I’ve done more reading lately than usual. When I was in college, I had so many textbooks that I was supposed to read that I rarely did much reading for pleasure. It’s been a bit difficult to get back into at times – I get distracted pretty easily. But my vacation last week gave me quite a bit of time to relax, disconnect… and read.

I was in Chicago a few weeks ago and happened to see a book in Jamba Juice that I read the cover on while waiting for my friends to get their drinks. The book was called The Four Agreements, and inside cover was enough to catch my attention so that I had to go to Borders and buy it before the day was over. I read it pretty quickly the first few days of my vacation.

I do have to say, some of this book came off as a bit New Age-y to me, and I kind of just glossed over it. But the basic principles of the book – the four agreements themselves – while simple, definitely gave me some food for thought. Ponder the following:

Be Impeccable With Your Word.
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t Take Anything Personally.
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t Make Assumptions.
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always Do Your Best.
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Pretty profound, at least to me. I mean, they’re simple thoughts… but they definitely seem like something good to live by. The book also talked a lot about the other agreements we make with ourselves, the filters that we create or have cast upon us by our circumstances or how we grew up. The things we do in life, our actions and reactions, how we see things, really does have a lot to do with those filters.

I think the two statements that had the most impact on me were “don’t take anything personally” and “always do your best”. As probably anyone does, I do take other people’s actions and words personally. But the author of the book is write – usually what someone says or does is way more related to themselves than you or me. And I need to remember that. Feedback is good, but it’s impacted by the filters of the person it came from as well.

I also have a tendency to beat myself up about a lot of things. I’ve blogged about this before. That’s why what the author had to say about “always do your best” made a lot of sense to me. If I focus on always doing my best, realizing that my best doesn’t mean always doing everything perfectly, I have no reason to beat myself up. If I’m sick, my best probably won’t be as good as it is when I’m feeling better – but it’s still my best in that moment, and if I know that I’ve done my best, I have no reason to be disappointed in what I’ve done.

I’m adding these two to my commandments, so here they are – commandments #4 and #5:

4. Don’t take anything personally.

5. Always do your best.

Finally, here it is… the next one. (See previous posts – My 10 commandments and Commandment #2.)

3. Be me.

I’ve been having a hard time of it lately. Now, usually I consider myself a pretty strong, independent individual that gets along just fine in life, generally. But lately I’ve been struggling with depression quite often. I’m not too concerned – I’ve got plenty of people to talk to and people that watch out for me. And I’m pretty sure it’s related to the death of my dad three months ago. There’s been several deaths and hard circumstances in my life over the last few years, including the death of my dad, my uncle, and two cousins that were significant parts of my life growing up. And I think it’s just all starting to catch up to me. I’ve read that depression is a part of the grieving process. I think it’s pretty normal, and I’m just trying to ride it out the best that I can while taking advantage of the support system that I have.

This depression and struggle with life and motivation in general has contributed to insecurities and worthiness issues that are usually just a small part of my life struggles from time to time. Lately they’ve become even more pronounced. Here’s one such example. I look around my life and start to compare myself and how I think to the people around me. I start to see girls that are thinner and think that I should be thinner. I see girls that put more time and money into their appearance, like getting manicures or wearing trendier clothes and wonder if I should do that too. Should I be smarter, more successful, thinner, prettier, do more “popular” things, have a better or cleaner apartment, spend my money more wisely? All of these are questions that have popped into my head lately and made me doubt myself.

But here’s the thing… if I really dig deep, I know myself. I know who I am and what I’m like. I’m really smart… I got my bachelors degree from Purdue University with a 3.8 GPA. I’m soon to be working on my MBA from Indiana University. I have a good job as a software engineer. I’m a good friend, with a fun personality and a good sense of humor. While I’m not the perfect weight I might like to be, I’m pretty. But I don’t really care all that much about putting an abundance of time, energy, or money into fitting into the standard of what’s popular. I’d probably be content to just dress like a college student for the rest of my life, wearing mostly hoodies, jeans, and flip flops. I’m most definitely a geek. I like to swing dance, I’m a Star Wars nut (I even dated a stormtrooper), and I volunteer to help homeless kids. That’s me.

So why should I worry about whether who I’m being or what I’m doing is right or wrong according to someone else’s standards? I’m pretty great just being who I am.

I’m really just writing these down as they come to me – they really are in no particular order. But here is my second commandment:

2. Help others.

Everyone has those days where it just feels like everything is out to get them, right? I have days where it feels like I climb out of bed on the wrong side and it is just all downhill from there. Things go wrong, I get depressed, I suffer from lack of motivation… the list goes on. And lately, it doesn’t take much for me to get down in the dumps. There are a few things in my life currently that could easily get me down or make it hard to deal. But I’ve learned time and again from past experiences that there is one almost surefire way to get myself out of all my own crap – spend some time focusing on other people.

One of the best avenues I have in my own life to spend time helping or focusing on others is volunteering. I volunteer at Outreach, Inc. usually twice a month, and although I don’t always look forward to going there, almost every time I’m there is rewarding. It takes my mind off the things that are going wrong in my own life and makes me realize that I’m not the only one with problems. And usually – that my problems aren’t nearly as big as they tend to seem to me. And not only that, but somehow talking to the people there just has a way of lifting my spirits.

I’ve realized something about life… both the good times and the bad times can fall on a scale. At one end is the very worst thing that has ever happened to someone (don’t ask me what this is, I’m not sure I can even imagine it – nor do I want to!). At the other end is the very best thing to happen to someone (I don’t know what this either). But everything that happens in my life and your life (unless you happen to have had the very best or worst thing in the world happen to you) falls somewhere in the middle of that scale. So any given bad thing that happens to you – you know that something worse has happened to someone somewhere. And the same for good things – better things have happened to people. It’s all pretty relative.

For me, I know that I tend to have times where I get so lost in my own crap that I just get depressed. And one of the best ways to get out of that is to do something for someone else. Call a friend that you think might need someone to talk to. Check up on someone that you know has been going through a hard time. Say hi to someone you haven’t talked to in a while. Buy coffee for someone you know that’s been low on cash for whatever reason. Any of these things is a good step to taking your mind off of your own problems, and you’ll probably make someone else’s day in the process.