Love, respect, and forgiveness

Remember to treat yourself and others with love, respect, and forgiveness every single day.

When you start with love, you will always want the best for yourself and for others. You’ll try to help them as much as you can. But help doesn’t mean giving them handouts and spoon feeding them. There needs to be a healthy balance between short-term help and long-term help. Always “helping” someone get what they want, for example, may not be helping them in the long run. Making sure nobody ever feels struggle is not helping them. It’s weakening them, giving them less ability to overcome adversity, and giving them less resolve. The best help is by teaching them how to get what they want, not having you go out and getting them whatever they want.

Next, you need to treat yourself and others with respect. The moment you start disrespecting others is the moment that you begin to lose credibility for yourself. Treat others how you would want to be treated. Don’t talk down to others, don’t berate them, but also don’t treat them with pity. If you see someone who needs your help, try to walk alongside them. You may think that the other person can’t do anything for you, but you never know how your actions can affect them, where they’ll end up, or what connections they might have as well. Don’t forget you must also respect yourself. That means setting boundaries with people or saying no sometimes. You need to respect yourself enough to not let yourself be walked all over by others.

Lastly, you need to practice forgiveness with yourself and others. You don’t have to forget how you made a mistake or how others might have wronged you. But you should forgive them. Everyone makes mistakes, yourself included. Try to learn from them and move on. Make sure you don’t hold grudges or else you will live a long, miserable life.