Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement

Live A Great Life
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friends. There is no one that they would rather talk to or express
themselves more honestly with than the other. Character, integrity,
and honesty are the foundation qualities of a loving relationship,
and are more important than anything else.
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THE UNIVERSAL MAXIM
There is a wonderful test that you can give yourself on a regular ba-
sis to measure whether an act is good or bad, right or wrong. It is
simple and you can use it throughout life. It is based on the Univer-
sal Maxim of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, postulated
more than 200 years ago. He said that 
you should live your life as
though your every act were to become a universal law.
In other words, before you make a decision or take an action,
imagine that everyone else was going to do exactly the same thing.
Imagine that your decision was going to become a law for yourself
and everyone else. This is the true test of whether your decision is a
good one. It is the true test of a value or behavior. What kind of so-
ciety would we have if everyone lived and behaved exactly the way
you do?
Many of the problems in our society would not exist if this test
were applied regularly in debates over public and social policy. Gov-
ernments would be slower to approve certain actions in the areas of
crime, education, welfare, and business if there was a likelihood that
everyone would engage in those actions.
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