1. Make your road map and schemes but allow life to make adjustments. Sometimes these adjustments may seem unacceptable and insurmountable - believe that these are all part of a Higher Plan that you may not appreciate and understand yet. As Steve Jobs once said, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. Open your mind to new paths, different people, divergent perspectives and weird experiences.
2. Know and be who you are but be willing to change in the face of new information and options. Never compromise on basic values such as honesty, integrity and respect, even if other people do (especially those you hoped would never falter). Other people will think and act differently; respect them anyway. Listen to their story and don't forget to share your own.
3. Karma is a real bitch - you really get what you give. Cultivate kindness, even when it's hard and even when it's unfair. Share happiness and dampen negativity. Choose the road less travelled when it matters and when it's right, even if it will make you look like a fool. Be sure when you face the man in the mirror, you're not ashamed of what you see.
4. Let go of past hurts and pains. Forgive, learn and forget - make room for positive memories and new goals. Remember that everyone has bad days. When someone is making life difficult for you, there's a story behind it which doesn't involve you. So, even if you don't know what that story is, give difficult people the benefit of the doubt.
5. Count your blessings everyday. It's easy to forget how blessed you are when you keep comparing yourself to others. Each life is different - live yours and mind your own business. Unplug yourself from social media, take a walk, go on a date, play with your family, hang out with your friends. The number of likes and comments on your latest Facebook post does not and cannot measure how great your life really is. You don't need the latest fads and fashion to be happy either. As the Little Prince noted, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
6. Love is a verb. It is a choice. Give love to the people who matter to you. Show them but don't expect it in return. When the embers of courtship and engagement fade, take it as an opportunity for real love to grow. When that loving feeling disappears, act loving anyway.
7. Believe in a Higher Power at work. Some things just cannot be understood in the realm of human understanding. Accept that life is not fair - it has never been and never will be fair. When it seems really dark and hopeless, turn to that Higher Power for hope. It helps when you have an established support system - family and friends who will be with you through thick and thin.
8. Friends are the family you choose, so choose well. You may not get it right the first time and many times after that, but when you do, nurture those friendships. Sometimes, distance, career, family and a lot of other reasons may keep you apart but true friends can weather it all out.
9. You can't choose your family, but you can choose how to be a solid unit together (or a chaotic mess altogether). As you grow older, you will hate your siblings less and love them more. You'll be surprised that they can turn out to be the best among your friends and that they'll have your back when you least expect it. Your parents get better with age too, especially when you become a parent yourself.
10. Love yourself. That's probably the hardest thing to do. Don't be hard on yourself so you won't be hard on other people too. Give yourself a break. You will never be perfect, but you can strive to be the best version of yourself. It's okay to make mistakes and it's a skill to laugh at all the stupid things you did. You are awesome just the way you are. Don't let other people tell you otherwise.

• There is no real happiness in an expensive designer handbag or in any material item at all. The thrill comes from the anticipation and the wishing, but it is an empty goal which leaves no fulfilment once achieved. What remains is that nagging feeling of guilt and remorse. No matter how much I try to justify such expenses, I end up fooling myself.
• With my finance background, I already knew that the smarter use of the money would have been to invest in assets that could generate profit over the short/medium/long term. Had I invested the same amount in insurance, stocks, bonds and/or mutual funds, I would have grown the quantity by now. A handbag simply disintegrates over time, adding no value to one's portfolio.
• Deep in my heart, I also already knew while I could afford it, there are still millions who suffer from poverty and hunger, who hardly get by on a daily basis with what little resources that they have. I made the conscious choice to silence that voice reminding me that to whom much is given, much is expected. I'm trying to listen to that voice again now, which is telling me that I can do so much more good on this Earth.

"But there's another way, and I'll leave you with this. This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee -- and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult -- to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive." And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves. 

Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word cor, meaning heart -- and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can't practice compassion with other people if we can't treat ourselves kindly. And the last was they had connection, and -- this was the hard part -- as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection."