11 Guidelines I Want to Teach My Future Son to Follow

I can’t remember if my parents ever taught me rules of life when I was little.

Sometimes I feel like I was just born to act the way I act.

I’m sure they told me to respect everyone and be polite, but I just don’t remember having the talk. Maybe I picked up my actions by watching them. I never saw my mom or dad disrespect anybody but I also never saw them take any crap from someone when they were being disrespected.

So I guess I followed their lead.

I don’t have any kids so I can’t speak on the challenges that one faces when raising them. I do think about how I would raise a kid if I had one, though.

Would I try to push them hard to become smart? Can you even do that?

Would I push them into sports like I played my whole life?

When would I be disappointed? When would I be proud?

I might not ever get a chance to have these questions answered and that’s okay, but that doesn’t mean I still can’t plan on it possibly happening one day.

One of my favorite sayings is:

Every man has got to have a code.

To be honest with you I have no idea if I got that from a movie, a book, or a song. I could’ve just made it up and I’m only imagining it, but I love it.

If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.

I know I’m definitely not making that one up.

I think we all have a code whether we’re actively thinking about it or not. The actions we do showcase the code that we choose to follow. So when thinking about my future son I thought about the code that I like to live by and I realized these are the things that I would want to teach him.

What are they? Let’s take a look.

1. Everyone Has Their Own Battle Going On

Empathy.

It’s a lost art in today’s world.

The ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to try and understand where they are coming from.

We live in a world where people like to think that they are going to get theirs so you better do work in getting yours.

I gotta look out for #1.

That’s what they like to say but at who’s expense?

I want my son to understand that before he gets into an argument or wants to make fun of someone (which he should never do) he needs to understand that they are going through a struggle.

We all are.

Many times we don’t acknowledge the struggle or understand how it affects our actions, but the struggle is real in all of us and when we take the time to understand someone else’s struggle we become better people.

When my wife and I used to get into arguments I would have the typical guy reaction and just think that she is overreacting. Why does she always have to be so dramatic?

Instead of simply thinking these things we sat down and talked about it. Most of the time when we argued it was because I was stressed about something that didn’t even involve her or she was worried about something that didn’t involve me.

These things build up and when you don’t try to understand another person’s perspective, feelings get hurt.

2. You Earn Your Place

In life, sometimes things get handed to you, but more often than not you need to earn them.

One of the worst things you can do is watch someone else’s success and be jealous of it.

You earn your place.

If you truly believe that you can accomplish anything then those times you fall short don’t look around trying to find someone to blame. Figure out what happened and what can be done next time to get a different result.

I know I make it sound easy. Some people have easier roads than others but that’s just how the cards were dealt. You aren’t going to fold, you’re going to go all in and keep on playing to stack your chips.

3. Everyone Is Your Equal

You are no better or worse than anyone else out there. I know what you’re thinking, you’re definitely better than some of the evil people and definitely not as good as some of the best people.

But in my mind, we are all at the same level and we have the choice to decide how we are going to look at others.

The day you start to look down on others is the day you become the person you find yourself constantly fighting against.

4. Hold the Door For Everybody

Not sure when this started to go out of style, but I can’t tell you how often I’ve been walking behind someone into a building and they don’t hold the door open for an extra second so I can get to it.

They just continue to walk off as if I never existed or that I have the power to walk through doors.

I wish I did, but I don’t.

When you see someone behind you or through the other side of the window then go and hold the door for them. Some people will say thank you (all people should, another piece of politeness that has gone out the window) and some will even look at you with a smile.

This little jester has the power to brighten someone’s day or send them down a dark path.

As they walk through the door they are holding, look them in the eye and smile to let them know it’s not a problem and you enjoy being kind to others.

5. Know When to Drop People From Your Life

This one is pretty difficult. There will be people you’ve known your whole life and have built a history with and so because of that you will ignore how toxic they are for you.

Every time you interact with them they make your life miserable but you will want to keep them around because they can make you feel guilty if you don’t.

You are not obligated to keep any of these people around.

Surround yourself with people that make your life better. There are too many people in this world that can do that so there is no reason to surround yourself with people that bring you down.

This rule has no exception.

Friends, family, strangers, co-workers all get the same treatment with this rule.

Life is too short to spend it being miserable.

6. Stand Up For Those That Can’t Stand Up For Themselves

You will see a lot of instances in your life where someone wants to bully someone else. You might think that the person should stand up for themselves but they have their reasons why they can’t.

When you see someone being wronged don’t hesitate to stand up for them. So much wrong happens in this world because people think they can show their power over others.

I’m not asking you to be a superhero, just someone that doesn’t like to see the big guy picking on the small one.

7. There Is Always More Love to Be Found

You will get your heartbroken.

It will suck. You will think it is the end of the world and that you will never find love again. The love that you just lost was the best love ever and no other love will replace it.

Wrong.

There is always more love to find and each time the love will be better because you understand yourself better.

It can be hard to be optimistic about the future when the present seems so bleak but you just have to trust that there are better things to come and that everything will right itself in the end.

8. Seize the Day

I’ve wasted too many days in my life doing nothing.

It could’ve been playing video games, watching TV or just lying in bed being a bum.

There are tons of successful people out there and none of them got there by wasting days.

Every day is a new opportunity to learn something new.

Every day is a new opportunity to challenge yourself to be better.

Every day is a new opportunity to reach those goals that you’ve set.

With that being said…

9. Set Big Ass Goals

You can’t grow unless you challenge yourself and you can’t challenge yourself if you have nothing big to aim for. Set a big ass goal that you want to achieve in 5 years, 10 years, and 20 years.

Then take the time to figure out what it is going to take to achieve those goals.

What are the small steps that are required?

Do you need to start waking up at 5am? Do you need to quit partying so much? Do you need to spend more time reading?

Finding success and reaching your goals involves you changing the habits that are preventing you from reaching those goals.

When you set goals and you don’t achieve them take the time to analyze why. If you truly believe you can accomplish anything then you won’t spend any time blaming others or luck.

10. Love Is Work

People believe that relationships should be easy. That once you get the right partner everything clicks. Maybe it happens that way for some people but it probably won’t happen for you.

Love is work.

You have to make something work with someone else. Most of you life is spent looking out for your best interests, but now you must look out for someone else’s and they share the same burden.

There will be arguments and apologies. There will be times you want to give up and times where there is no other place you’d rather be.

If a love is ever going to end let it end knowing that you put the work into it to try and make it work.

11. Enjoy the Ride

There are two types of people in life:

1. Those that look at their life and only focus on the pain and misery
2. Those that understand life is a rollercoaster but realize the ride is the most fun part

There are times life will completely suck. It’s inevitable, but if you do things right then there will be way more happy times than sad. It all depends on your outlook.

You Will Slip

These are not rules written in stone, but merely guidelines that I’ve followed and they’ve done pretty well for me. Over time you may make tweaks to them, remove some, and add your own. Just know that you need some code to follow.

You have the power to make not only your world, but the whole world a better place.

I hope you take that opportunity.