What’s a personal mantra or philosophy you live by?
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Everyone has a life philosophy, even if they have never written it down. Mine has three simple instructions: keep moving, keep learning, keep making a difference. What would yours be?
We usually describe a personal philosophy as something we live by, as if it were a rule we keep every day without fail.
I have come to believe the opposite. A good philosophy is not the rule we never break. It is the place we return to after we have broken it.
Mine is simple: keep moving forward, keep learning, and keep making a difference.
I did not adopt it overnight. Life taught it to me slowly, through responsibilities and disappointments, relationships and successes, and the many unexpected turns that come with growing older. And I return to it most on the days I have failed to live it.
1. Keep Moving Forward
Moving forward does not always mean achieving something spectacular. Sometimes it simply means getting up and facing another day with hope.
We cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can usually choose how we respond. Progress may be very small: finishing a task I had postponed, writing a few lines, taking a walk, reaching out to someone, or simply refusing to surrender to discouragement.
Aesop’s tortoise did not win because it was fast. It won because it did not stop.
Someone may object that “keep moving” sounds exhausting, as if rest were a failure. I don’t think so. Rest is part of the journey; giving up is not. Forward is forward, even when the steps are small and the pauses are long.
2. Keep Learning
I don’t believe learning has an expiry date. Age may change our pace, but it need not end our curiosity.
Technology keeps changing, and new tools, ideas and ways of communicating appear almost daily. Rather than resisting everything unfamiliar, I try to stay curious.
An old Tamil work, the Naladiyar, puts it with striking honesty: learning has no shore, and the learner’s days are few. So, it advises, choose wisely what to learn, like the swan of Indian legend that is said to drink the milk and leave the water behind.1 That verse comforts me at this stage of life. I cannot learn everything, but I can still learn what matters.
Writing has become part of that learning. Through Rise & Inspire, every article teaches me something, not only about the subject but sometimes about myself. As long as we remain curious, we remain capable of growth.
3. Keep Making a Difference
The older I become, the more I realise that a meaningful life is measured not only by what we accumulate, but also by what we contribute.
A kind word, a piece of knowledge shared, a little encouragement for someone who is struggling, an hour given to a worthwhile cause: each of these can make a difference. Islamic tradition teaches that even a smile offered to another person is a form of charity.2 We rarely know how far a small kindness travels.
So I try to ask not only, “What can I achieve today?” but also, “What good can I do today?”
4. Trust What You Cannot Control
For me, this philosophy is held together by faith.
Faith does not mean that every question will have an immediate answer or that every difficulty will disappear. It gives me the confidence to continue when I cannot see the whole road ahead. I do my part faithfully and responsibly, and I accept that I cannot control everything. There is a certain freedom in that.
Other traditions arrive at the same freedom. The Bhagavad Gita teaches that we have a claim on our work, but not on its fruits.3 We do what we can, learn from what happens, and continue the journey.
5. Let “Forward” Grow With You
When we are young, moving forward may mean building a career, earning money or reaching a particular position. Later in life, the meaning changes. Peace becomes more valuable. Relationships become more precious. Health and time are appreciated differently. Leaving something worthwhile behind matters more than getting ahead.
A life does not have to become smaller with age. It can become deeper.
Returning, Not Perfecting
I don’t claim to follow this philosophy perfectly. There are days when I feel tired, when progress seems slow, and when I wonder whether what I am doing really matters.
That is exactly why I need it. A personal philosophy does not promise that life will be easy. It reminds us, even when life is hard, that we still have a choice about how we live it.
If I had to put it in one sentence, it would be this: keep moving forward, keep learning, and keep making a difference, one day, one step and one person at a time.
So, what about you? What mantra or philosophy do you return to when life becomes challenging?
Notes
1. The Naladiyar is a collection of four hundred Tamil quatrains composed by Jain monks. It is one of the Eighteen Minor Classics (Pathinenkilkanakku) of Tamil literature. The lines come from its chapter on learning (verse 135), which begins “Kalvi karaiyila, karpavar naal sila,” meaning “Learning has no shore; the learner’s days are few.” The swan that separates milk from water is a long-standing Indian image for discernment.
2. Recorded in Jami’ at-Tirmidhi, one of the major collections of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.
3. Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 47.
John Britto Kurusumuthu
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In response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 05 October 2026
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