Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

I’d rather be average doing something important than be great at something that doesn’t matter. If I can’t use my skills to help, then I will go out of my way to at least do no harm.

If I’m average at something worthwhile, I can always improve, maybe even become remarkable at it, but if my skills don’t have any value, why pursue them? What’s important to you? Do you use your skills to help others or is it just ‘about me?’ If you’re good at something, find ways to make other people’s lives a little bit better. It doesn’t matter what skills you have but how you apply them to your life - it’s your intent that matters.

Two Good Reasons to Give Back

1. Joe down the street doesn’t care if you’re an a-list blogger or if you’re thin and healthy. He does care, if you show him how to reap those rewards for himself. People are keenly interested in their own problems but generally have no interest in your own.
2. Small doses of kindness are infectious. Spreading kindness and helping others will always bring you immediate peace of mind.

If you can’t think of how to help others, make an active decision to at least do no harm. It’s amazing how powerful active ‘non-harming’ can be. Use this principle the next time you face an argument or an emotionally charged situation. Anger and reaction never solves a problem, they can only make it worse. When you’re angry or emotionally charged, wait until it passes before reacting.

Two Good Reason to Practice Non-Harming

1. When you’re angry or upset, you’re most likely to cause the most harm. Funny enough, that damage almost always comes back to haunt you.
2. Small doses of harm are also infectious. Revenge and retribution poisons your mind and makes you miserable. Anger operates in reverse; it harms the person carrying it more than the person receiving it. Here’s a quote attributed to the Buddha: “Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

A little off topic: Doctors try to practice non-harming every day; it’s part of their Hippocratic Oath. Too bad pharmaceutical companies haven’t adopted this ethic as well. I’m stunned when I hear a drug company describe “blurred vision, increased chance of stroke, liver disease, heart failure, and possibly death” as side-effects. Death is not a side-effect. Thanks, but I’ll pass on the Viagra or Ephedra. I’d rather be impotent and fat, than a hard, thin, dead man with blurred vision.