Your world is made up of labels, concepts, and beliefs that you have agreed to over the course of your life. The majority of these default agreements do you no good, and yet we hold on to them. It is possible to re-engineer your reality through:

1. Awareness — Seeing this illusion for what it is
2. Forgiveness — Accepting the consequences of this illusion, in you and others
3. Action — Dissolving and reshaping your reality, and others’, into that of our choosing

By reforming to these four simple agreements, you can change your reality.

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstanding, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are tired as opposed to well-rested. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret.

In order to start anew and build new agreements you need to free yourself from the shackles of the old fear and hate based agreements, you need to go through a purging process to rebuild from the ground up. There are 3 ways Ruiz suggests you can do this:

• Face each of your fears one by one. Battle with them and break each one of your old agreements individually.

Pros: Guaranteed to work

Cons: Slow process

• Stop feeding the fear. Stop giving it oxygen and eventually it will die.

Pros: Easy to understand

Cons: Difficult to do

• Destroy yourself…symbolically of course. If you kill the host, the virus dies.

Pros: Faster that the first two methods

Cons: Requires a lot of strength

Four Traits of a Warrior

• Awareness
• Discipline: Not the discipline of a soldier whereby you’re following orders, but discipline to be who you truly are no matter what
• Control: Not control over others but control over yourself
• Warrior: A warrior refrains rather than represses his/her emotions. Instead of letting your emotions run wild, a warrior harnesses them and channels them where necessary.

Mortality

We need to realize that death is inevitable and might even come sooner than expected. So live the present to the fullest. This is a common theme among the past 3 or 4 books I’ve read. Whether it’s Memento Mori, Carpe Diem or YOLO, it’s all essentially the same message. The fact that this ideology has stood the test of time and still persists today is a sign of its effectiveness.