# Wisdom for the ages/Guidelines for getting along

Perhaps adopting these guidelines can help increase your emotional competency and enjoyment of life.
* Expect respect. Don't tolerate disrespect. Don't show disrespect toward others. Don't ignore disrespect directed toward yourself or others. Learn to discern genuine respect from patronization.
* Don't make assumptions. Suspend judgment until you can gather representative evidence, confirm the facts, and consider a variety of viewpoints. Challenge and investigate the source of rumors rather than passing them on. Advance no falsehoods.
* Don't overlook logical fallacies or meaningful factual errors. They are clear evidence of faulty and careless thinking, and often of deliberate deception. Apply your theory of knowledge continuously to evaluate all you see and hear.
* Dignity is unalienable; it is our humanity and it cannot be taken away. Consistently acknowledge with your words and deeds the dignity inherent in yourself and all others.
* Don't tolerate Ad hominem attacks. Do not make them yourself. Do not ignore them when you see or hear them. They are a fallacy and a dangerous precursor to hate.
* Refuse to hate. Understand and reconcile your loss, hurt, or distress through careful analyses, not by blaming others or by hating others. Emphasize all the important things you have in common with others, not the small ways you differ. Hate is only sustained by cognitive error. Find and correct that error.
* Always act congruently with your well-chosen values and beliefs. Be authentic. Improve your values and beliefs deliberately as your worldview expands.
* You are a competent, autonomous adult. You are fully responsible for all your words and actions, as are other competent adults. You are not helpless; apply your agency. Be impeccable with your word; do what you say. Earn trust.
* Conflict is inevitable. Learn to resolve it constructively. Strengthen each relationship as you resolve each issue. Apologize when you are wrong. Forgive when you can. Remain authentically humble. Get along as we all get ahead.
* Refuse to resort to violence or abuse. Learn to recognize it in all its forms. Don't cross the line, even in retaliation or frustration. There is always a better way; find it. Seek a constructive dialogue. Resolve the conflict constructively. Learn to resolve anger.
* Don't take the bait. Don't take anything personally. Ignore distracting, trivial, unfounded, or misguided provocations. Avoid pointless and destructive dominance contests. Discuss the facts, don't attack the person. Perceptions are personal. Rely confidently on your own well-founded self-concept; it is the only evaluation of your worth that matters.
* Know what you can and cannot change. Change what you can and accept what you cannot change.
* You cannot change other people. You can better understand them, learn from their viewpoint, demonstrate empathy and compassion, dialogue with them, help them resolve ambivalence, model desired behavior, teach and inform them, describe likely consequences and outcomes, assist them in making changes they choose to make, and perhaps influence them.
* Loss is often permanent. Accept the past, learn from it, and move on.
* You deserve to have fun and enjoy life. Balance optimism with a healthy skepticism to maintain a realistic outlook on life. Play.
* Seek gratification and significance. Life is not a dress rehearsal, do what matters now. Life is too short to indulge in destructive, wasteful, or meaningless activities.
* Find common ground. Reality exists and we all share in a single objective reality. Reality is our common ground.
* Seek real good. Don’t settle for fake good or real bad. Know what is real and what is good.