12 Life Lessons Learned From NFL Punter Chris Kluwe

He wrote a book called Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies that will just basically make you a better person.

1. Stand up for what you believe in.

“Don’t wait for me to write a letter for you—write your own! Let the world know how angry vapid stupidity and blind indifference make you. Don’t expect someone else to always show you the way—lead yourself! Make changes now, raise your voices now, fix the disease now, show your rage now, while there’s still a chance to do it peacefully…”

2. Swear, but swear better.

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“Appreciate the power of inventive invective, but know when to use it. You can’t just run around all day screaming obscenities (mainly because you’ll lose your voice), but a well-timed swear-word can help you make a point quite forcefully, especially when people don’t expect it. It has to be funny, though (and not just to you)! No one likes a lazy swearer.”

3. Judge, but judge better.

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“The world is full of complexity. This is the truth, and it’s a hard one to learn. People can’t be defined by labels or categories; one man’s hero is another man’s villain. We cannot judge people by their own claims, which they shape as they see fit, or their thoughts, which we cannot see; we can judge people only by their actions and by how those actions affect others around them.”

4. “Question everything…”

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“… but don’t do it just for the sake of being contrary (though that can be fun at times).”

5. Neil Gaiman is great.

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“If you haven’t read the Sandman series, you should."

6. "Never be ashamed of who you are.”

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“I’m a nerd who plays football. It doesn’t matter to me what other people think about that, because they’re not the ones living my life. I’m the one living my life, and I like being a nerd who’s really good at sports and reads lots of books and plays lots of video games while also writing scathing commentaries and laughing at the utter ridiculousness of it all. You’re going to be the only one who can live your life, so ignore the haters and be whoever you want to be.”

7. Your biology doesn’t make you better.

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“Don’t think that because you happened to be born a man, you somehow have the right to tell other people what to do. Don’t think that a single chromosome gives you the right to invalidate someone else’s free will, to take away anyone’s choices and opportunities.”

8. Keep an open mind.

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“To me, truth boils down to two things: a willingness to see the world as it really is, and the desire to change your beliefs when they conflict with your vision.”

9. Cheaters never win.

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“You’ll never know what you were truly capable of because you never trusted in yourself enough to believe—to believe that you could rise up to the challenge, any challenge, no matter how great or impossible the odds. You’ll never know that unadulterated feeling of triumph that comes with victory, not over others, but over yourself.”

10. If you fail, get over it.

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“You have to believe that you can move on and forget the past, because there’s not one damn thing you can do to change it now; actions have been performed and judged and found wanting—your effort and intent was simply not good enough that day.”

11. Question everything, for real.

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“Don’t just blindly follow whatever a book says; examine who wrote it and what her agenda might have been, what biases she may have brought with her. Logic and reason are your friends, and if you can’t logically connect the dots in an argument, ANY argument, then your opinion is not worth listening to.”

12. Dinosaurs.

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“Everything is better with dinosaurs. This is a scientific fact and cannot be argued with.”

Ride on, Chris Kluwe.