These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 8: Life Painkillers

This week: Abandon Principles

Symptoms: A sharp feeling of pangs of conscience.

Diagnosis: Abandon some principles in an awkward situation.

Painkiller:

• A prick of conscience means that you tried following principles before stepping in. Whatever it is, continuing to feel guilty for so long will not change anything already perpetrated. Do not hesitate to take any immediate appropriate action to correct the situation as far as possible.

• Avoid begging for excuses from those around you to feel comfortable. Seek advice from people you trust about what can be done to remedy the situation. Draw from lessons learned to help you with upcoming challenges.

• Turn all your regret for bypassing principles into an insistence on sticking to them in the coming times.

• Perfection is impossible. Make this an incentive for you to approach challenging principles with confidence, skill, and calm. Beware of using this common saying as an excuse for slackness, as then you will fall into aggravating problems rather than easing principles’ challenges as some peoples might expect.

Treatment:

• Always try to clearly define your principles. Don’t allow gray areas as much as possible, but always be willing to show flexibility.

• Don’t flaunt your principles. Principles are an integrated way of life, not just something to show off occasionally. Embrace what you believe in with calmness, tranquility, and assurance, and you will be able to abide by it with the least number of arguments and controversies possible.

• It is always best to be prepared in advance to the test of principles in any encounter. Visualize the expected principles’ challenges every time and the ethical approach scenario from your side so that you do not get confused and become hostage to sudden perplexities that force you to make ill-considered compromises.

• Principles are an integral approach in life, but they are not a single package. No one is perfect in terms of his or her commitment to all principles. Celebrate and cherish your strengths, and do not be shy to acknowledge your weaknesses to address them. Always remember that the tests the principles impose on you are different and renewed every time, even if the general framework seems to be one.

To read more about the author, click here

Dahab’s books are available on Goodreads and Booktasters are promoting them. This is the link to a trailer on “Damn the Novel,” his first book translated into English.