My Ten Commandments

When I was 15 my Dad cut out a snippet from the Investors Business Daily, which we received every Saturday morning. We'd sit outside and pour through the stocks page, reading about the top movers in each industry that week. He'd circle articles he wanted us to read at breakfast before school. It was some of my earliest introduction into business and investing. What he cut out that day didn't have much to do with business but more about life: 10 Things to do to Achieve Success. It was simple, mostly platitudes and short phrases of advice. Things I knew intuitively but were worth the reminder. It hung above my desk for years, not far from my Desiderata which hung by the door and not far the copper placard that belonged to my grandfather, made in alcoholics anonymous, with the prayer that all AA attendees know.

As I sit here contemplating a big decision, at age 25, I turn to my Dad for advice. He gives me yet another bit of intuition, "trust your gut." He knows that I know what I do and don't want to do. He knows I know what is right and wrong. I've experienced enough and given enough thought and effort to forming a template for the right way to walk through life, the way that would bring me peace in my final hours. I just need to trust it. In Christianity there are the Ten Commandments, there's the 4 Truths of Buddhism, 5 Pillars of Islam, Jordan Peterson has his 12 rules for life, Confucius had his proverbs. And just like the snippet from the IBD paper, I too have my own list. These are things that work for me, that I've found keep me on the path of happy days and restful nights.

Quinn's 10 Guiding Principles 

1. Exercise at least 4 days a week

2. Find a balance of alone time and social time

3. Watch good movies and TV

4. Make plans, but be flexible

5. Listen more than you speak

6. Incorporate music into life

7. Do not carry regret 

8. Pause before you answer

9. Don't allow people to disrespect you in public

10. Call your family, often

 

Deep diving them a bit:

Number one, exercise at least 4 days a week. This seems to be the magic minimum, note there is no maximum, but I generally know when I've overworked myself. My body and mind let me know. At least 4 times seems to optimize the chances I can sleep well at night and limit my anxiety about slipping backwards with regards to my physical fitness. If I had a 'guiding principle honorable mention' it would be challenge yourself, optionally. It pertains in part to fitness but more than that, it pertains to life. Life is going to throw challenges at you so to prepare, you should challenge yourself by your own accord. Challenging myself physically by exercising 4x weekly does more than just ensure good health and good mental status, but it prepares me for the challenges I don't ask for, and I've seen that materialize more than once. Our ancestors were moving creatures, it's in our DNA, we do right by our bodies and our minds to work our muscles, our cardiovascular systems and push ourselves to do difficult things.

Number two, find a balance between alone time and social time. This is one that I have to carefully manage. As the Desiderata says, "many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness." The first principle can create fatigue and this second can create loneliness. As an introvert though, I have to find enough time to be by myself so that I crave and enjoy social time. Social time can mean even just one person. It also means work. It's any time that I'm not absolutely by myself. Sometimes my tolerance can be developed if I spend increasing time periods with other people but at the end of the day, I'm an introvert and I find tremendous value in my alone time. When I strike a good balance of solo and social time, I'm the most efficient and most tolerable version of myself. 

Number three, watch good movies and TV. When I was younger I loved to read novels. Being an introverted kid, I spent many hours reading the Magic Treehouse series, Series of Unfortunate Events, and many others. But as I grew older I fell in love with fictional television. My father is a cinephile and that characteristic was certainly passed along. But more than just the theatrics and the viewing experience, I loved the thematic impacts on my psyche. To this day, when I watch a good television show I analyze the events, the themes, the characters and the story. I have learned a lot from great characters like Rustin Cole, Harvey Specter, and Peter Bishop. The hero, the underdog, the damaged man, the caged beast, the wise outcast, the knowledge seeker. These archetypes are highly impactful for me and translate into much discovered about myself.

Number four, make plans, but be flexible. This is one of the principles I've devoted enormous effort to learning. For most of my life I was a great planner but not very flexible. Life forced me to live with uncertainty and I became flexible. I always like using the punnet square analogy to describe personality, and when I do, I say that from ages 1-16 I was AA. At age 17 I became Aa. And at age 18 I became Ab. My life has been infinitely better since I became Ab. That b is flexibility. It's a real skill and something to be proud of, to be a planner. Sacrificing in the short term for long term gain. To set up your life to achieve big plans. But it is equally important, I've found, to be flexible. To understand life doesn't go according to plan. To react, adapt, and overcome. This is what will get you through the bad times, which are inevitable, and allow you to arise solid and stable and ready to get back after your plans.

Number five, listen more than you speak. This one comes as a double edge sword, there is such a thing as listening too much. In fact, sometimes you have to tell people no. Listening too much can also lead to not talking enough. Granted, listening is a weak excuse for not divulging information and thoughts, but it can play a factor. However, if managed well, this is an important guiding principle for me. In my 20's I've found a peculiar pattern of becoming a confidant for people. I have never asked for that role, but I seem to be trustworthy, and I attribute it to my ability to listen. When I was in college I was on a Business Case Consulting team and it was highly competitive for spots to go to competitions. But for some reason I became the person that people dumped information on. No one knew I knew anything, because they all thought they were the only person telling me things since they didn't trust anyone else. This is a dramatic example but even at work, I am the ear piece for more than one coworker. More than gaining trust, this principle allows you to learn, when done earnestly. People like to hear themselves talk so yes it does prove advantageous to let them, but personally, you'll probably learn a thing or two. As the Desiderata says, "even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story."

Number six, incorporate music into life. I've always enjoyed music, but it wasn't until I met Daniel and Zach that I really incorporated it into my life. I can recall being 12/13/14 and mowing the lawn and putting on my music first from the Walkman and later from my IPod. The music made the experience much more tolerable. from about 15 - 22 I listened to music very passively. I listened to the radio mostly, and my taste was phasic, for example, I listened to almost solely country music for 2 years while I dated my ex girlfriend because that was what she listened to and so I viewed the music as an extension of our relationship. Nowadays, my music library is deeply extensive from a quantity standpoint and a genre standpoint. And I listen to music constantly. I've found that it enhances my mood, my thinking, and my situation. There is music for the car, music for running, music for the gym, music for cooking, music for working and music for social events. I encourage people to view music as a part of life, situationaly and as an extension of their environment. Music is a great and powerful way to connect with people, to connect with situations and to attach as part of a memory.

Number seven, do not carry regret. This one is meaningful to me at a deep level. My father heavily influenced this one. It's something he and I discussed on many occasions, something he has tried to instill in me, and something that has obviously made my top 10 guiding principles. Sometimes when thinking about how you should walk through life, it's best to work backwards. Start at the end. What is something you want to avoid when you reach old age? Regret. There are two solutions to prevent this. 1. Don't do anything you'll regret, so therefore you will not have any regret. 2. Don't carry regret. At some point I figured out, through conversations with my Dad, that option 1 is impossible. No one can make every decision the right one. No one can be perfect. But everyone can change their mentality. And that's what option 2 offers. Notice, the guiding principle does not say, "do not have regret". It says, "do not carry regret." When I graduated from college in May 2018 I was in an odd place with my mentality, my relationships, and my visions for the future. I packed up two days after I graduated and left for Arizona to hike and be alone. The night before I left I had a very serious conversation with my Dad in the kitchen around midnight. He explained to me that I will regret things. I will think of past decisions as wrong decisions. But I should not carry that regret into the future. We were talking about a decision I'd made to end my relationship and strangely enough he'd experienced the exact same thing, and packed up and left in the exact same way I had, some 37 years prior. We agreed that we mustn't carry regret.

Number eight, pause before you answer. Yet another lineal pathway can be generated here. Temper. It's something that runs in the family. I made the mistake on too many occasions of saying things I would regret. So now I pause before I respond. Similarly, in calm situations, intellectual dialogues, and serious conversations a pause before a response can allow you to collect your thoughts, avoid knee jerk reactions, be more concise, and quell the anxiety of immediate response. 20 seconds. Look down or up or whatever it takes to think clearly. Focus. Pick the words. And then say them with no regret. It's been a useful tool for me to avoid bad situations and say what I feel most represents my thoughts, rather than what comes to me the fastest. 

Number nine, don't allow people to disrespect you in public. There's a few things to parse out here. First, the word allow. I learned that wit and humor are great lines of defense against public humiliation. I grew up in a household where we made fun of each other and talked shit. My Dad was an expert in creating a better comeback that shut you up. Sometimes he was too aggressive with it, but at the end of the day he wouldn't allow himself to be the butt of the joke, even if it meant he had to get a bit deeper with his final punch. When you are the subject of a personal attack, in public, you either allow it or you don't. This can be physical or mental in nature. Physically, you fight back. Even if you lose, under no circumstances do you hold back, or experience humiliation due to a lack of effort. On the more mental side, especially between men, there is a lot of sizing up. For example, the other day a coworker of mine, who is reasonably speaking my friend, decided he wanted to make some fun in the office, with people listening and witnessing. It's something guys do. He's ex military and he was describing his exploits to another person in the office. They thanked him for his service. I did not publicly do that but he obviously knows I respect him, I didn't feel the need to do that. And so he targeted me by saying something along the lines of "well as long as we have our financial analyst we'll be safe." A dig at the fact that I was not in the military. Little does he know I attempted to join the military but was medically disqualified. I could have gone with this line of defense to protect my public reputation but this is ultimately a defense, not an attack. And it opens up questions which may lead to pity and empathy. No. I went with an attack. I laughed and said, "yeah, how about you and I do the military fitness test out back, choose any branch, I won't lose." And everyone heard it. And because everyone knows me, they know I would absolutely win that challenge. And by one line I asserted my physical dominance and the possibility of public humiliation was ended. 

Number ten, call your family, often. My final guiding principle is one of the most practical and one of the simplest, yet one of the most foregone by people, and one of the hardest to describe the value of. Nonetheless it's a guiding principle of mine because of it's unquestioning role in happy days and restful nights. As a precursor to my explanation, I genuinely feel sadness for people who either don't have solid relationships with their family, or do not have family. I was extremely fortunate to have 2 brothers, which are some of my best friends, as well as two very supportive and engaged parents. Relationships take effort to forge, and even more effort to maintain. But the dividends are infinite and there's no doubt this is universal given the plethora of thematic evidence we can find for this in movies, television, novels, and personal anecdote or attribution. In my darkest days, my most uncertain days I extended a call to my Mom for comfort, my Dad for advice and reassurance, my brothers as backboards and for mindless humor. I got through many years of uncertainty in my personal life with the aid of  30 minute FaceTimes. More than that, more than the helping hand or the distracting laugh, your family wants to be there for you, and they want you to be there for them. Having a family is one of the major reasons for living and today we leave the house at 18 for college and never come back. The least we can do is check in. It's healthy for us and it's healthy for them. Make your siblings your closest friends. And make your parents a part of your adult life. And call them, often.