Rules for Living:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
   • Respect for self
   • Respect for others
   • Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

This was taken from a place I stumbled upon this evening, twentyfourcarat.net. So many of these rules I find myself realizing on a daily basis, yet I still don't live my life by them. I'm making a conscious effort to use these as my life guidelines.
The bold steps are the ones I forget most often.

10. I always feel uncomfortable in silence. If it gets quiet I feel the need to fill the void. I never take the time to stop and think before I speak, or actually listen to the situation. I found that one can learn and make the best decision just by being quiet. Sometimes there is a better word choice or even no words to be spoken at all.

12/13. My mother and I have not been on good terms since before I hit puberty. Twelve and thirteen go together because the loving atmosphere in our home was smothered by me and my mother's arguing. It was a continuous stream of negativity. We brought up negative past incidences to prove our negative present point. We've grown so far apart, we are slowly building our relationship back up, but I wonder how things would be if we had dealt with things differently back then.

17. This is a big one for me. My past relationships always ended up being dependency and control issues. I needed them to listen, I needed them to care, I needed them to be there. It was the same form the other end as well, he was dependent too. That is why I started 2012 being single and vowing not to be in a relationship until I could be independent still. If I can take care of myself, I can take care of another person. Equally; if I can love myself, I can love someone else. To be able to put another person's needs above your own; that is love.

18. I am very hard in myself. I don't feel successful often. If I were to look at the amount of sacrifice I made to reach my goals as a guideline to my success, I'd feel amazing.

For example:
-Giving up addictions like smoking, binge-eating, and television to become healthy: success.
-Not buying all those new things I can afford now to save for my car: success.
-Staying home rather than going out with friends to balance two jobs and school: success.