I’m loathe to write this post, because I know it’s going to be short and what I’m about to write—and my essential character, therefore—can easily be misinterpreted. Still, in the last two days people have accidentally uttered things that I think could be motto-worthy. However, one of my implicit mottos, one that I will not formally list, is, “You shouldn’t have too many mottos.” After all, it’s hard enough to carry around a handful of maxims throughout the day. Many more and I’d run out of the computational resources necessary to live by my own standards.

It is my hope that once I’ve got these things committed to (metaphorical, digital) paper, I’ll be able better to organize them, combine them, and generalize them. That’s right: it’s time for a spring cleaning of my wintered philosophies.

So here they are in chronological order:

1. You can never have too much butter fat.
2. Treat a person like dirt and he’ll stick to you like mud.
3. I am smarter than my genes.
4. I am more patient than a five year old.
5. Be the person you want to attract.

On Friday DJ accidentally pointed out that I’ve ignored the deterministic components of nurture in the old war between nature and nurture. So maybe it’d be worthwhile to add

• I can outgrow my environment.

And this morning my aunt Robin called to discuss her responses to Carol Dweck’s book on self and motivation theories that I mentioned a long time ago. I told her that I find her receptiveness to what Dweck has to say encouraging. Her response could warrant a more permanent place in my daily life:

• It doesn’t matter what you think if it’s not working.

Do you have any words of wisdom that I should consider introducing to my list? You know I love comments.