You can’t live your beliefs and values if you don’t know what they are – that’s what I realized yesterday.

It’s 12 :  00 PM on day 1725 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, pray,  read Amos 7, publish my Disability of the Day feature, learn one new thing  –Colombia, located at the northwestern tip of South America, is part of the Ring of Fire. The 25,000-mile horseshoe arc around the Pacific is the most active volcano area in the world. It’s home to some 450 volcanoes—over 75 percent of all volcanoes on Earth.– feed myself egg with bread for breakfast,   promote my Educate Generations campaign– $3 025 raised so far so grateful 🙂 – and  watch Oprah’s MasterClasses featuring successful people –  (I always look to learn from other people’s lives so I don’t make the same mistakes that they made and so that I can copy the things they did to become successful)  .

Yesterday after watching a short clip of Morgan Freeman talking about the importance of holding on to one’s principals I wrote down my beliefs, values and notes to my future self knowing I wouldn’t be able to live my beliefs and values unless I really knew what they were. Take a look:

My beliefs, Values and Notes to my Future Self

My beliefs

1. I believe in God (there has to be a higher power how else can I explain my life God has taken someone who some people see as broken and is using her (me) to make a difference).
2. I believe I am an extremely flawed human being who is trying her best to be a good person and because of that I believe I deserve the best from other people and from life.

My values (or at least the values I hold dear and aspire to)

1. Honesty
2. Kindness
3. Compassion
4. Generosity
5. Humility
6. Loyalty
7. Fairness
8. Equality

Notes to my future self

1. Have faith (Hold on to God in good times, bad times and all the times in between knowing that every experience you go through is designed to help you become who you were meant to be).
2. Take care of yourself (eat well, exercise and go to the doctor (when necessary)).
3. To thyself be true (there will only be one you in the history of humanity don’t waste who you are trying to be a copy of someone else).
4. If someone tries to get you to do things that are against your values GET AWAY from them and do it FAST (sometimes you go along just to get along and some people can spot that and try to use that to get you to do what they want you to do and once you compromise on your values once they’ll expect you to do it again and again).
5. Be grateful (if ten years from now you whine about how crappy your life is I’ll come back from the past and kick your butt because no matter how bad things may be there’s ALWAYS something to be grateful for).
6. Let your guard down (I know that it’s hard for you to let people in because of the way you think people perceive you but you can’t go through your whole life without friendships full of love and trust who knows what might happen if you allow yourself to be venerable with people it may result in lifelong friendships or not either way you will have had the courage to risk your heart).
7. Express your feelings more (what’s the use of feeling things for people if you keep those feelings to yourself).
8. Forgive yourself and others quickly (you expect yourself to be an exemplary human being and sometimes you fail miserably it’s ok forgive yourself then extend that forgiveness to other people when they fail to meet your expectations).
9. Have fun (this is something that I’m having a really hard time doing right now hopefully you’ll have a better time of it).