If you talked to your friends the way you talk to yourself, then you would not have any friends.

• Self-kindness, meaning exercises kindness and understanding toward yourself when you're struggling or suffering.
• Common humanity, meaning that you realize that you're not alone and that other people are experiencing similar struggles to you. Common humanity points to the fact that we should not feel isolated or alone in our struggles, because more likely than not others are experiencing the same things we are.
• Mindfulness, meaning that we are able to observe life without being judgmental and that we are able to suppress our thoughts and feelings and merely experience life as it happens to us!

What do my values need to be in order to create my ultimate destiny?

I want to make my mark on the world. I can’t exactly say with certainty how at this point. But, I know that to do anything remotely close to that, I need to have the energy to do so. Therefore, health comes first. Also, I think that no matter what field I enter into, excellence won’t be achieved unless I’m always seeking to improve myself. Therefore, growth comes next.  I love the quote “Happiness only real when shared.” Therefore, I need to make relationships a bigger cornerstone of my life.  Also, if I’m going to make Beachbody a priority in my life, connecting with people will be important. So, therefore, all of this to me encapsulates the same foundational value of love, compassion, and warmth in my personal relationships and interactions. One of the biggest things I want to be in life is a person with integrity, who has and executes high moral standards and is never a hypocrite. A person who does what they say they’ll do. So integrity is next on my list.  Gratefulness is another thing that is a weakness of mine. I think if you’re grateful than it transcends into other aspects of your life, and therefore you’re happier, fuller, more passionate, etc. Also, nothing in life can never be achieved without passion! Passion motivates, and if I’m going to achieve in my life I need to have that! This is an easy one! If you aren’t having happiness and fun in your life, than what is the point of living!?!  Everything you achieve in life should be done happily, not to make you happy! As stated before, I want to make my mark on this world. That’s the only thing I’m certain of. So, I value contribution/impact because I hope to contribute and impact this world.  This value falls down to 6^th purely because I think that these other things will be important to my being able to have an impact. If I don’t have health, I don’t have the energy to do this. If I don’t have love and compassion, people won’t want be to help them anyway. Same thing with integrity. And if I don’t have passion, I won’t have the drive to contribute.  Additionally, I decided to “lump” achievement into that because if I make a contribution and I have impact, than in my mind that is achievement!  These are merely values of mine because I feel like they’re weaknesses that hold me back particularly in my interpersonal skills. Thus, cheerfulness and openness are values of mine to because I want to be a person that people feel like they can come to no matter what!I may have stolen this one from Tony Robbins a little but he has a point. Some people have intelligence and fail to use it. I am an intelligent person, but I need to make sure I am being intelligent, and thus bettering my life.

April 22, 1958 57 Perry Street New York City

Dear Hume, You ask advice: ah, what a very human and very dangerous thing to do! For to give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal -- to point with a trembling finger to the RIGHT direction -- is something only a fool will take upon himself. I am not a fool, but I respect your sincerity in asking my advice. I ask you though, in listening to what I say, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice it will be to much like the blind leading the blind. "To be or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…" (Shakespeare) And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make -- consciously or unconsciously -- at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you've made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don't see how it could have been anything but a choice -- however indirect -- between the two things I've mentioned: the floating or the swimming. But why not float if you have no goal? That is another question. It is unquestionably better to enjoy the floating than to swim in uncertainity. So how does a man find a goal? Not a castle in the stars, but a real and tangible thing. How can a man be sure he's not after "the big rock candy mountain," the enticing sugar-candy goal that has little taste and no substance? The answer -- and, in a sense, the tragedy of life -- is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel resonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. it's not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective. So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis? The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway. It would take reams of paper to develop this subject to fulfillment. God only knows how many books have been written on "the meaning of man" and that sort of thing, and god only knows how many people have pondered the subject. (I use the term "god only knows" purely as an expression.) There's very little sense in my trying to give it up to you in the proverbial nutshell, because I'm the first to admit my absolute lack of qualifications for reducing the meaning of life to one or two paragraphs. I'm going to steer clear of the word "existentialism" but you might keep in mind as a key of sorts. You might also try something called Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre, and another little thing called Existentialism: from Dostoyevsky to Sartre. These are merely suggestions. If you are genuinely satisfied with what you are and what you're doing, then give those books a wide berth. (Let sleeping dogs lie.) But back to the answer. As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES. But don't misunderstand me. I don't mean that we can't BE firemen, bankers, or doctors -- but but we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires -- including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter. As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: A man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at a maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform his own abilities and desires). In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life -- the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual. Let's assume that you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let's assume that you can't see any real-purpose in any of the eight. THEN -- and here is the essence of all I've said -- you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH. Naturally, it isn't as easy as it sounds. You've lived a relatively narrow life, a vertical rather than horizontal existence. So it isn't any too difficult to understand why you seem to feel the way you do. But a man who procrastinate in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance. So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living inside that way of life. But you say, "I don't know where to look; I don't know what to look for." And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don't know -- is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice. If I don't call this to a halt, I'm going to find myself writing a book. I hope it's not as confusing as it looks at first glance. Keep in mind, of course, that this is MY WAY of looking at things. I happen to think that it's pretty generally applicable, but you may not. Each of us has to create our own credo -- this merely happen to be mine. If any part of it doesn't seem to make sense, by all means call it to my attention. I'm not trying to send you out "on the road" in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that -- no one HAS to do something he doesn't want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that's what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You'll have lots of company. And that's it for now. Until I hear from you again, I remain, your friend... Hunter