On Compromise:
Compromise is an old person's word. When I say 'old' I am talking about anyone over the age of thirty. By thirty you have hopefully grasped that you are possibly not operating from the geographical centre of the universe, that life does not always go your way and that you just may, sometimes (often, actually) have to adjust your aims and your expectations and learn to deal with the disappointment that it brings. Before thirty, you may think you are the master of the universe and you spend a lot of time being aghast that God/ the universe/ everyone you know has not recognized this fact and brought you all you demand on silver platters while carrying you around on a bejeweled bier. Or was this just me?
As I've said, in my opinion, getting your own way all the time is bad for you. It creates false expectation and discourages effort, be it in relationships or business or life generally.
On Courage:
In cyber-bullying your yardstick has to be this - Am I letting someone else determine my movements, my self-expression, or in any unwelcome way moderate my life or my actions? You must never appease a bully. As Goethe put it, 'Be bold and mighty forces shall come to your aid.'
On Friendship:
One loyal friend is worth 10,000 relatives - Euripides.
On Optimism:
In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela said: "I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being an optimist is keeping one's head pointed towards the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lay defeat and death."
On Gossip:
It was only as I got older that I started to realize that Gossip is actually really nasty, It's corrosive, like the worst kind of poison, and it attacks people's reputations. Sadly, an untruth spoken often enough and left unchallenged becomes history. Gossip can twist facts and hearsay into the most poisonous conjecture.
On Religion:
The problem is that people are fallible. We all fail at some point. Our own fallibility is in letting theirs become the overriding message and drowning out the love.
On Happiness:
The fastest way to become seriously unhappy is to focus on yourself and what you think you need, to achieve your right to lasting Happiness. When you throw away your internal balance sheet, Happiness will flood into your life and you will be a blessing to everyone who knows you.
On Acceptance:
Life was sweeter, fuller, and richer if you went with the stream, rather than tore your heart out rowing against it. - H. E. Bates
On Morality:
My grandmother Elsie used to say that you should try to live your life in a way that caused no suffering to others. If you think about it, you can almost stop right there. Henry Thoreau, said, ' Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life . So aim above morality. Be not simply good - be good for something'
On Confidence:
So the big question is this: how do you keep a check on yourself, how do you stop it tipping over into that overblown confidence, or worse, arrogance? The answer to that one is the eleventh commandment : 'Thou shall not kid thyself. '
On Democracy:
Winston Churchill said , in 1938: You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police....yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoke abroad, thoughts stirring at home - all the more powerful because forbidden - terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.
On Money:
Too many people go around with the idea that you have to be dishonest to be wealthy or that Money will corrupt you. That is all rubbish. All Money does is give you choices. Money allows you to do things that you would not be able to do otherwise. But it does not, cannot, make you evil. If you are already a bad person, Money will allow you to express it more easily, that's all. If you are the kind of person who thinks it is OK to take what is not yours because you want it, Money may inspire you to theft. But be clear: it's not Money that's in the wrong in that situation. Money represents freedom, the freedom to make better choices. Not necessarily the freedom to always do what I want.
On Anger:
Anger is vicious and destructive and ugly and will leave you and those around you with the worst of whisky hangovers.
About the Book: The author has quoted many interesting anecdotes from his life to elaborate on the 50 life lessons. An author intro would have been good, because it took time to recognize the author while browsing - a goodreads book info was helpful in tracking him.
Here is a glimpse of who the author Peter Dunne is :
Peter Dunne is an Emmy and Peabody Award winning producer, writer, and teacher with over thirty years experience. He has held positions as vice-president of development at Viacom, Lorimar (now Warner Bros. TV), and Spelling Television. He has written and/or produced the shows Sybil, Dallas, Knots Landing, Melrose Place, CSI, JAG, among others. He also teaches screen writing at UCLA and lectures around the world.
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