When you were born, you didn't come with an owner's manual; these guidelines might make life work better.

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or not, but it's the only thing you are sure you will keep for the rest of your life. Take care of it.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "life on planet earth." Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. "Failures" are as much a part of the process as "success."

4. A lesson is repeated until learned. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it ... then you can go on to the next lesson.

5. If you don't learn the easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes. Pain is how the universe gets your attention.

6. You will know you've learned a lesson when your actions change. Wisdom is a practice. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing.

7. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that again looks better than here."

8. Others are only a mirror of you. You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.

9. Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of the colors in your life or someone else might try to take charge for you.

10. You always get what you want. Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences and people you attract -- therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students.

11. There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing does not help. Judgements only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.

12. Your answers lie inside of you. Children need initial guidance from others; as we mature, we trust our hearts, where the Laws of Spirit are written. You know more than you have heard or read or been told. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

13. You will forget all this.

14. You can remember any time you wish.

Fall down seven times, get up eight.
--Japanese Proverb

If you're going to climb, you've got to grab the branches, not the blossoms.
--Sunshine & Smiles diary

Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug...
--Mary Chapin-Carpenter

It is better to light one candle, than to curse the darkness.
--Old Proverb

Have a good day!
--Colloquialism

(Yes, I know it sometimes grates on the nerves, but basically, ain't it a nice thing to say!)

It had been said that we learn the most from difficult experiences. Have you learned enough yet?
--Sunshine and smiles

What you are is God's gift to you,What you make of yourself is your gift to God.
-- Jewish Proverb

The best cures for despair are doing a good deed or soaking in a hot bath.
--Sunshine and Smiles

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
-- Dr. Wayne Dyer from Real Magic

Beach At Dawn:
As the old man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally catching up with the youth, the elder asked he why he was doing this. The answer was that after the high tide, the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.

'But the beach goes on for miles and there are thousands of starfish,'countered the other. 'How can your effort make any difference?"

The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to the safety in the waves. 'It makes a difference to this one,' he answered.