It is probably the most important question to ask ourselves, but we never take the time to think about it. It seems like in some sense, we're afraid of knowing how to live our lives, we want it to be spontaneous. That is already part of life, and life comes as is. But most aspects of our lives are still choices, though many are default ones. One common way is to choose to not care and sleepwalk through your life and simply accept the path that's been laid out for you. You don't have to take that path. Another way would be following your passion or doing something you love. That sounds good. But it's not what I'm looking for.
For me the “better” way is to reflect on what truly matters to you, what you believe in and what you might fight for. I was thinking about finding guiding principles that I believe are important and necessary and right. Those principles would be a contract between me and my all “selves". Here, I'm drawing inspiration from one of history's greatest ideas–the constitution. It's how we, as society, agree on what we believe is right. I use that idea as a metaphor to govern me and my future selves. I will follow these principles–They will be expanded but can't be changed.
It all started with the question: what if we have a “personal constitution” to govern our lives? I have little glimmers of what matters to me. So, here is the first draft of my “personal constitution”, consisting of principles which will govern my choices in life.
1.No principle can take the joy of life from you.
2.Let the principles inform you everything you would do.
3.First two principles can't be changed or altered.
4.You have the right to discover yourself and it takes time. Trying to find out what your life is supposed to be about is essential.
5.Don't describe yourself by skills or a craft, define yourself by your cause, by the principle you fought to uphold.
6.Recognize wrongs that had been unacknowledged in the culture. Fight those. That's how social changes began. Pick your battle, you can't fight everywhere. You fight by inventing or creating.
7.Have an activist mindset in both your work and life, have a better vision of what a better world would be.
8.Study great people and learn from them, study their work. Don't admire them, that's no help to anyone. Learn what kind of world they're trying to build. See if you want to live in that world.
9.Don't see things, problems as opportunities, opportunities to start a business or opportunities to make a product, etc. Do things that you feel the strong responsibility to do.
10.Things that you can't not do. This is the artist's way.
11.Entrepreneurship, problem solving, making things is not your thing. You're not in this just for the joy of making things.
12.Don't lose yourself in someone else's work, have your own style. Make it personal.
13.Study many things, many different things, experience many things, work on many things, meet many people. Use all of these as a way of analyzing yourself.
14.Learn how to think better and differently. Always bet on this.
15.Don't confine yourself to a particular skill.
16.Ideas are important. Learn the great ones.
17.You can't calibrate your sense of what's valuable and necessary to the current fashion and hypes.
18.Media is not the real world, Stay real.
19.Pursue love selfishly in everything and everywhere.
20.Work on things that amplify human thinking/understanding and bring new ways of thinking.
21.Create immediate connection with what you're creating, You need the see the effect of your decision immediately
22.Don't put yourself in a position to admire anyone, to stand in awe of their achievements, to worship them as a hero. It isn't useful to anyone. AS the question of "What world was s/he trying to create?" By asking that question, you put yourself in a position to create that world yourself.
23.Inconveniences of daily life are not the significant problems to focus on.
Note: The order doesn't imply any importance. Do's and Don't should be rephrased as sentences, I didn't enjoy that.