Which are the nine most important things that it is possible to learn in our life? In an interesting article mixing numerology, wittiness and common sense, Maria Popova, the founder of “Brain pickings”, tried to create her own personal list.

Here’s the result:

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. In a world where everyone has an opinion, sometimes being incoherent and changing our minds could connect us with our hidden self.
2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. The best incentive is to do what makes you happy.
3. Be generous with your time and your resources and especially, with your words.
4. Build pockets of stillness into your life. Finding the time for a walk or for yoga allows you to stay centered, to generate ideas and to entice your creative thinking.
5. When people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. The assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.
6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity for. Look for what makes life worth living.
7. Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time. At odds with the culture of immediacy, let’s enjoy the period of blossoming “where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny”.
8. Seek out what magnifies your spirit. Who are the people, ideas, and books that magnify your spirit? Find them, hold on to them and visit them often.
9. Don’t be afraid to be an idealist.

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Image source: Flickr – duncan c (CC BY-NC 2.0)