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1. In the beginning, there was
attraction. Things attract each other because they like to be closer to some
things than other things. This is the root of all change in the whole
universe.

Sometimes like attracts like and sometimes opposite attracts opposite.
When opposites attract, you’ve got a pair, a couple. That pair is now another
unit and you can start the whole process over again. The pair, the new unit,
can attract an opposite or a like or just drift along.

When like attracts like, it can end there, like an oxygen molecule made up
of two oxygen atoms, or it can continue to attract like, like a Carbon atom.
When things continue to attract like, something big gets created.

2. Sometimes a thing will attract just the
right stuff to it that the new stuff turns into another copy of the
thing. That is self-replication. Self-replication is the most powerful force
in the universe. One becomes two, two become four, four become eight, and
soon the universe is full of things.

Sometimes a self-replicating thing makes a copy of itself with a mistake
in it. The thing with a mistake will either be better, worse, or the same at
making copies of itself. If it’s better, there will soon be more copies of
the new thing than the old thing in the universe.

The only way for new things to get created is by a complex series of
mistakes that turn out to be better after all.

3. We are self-replicating things. We
are the result of a billion years worth of mistakes that turned out to be
better after all.

4. One big mistake that turned out
to be better after all was that, of all the animals, we alone can communicate
complicated ideas. We can tell stories. We can share recipes. We can make
complicated plans. Even dolphins and whales can’t do these things, we think.

5. These ideas that we communicate are
called memes. Memes are a kind of thing. Memes
live in our minds.

6. Like all things, memes fit better
with some things than others. Some memes naturally fit better in people’s
minds. Some memes naturally fit better with other memes. When a group of
memes fit well together and pull the strings of someone’s mouth and vocal
cords so that they pass them on to others, a new, self-replicating thing gets
created. The new thing is called a memeplex.

Self-replication is the most powerful force in the universe. One person
tells two, two tell four, four tell eight, and pretty soon the whole universe
is full of people sharing the memeplex.

Sometimes a self-replicating memeplex makes a mistake in copying itself.
The memeplex with a mistake in it will either be better, worse, or the same
at making copies of itself. If it’s better soon there will be more copies of
the new memeplex than the old in the universe.

The only way for a new idea to gain acceptance is by a series of copying
mistakes that turn out to be better after all.

7. All our belief systems, religions,
and governments are the result of a series of mistakes that turned out to be
better at making copies of themselves after all.

8. Every new idea we think of
immediately becomes transformed by copying mistakes that change it into
something that is better at making copies of itself after all. A key part of
the idea may be sacrificed to something better for copying.

The only control we have over the spread of our ideas is in making them as
resistant to copying mistakes as possible.

9. When we are born, our mind is
courted by meme after meme after meme, all the result of thousands of years
of practice at getting themselves copied into fresh new minds. This is Level
1. We have our instincts, born of millions of years of the genes our body
carries striving to make copies of themselves.

Soon our minds become filled with memes and eventually we may develop a
map of life that mostly makes sense. We speak a language that we believe
expresses anything we want to say. We use geometric and physical concepts
that we believe explain anything we encounter. We know stories and myths that
we believe relate to all of life’s trials and tribulations. This is Level 2.
We have our roadmap, born of thousands of years of the memes our mind carries
striving to make copies of themselves.

10. Each of us has a purpose here.
When the memes are quiet, it is possible to feel when we are on purpose and
when we are off purpose.

11. Once we realize that there are
millions of memes battling inside our mind, there arises the possibility of
influencing the outcome of that battle. Until we realize it, there is no
possibility.

The battle can be influenced in three ways. First, by noticing the memes.
Second, by detaching from them. Third, by obtaining clarity of purpose.

When these three steps are achieved, we can begin to select our memes
consciously. We select memes that keep us on purpose. This is Level 3.

12. A purpose is not a goal. A
purpose does not feel like guilt, shame, or vengeance. Guilt, shame, and
vengeance are emotions used by memes to gain mastery over your life. By
choosing memes consciously, we can eliminate the control that memes have over
those emotions.

A purpose feels fulfilling, satisfying, joyful, and powerful.

13. A purpose has to do with other
people. A purpose is fulfilled by spreading memes. Every time we speak,
write, create, or act we are spreading memes. To fulfill our purpose we must
be conscious of which memes we are spreading.

Life is largely composed of conversations. Conversations are composed of
memes. In Level 1 we are unaware of this. In Level 2 we see the world as a
solid, understandable body to be interacted with. In Level 3 we see the world
as a canvas to be painted, an instrument to be played, or a block of marble
to be sculpted by us for our purpose. We choose to do this for good or for
evil. If we choose good, good is returned to us in unexpected ways. If we
choose evil, evil is returned. Either way, it looks like the way we choose is
the way of the world.

14. In Level 1, we do not understand
the world and consequently fear it. In Level 2, we replace the fear with
understanding. The price of understanding is limits. Our approximate models
of the universe are never completely accurate, never useful in all
situations.

In Level 3, we start with a vision of what we want to create. From there
we choose our models. Sometimes a chosen model may seem insane to the other
inhabitants of the little patch of space-time we happen to occupy. No matter.
Men with a vision of goodwill have often looked insane in times of mistrust
and scarcity. But in Level 3, we realize that the universe is not a maze to
be navigated; it is a baby to be brought up. When we give it love, clarity,
and opportunity, we raise a child to be a joyful, giving, successful adult.
This is the opportunity we have to farm our little patch of space-time.

Richard Brodie

June 1999

But sometimes I wish that I had known some of things I have learned over the last few years a bit earlier. That perhaps there had been a self-improvement class in school. And in some ways there probably was.

Because some of these 16 things in this article a teacher probably spoke about in class. But I forgot about them or didn't pay attention.

Some of it would probably not have stuck in my mind anyway. Or just been too far outside my reality at the time for me to accept and use.

But I still think that taking a few hours from all those German language classes and use them for some personal development classes would have been a good idea. Perhaps for just an hour a week in high school. It would probably be useful for many students and on a larger scale quite helpful for society in general.

So here are 16 things I wish they had taught me in school (or I just would like to have known about earlier).

1. The 80/20 rule.

.. --> mitten_artikel DISABLED-->This is one of the best ways to make better use of your time. The 80/20 rule – also known as The Pareto Principle – basically says that 80 percent of the value you will receive will come from 20 percent of your activities.

So a lot of what you do is probably not as useful or even necessary to do as you may think.

You can just drop – or vastly decrease the time you spend on – a whole bunch of things.

And if you do that you will have more time and energy to spend on those things that really brings your value, happiness, fulfillment and so on.

2. Parkinson's Law.

You can do things quicker than you think. This law says that a task will expand in time and seeming complexity depending on the time you set aside for it. For instance, if you say to yourself that you'll come up with a solution within a week then the problem will seem to grow more difficult and you'll spend more and more time trying to come up with a solution.

So focus your time on finding solutions. Then just give yourself an hour (instead of the whole day) or the day (instead of the whole week) to solve the problem. This will force your mind to focus on solutions and action.

The result may not be exactly as perfect as if you had spent a week on the task, but as mentioned in the previous point, 80 percent of the value will come from 20 percent of the activities anyway. Or you may wind up with a better result because you haven't overcomplicated or over polished things. This will help you to get things done faster, to improve your ability to focus and give you more free time where you can totally focus on what's in front of you instead of having some looming task creating stress in the back of your mind.

3. Batching.

Boring or routine tasks can create a lot of procrastination and low-level anxiety. One good way to get these things done quickly is to batch them. This means that you do them all in row. You will be able to do them quicker because there is less "start-up time" compared to if you spread them out. And when you are batching you become fully engaged in the tasks and more focused.

A batch of things to do in an hour today may look like this: Clean your desk / answer today's emails / do the dishes / make three calls / write a grocery shopping list for tomorrow.

4. First, give value. Then, get value. Not the other way around.

This is a bit of a counter-intuitive thing. There is often an idea that someone should give us something or do something for us before we give back. The problem is just that a lot of people think that way. And so far less than possible is given either way.

If you want to increase the value you receive (money, love, kindness, opportunities etc.) you have to increase the value you give. Because over time you pretty much get what you give. It would perhaps be nice to get something for nothing. But that seldom happens.

5. Be proactive. Not reactive.

This one ties into the last point. If everyone is reactive then very little will get done. You could sit and wait and hope for someone else to do something. And that happens pretty often, but it can take a lot of time before it happens.

A more useful and beneficial way is to be proactive, to simply be the one to take the first practical action and get the ball rolling. This not only saves you a lot of waiting, but is also more pleasurable since you feel like you have the power over your life. Instead of feeling like you are run by a bunch of random outside forces.

6. Mistakes and failures are good.

When you are young you just try things and fail until you learn. As you grow a bit older, you learn from - for example - school to not make mistakes. And you try less and less things.

This may cause you to stop being proactive and to fall into a habit of being reactive, of waiting for someone else to do something. I mean, what if you actually tried something and failed? Perhaps people would laugh at you?

Perhaps they would. But when you experience that you soon realize that it is seldom the end of the world. And a lot of the time people don't care that much. They have their own challenges and lives to worry about.

And success in life often comes from not giving up despite mistakes and failure. It comes from being persistent.

When you first learn to ride your bike you may fall over and over. Bruise a knee and cry a bit. But you get up, brush yourself off and get on the saddle again. And eventually you learn how to ride a bike. If you can just reconnect to your 5 year old self and do things that way - instead of giving up after a try/failure or two as grown-ups often do – you would probably experience a lot more interesting things, learn valuable lessons and have quite a bit more success.

7. Don't beat yourself up.

Why do people give up after just few mistakes or failures? Well, I think one big reason is because they beat themselves up way too much. But it's a kinda pointless habit. It only creates additional and unnecessary pain inside you and wastes your precious time. It's best to try to drop this habit as much as you can.

8. Assume rapport.

Meeting new people is fun. But it can also induce nervousness. We all want to make a good first impression and not get stuck in an awkward conversation.

The best way to do this that I have found so far is to assume rapport. This means that you simply pretend that you are meeting one of your best friends. Then you start the interaction in that frame of mind instead of the nervous one.

I learned about the organs and the inner workings of the body in class but nobody told me about the reticular activation system. And that's a shame, because this is one of the most powerful things you can learn about. What this focus system, this R.A.S, in your mind does is to allow you to see in your surroundings what you focus your thoughts on. It pretty much always helps you to find what you are looking for.

So you really need to focus on what you want, not on what you don't want. And keep that focus steady.

Setting goals and reviewing them frequently is one way to keep your focus on what's important and to help you take action that will move your closer to toward where you want to go. Another way is just to use external reminders such as pieces of paper where you can, for instance, write down a few things from this post like "Give value" or "Assume rapport". And then you can put those pieces of paper on your fridge, bathroom mirror etc.

10. Your attitude changes your reality.

We have all heard that you should keep a positive attitude or perhaps that "you need to change your attitude!". That is a nice piece of advice I suppose, but without any more reasons to do it is very easy to just brush such suggestions off and continue using your old attitude.

But the thing that I've discovered the last few years is that if you change your attitude, you actually change your reality. When you for instance use a positive attitude instead of a negative one you start to see things and viewpoints that were invisible to you before. You may think to yourself "why haven't I thought about things this way before?".

When you change you attitude you change what you focus on. And all things in your world can now be seen in a different light.

This is of course very similar to the previous tip but I wanted to give this one some space. Because changing your attitude can create an insane change in your world. It might not look like it if you just think about it though. Pessimism might seem like realism. But that is mostly because your R.A.S is tuned into seeing all the negative things you want to see. And that makes you "right" a lot of the time. And perhaps that is what you want. On the other hand, there are more fun things than being right all the time.

If you try changing your attitude for real – instead of analyzing such a concept in your mind - you'll be surprised.

11. Gratitude is a simple way to make yourself feel happy.

Sure, I was probably told that I should be grateful. Perhaps because it was the right thing to do or just something I should do. But if someone had said that feeling grateful about things for minute or two is a great way to turn a negative mood into a happy one I would probably have practiced gratitude more. It is also a good tool for keeping your attitude up and focusing on the right things. And to make other people happy. Which tends to make you even happier, since emotions are contagious.

12. Don't compare yourself to others.

The ego wants to compare. It wants to find reasons for you to feel good about yourself ("I've got a new bike!"). But by doing that it also becomes very hard to not compare yourself to others who have more than you ("Oh no, Bill has bought an even nicer bike!"). And so you don't feel so good about yourself once again. If you compare yourself to others you let the world around control how you feel about yourself. It always becomes a roller coaster of emotions.

A more useful way is to compare yourself to yourself. To look at how far you have come, what you have accomplished and how you have grown. It may not sound like that much fun but in the long run it brings a lot more inner stillness, personal power and positive feelings.

13. 80-90% of what you fear will happen never really come into reality.

This is a big one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.

This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts.

14. Don't take things too seriously.

It's very easy to get wrapped up in things. But most of the things you worry about never come into reality. And what may seem like a big problem right now you may not even remember in three years.

Taking yourself, your thoughts and your emotions too seriously often just seems to lead to more unnecessary suffering. So relax a little more and lighten up a bit. it can do wonders for your mood and as an extension of that; your life.

15. Write everything down.

If your memory is anything like mine then it's like a leaking bucket. Many of your good or great ideas may be lost forever if you don't make a habit of writing things down. This is also a good way to keep your focus on what you want

16. There are opportunities in just about every experience.

In pretty much any experience there are always things that you can learn from it and things within the experience that can help you to grow. Negative experiences, mistakes and failure can sometimes be even better than a success because it teaches you something totally new, something that another success could never teach you.

Whenever you have a "negative experience" ask yourself: where is the opportunity in this? What is good about this situation? One negative experience can – with time – help you create many very positive experiences.

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