Ten Commandments for those over 40 years old and others who may eventually get there…
1) Focus on enjoying people, not on indulging in or accumulating material things.
Accumulating material things and objects of pleasures without time or a capacity to enjoy is like an aging bald man collecting combs!!
2) Plan to spend whatever you have saved. You deserve to enjoy it and the few healthy years you have left. Travel if you can afford it.
Don’t leave anything for your children or loved ones to quarrel or fight over. By leaving anything, you may even cause more trouble when you are gone.
Remember: The money that we earn doesn’t belong to us; only that portion which we actually spend belongs to us.
When we die, we leave intact all our properties and monetary riches for others to desire and fight over.
What stays behind is only the fragrance of the good use of the honest wealth we acquire.
What we take with us are only our karma-s (actions), whether positive or negative, spiritual knowledge we gained and spiritual practices we did.
The real measure of a man’s wealth is what he has invested in ETERNITY.
3) Live in the here and now, not in the yesterdays and tomorrows. It is only today that you can handle. Yesterday is gone and is unchangeable and tomorrow may not even happen.
4) Enjoy your grandchildren (if you are blessed with any), but don’t be their full time baby-sitter. You have no moral obligation to take care of them. Don’t have any guilt about refusing to baby sit anyone’s kids, including your own grand-kids. Your parental obligation is to your children. After you have raised them into responsible adults, your duties of child-rearing and baby-sitting are over. Let your children raise their own offspring.
Now you need your own time to pursue at least some of your hobbies and interests, which you couldn’t pursue when you were a parent, or to engage in higher spiritual pursuit.
In ancient times in India, once the parents got their children married, they would leave for pilgrimage or retire to forest for higher spiritual pursuit. Even kings used to abdicate and retire to forest once they got their crown prince married and after his coronation as the new king.
5) Enjoy what you are and what you have right now. Stop working hard for what you do not have. If you do not already have them, it’s probably too late …
No point using limited life to chase unlimited wealth.
Engaging in accumulating more than what we already have is a waste of the only non-renewable resource we have: our time on this planet.
6) Just enjoy your life with your spouse, children, grandchildren and friends. People, who love you, love you for being yourself, not for what you have. Anyone who loves you for what you have will just give you misery, sorrow and pain.
7) Forgive and accept forgiveness. We nurture grievances. This results in loss of sleep and other ailments. The insult, injury or harm was done once, but nourishing of grievance goes on endlessly by constantly remembering it. Never wallow in self-pity or resentment. To be wronged or offended is nothing unless we insist on remembering it. Never allow anyone to drag you down so low as to make you hate them. Therefore forgive everyone for everything. Forgive yourself and others, especially your enemies. Enjoy peace of mind.
8) Accept physical weakness, illness and aches and pains … It is a part of the aging process. Enjoy whatever your health permits.
9) Befriend death, which is an undeniable truth … It is the natural part of the life cycle. Don’t be afraid of death. The so called death of the physical form is not the end of our existence, which is beginningless and eternal. Death is the beginning of a new and better life. So prepare yourself not for death, but for a new blissful life.
Chintu
Simply put highly meaningful thoughts. Reading this at least once in two days regularly will help us lead our lives in equanimity.