yourself too seriously. If you haven’t realised by now, life is precious, precarious and most of the drama we create is just noise. Embrace humor and enjoy a light approach to life.

The above are not only my beliefs they are also from personal experience. I struggle myself with a couple of these (5 & 6 if you must know, I’m pretty good with all the rest). When I try to live by my principles and be a good and caring person – if I have conflict and differences with people I care about (which can happen even if we try and avoid it) it can hurt a lot and be difficult to let go of.

The above ideas aren’t perfect and nothing in this life will guarantee an easy ride. I do believe that there is a lot of suffering and difficulty out there. Buddhists say ‘Life is suffering‘. I also believe that we, as humans, create a lot of that. Elephants don’t go round with cognitive dissonance, accusing each other of gaslighting and hurting each other. Snakes (even though they get a bad rep) don’t go around bad mouthing each other to their snake mates. Animals only kill each other (generally speaking) when they have to. Look at how much misery humans cause each other by comparison.

I’ve already written an article alluding to the fact I think we should be more like animals (Be More Dog), which encompasses being more in the moment and does away with our tendency to overthink and complicate things.

All that said, we can use our amazing brains for good, to care for each other, to invent, create and enjoy life in positive ways. That, I am completely up for. If we can’t do that then hopefully the above ideas will offer some things to avoid to move away from some of our other more negative tendencies.