Stay curious.  Why exactly did your car fail to start?  How much do know about anything?  Who made the clothes you are wearing?  If you are not curious, you are not really alive.  Curiosity engenders enthusiasm for living and makes each day more fun.The older I get, the more I know, the more I know how little I really know.

Be an active citizen.  You can vote.  Your female ancestors could not.  Your dark-skinned friends could not even have used the same public bathrooms you do when I was young.  Who changed that?  Why do the cars you ride in have shoulder harnesses?  Does your drinking water have harmful chemicals in it?  Why are U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan ready to die for you?  Who controls that?  A person who does not vote endangers life for all of us.  Government is the “we the people” of the Declaration of Independence.  It is our collective whole and more precious than any single commercial activity.   Citizen participation in our democracy gives us a chance to express a humanitarian good that benefits mankind.

Work hard. Working earns you money but more than anything it allows you to become a full person.  When you are working, you are part of something bigger than you are.  You are expressing who are by the way you work.  Every worker is important and deserves respect.  All work, especially blue collar work, should be dignified.

Engage your fellow your human beings in a positive way.  Push the up button on the personal relationship elevator.  How you act affects others.  You have an obligation to do no harm in contact with others.  Every small human contact is a chance to help someone even if all you do is act pleasant.

Realize your lucky circumstances.  Americans are a small fraction of all the people in the world.  We are lucky citizens in a country that was formed in a favorable geographical region in the Age of Reason.  By virtue of being born in this country we have natural advantages that few other people in the world have.

Be a good steward of the planet.  What right do you have to buy something and discard it in a landfill?  Why should your house be cool or warm if the energy demanded for your comfort damages the environment?  What do you recycle?  How efficient is your transportation?  We all need to breathe air.  Earth has just one atmosphere.

Seek common ground.  Conversation is an art and within the art you have an obligation to give the person you are speaking to a way to talk back.  Listen more than you talk.   In any controversial area look for some middle ground.

Change your mind.  Nothing and no one is constant.  Keep Emerson in mind: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by philosophers and divines.”

Be comfortable with who you are.  Study the world and apply what you learn to yourself.  After you come to know who you are, be yourself.  If you are odd or out of step by nature in one way or another, live with the rhythm that you find within yourself over time.

Know history.  It is a tool that allows us to live better.  We all stand on the shoulders of others.  How did you get to be where you are now in your time?  What social actions, events, and inventions created the society you live in?