A PEACEFUL WARRIOR ANSWERS LIFE’S TOUGH QUESTIONS In Living on Purpose , Dan Millman combines the wisdom of Solomon with the commonsense touch of Dear Abby, tackling real-world questions with the intuitive insight that has drawn millions of readers to his books. Here, for the first time, the author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior distills his powerful teaching into twenty-five key principles, which his mentor — an old warrior named Socrates — called the House Rules . Dan illustrates each House Rule with user-friendly stories, quotations, and exercises for applying the House Rules in our own lives. Dan answers universal questions about money and work, parenting and priorities, diet and health, decision-making and divorce, simplicity and spirituality, meditation and morality, sexuality and fear, life and death, and more. Each answer offers fresh insight and personal guidance — a bold new vision for living on purpose. The Sufi poet Rumi once claimed that it is better to live the questions than always know the answers. In this spirit, bestselling author Dan Millman offers a book of contemplative answers to the common spiritual questions that we all live with. Millman has created a very readable format where he poses a question, offers a brief response (which he calls a "House Rule"), and then elaborates with lengthier thoughts and anecdotes. For example, when he asks, "Where can I find the right teacher for me?" he answers with this House Rule: "Our teachers appear in many forms." He then goes on to discuss how teachers can appear in the form of nature, strangers, children, or unexpected circumstances. Other questions include, "Why does my life seem to be getting worse?" (HR: "If we don't learn easy lessons, they get harder.") "What's the best way to make a big difference in the world?" (HR: "Little things can make a big difference.") Although Millman became famous as a storyteller in the parable Way of the Peaceful Warrior , his spiritual roots come from the discipline of martial arts. As a result, he sounds much more natural when conveying codes of honor than writing realistic dialog. To his credit, Millman has mastered a difficult and highly needed art form: writing an accessible guidebook on living purposefully that could soften the most jaded of hearts and sharpen the most undisciplined of spirits. --Gail Hudson Dan Millman is a former world champion athlete, university coach, college professor, martial arts teacher, and best-selling author whose books, including Way of the Peaceful Warrior , Everyday Enlightenment , Body Mind Mastery , and The Life You Were Born to Live , have inspired millions of people in more than twenty languages. Living on Purpose Straight Answers to Life's Tough Questions By Dan Millman New World Library Copyright © 2000 Dan Millman All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-57731-132-4 Contents Preface: Answers to Life's Questions, The House Rules:, • Earth is a school and daily life is our classroom, • Our teachers appear in many forms, • We learn best through direct experience, • Failures are the steppingstones to success, • Lessons reappear until we learn them, • If we don't learn easy lessons, they get harder, • Consequences teach better than concepts, • Only action brings ideas to life, • We can control efforts, not outcomes, • Timing is everything, • What goes around comes around, • Little things can make a big difference, • Play to your strengths, • To transform your life, change your expectations, • Judge with compassion, • Simplicity has power, • Life develops what it demands, • Every choice leads to wisdom, • God helps those who help themselves, • We each have inner guidance, • Balancing the body is the first spiritual practice, • Life moves in cycles; all things change, • Life is a series of moments, • Be gentle with yourself; trust the process of your life, • Kindness completes our lives; we are in this together, Final Words, Acknowledgments, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 Earth is a school and daily life is our classroom. We are here to learn by expanding our awareness about the world and about ourselves. Learning about the world helps us to succeed. Learning about ourselves helps us to evolve. Our challenges in the arenas of relationship, health, and finances are all part of the curriculum. Daily life teaches us all we need to know for the next step on our journey. Each and every day, we find new lessons to learn. Q: We grow up, attend school, earn a living, maybe get married and raise a family, go on vacations, provide a service, and live until we die. Isn't this enough? Why all this interest in spirituality? What's the point? A: Most of us agree that life is a school in the sense that we learn many lessons. But if death is the end, what is the purpose of living in the first place? Questions about death may lead us to wonder about our lives. Are we a random experiment or part