I have always had a fraught relationship with rules. So, as a rule, I include in any list of rules the Orwellian caveat:
“Break any of these rules sooner than say [or do!] anything outright barbarous.”
These are MY rules for MY life. As Thoreau puts it in the introduction to Walden:
“I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.”
Rules:
-
Work out outside everyday. Lift, run, swim, climb mountains, fight, dance, and stretch. Your body was meant to move.
-
Care for and love your body. It is your only true home. “Spend not one more second doing anything but loving it.” Be thankful for its functioning. We are all only ‘temporarily able’ and that things we take for granted can disappear at any moment.
-
Plan the day you want to have, not one you feel you feel you ought. Or worse ought to want to. Plan to the degree that you do not need to bring your phone. Even if you know it will change. Its a recognition of your limited time and energy within the 24 hours that make up the day. Remember that plans are just guesses.
-
Maintain a DONE list of everything you accomplished. Review it at the end of the day.
-
Dress to be the person you aim to be. If we are “actors of our own ideal” and “all life is a stage” put on the right damn costume. Remember the etymology of theater: “play”
-
Watch your words. Speech constructs reality. Words slip out in a moment but can cause everlasting damage. Don’t exaggerate, never lie. Even if goes unnoticed it betrays a discomfort and internal shame. Finding the right words is an endless game. Keep playing. Learn new languages.
-
When you find yourself rushing. Pause. Slow Down. Take a Deep Breath. Ask yourself: what are you rushing to? Who are you rushing for? Most importantly, why are you rushing?
-
Apologize when it matters, not as a reflex or to pass on the emotional labor to the person you wronged. Take responsibility and be honest. Sooner rather than latter. Don’t let it fester (on either side). Resentment is a powerful emotion.
-
When you don’t know what to do next — sleep. If you can’t sleep, work-out and then sleep. Cutting down on sleep is the stupidest idea. You aren’t even close to the point where sleeping less would make you more productive. Workouts are better; writing is better; you are happier, healthier, more creative, and open to enjoying the incredible people you are so lucky to be around.
In the wise words of John Mulaney:
“Do all my friends hate me OR DO I JUST NEED TO SLEEP?” (capitalization, mine)
-
Clean your room. Eliminate distraction and start with your physical space. Let your home be a living testament to a mindset of leaving no breadcrumbs.
-
Figure out your needs. It is your duty to meet them and help others meet theirs. This involves asking and giving to help. Help them meet theirs. Helping others when your needs are met are a gift. Remember this when you request others for help, you are giving them a gift. They GET to choose to help you, and you respect their decision regardless.
-
Community underlies you and you it. If you can forget your radical dependence on others, it is a function of invisible work veiled by privilege. I call it facile metaphysical individualism. It takes a village to raise a child. Being raised and raising others is an integral human experience.
-
Lift HEAVY. Sometimes you need a challenging workout that involves lifting heavy shit — especially when you’re spinning your wheels mentally. Testosterone comes from winning, and there is nothing a short win like lifting something heavy.
-
Dance. Preferably with other people. But alone too!
-
Cook. For yourself and for your friends. Use your hands. Connect to the place, its food, and its produce. Your physical nourishment also nourish your soul.
-
Humanism over intellectualism. Read philosophy, experience the arts , participate in culture, and create technology, but do not adopt the detached, disembodied, “objective” critic nor develop into that disillusioned cynic. Hypertrophy of the intellect devours the soul. Connect with people as a person, not as products of culture or as manifestations of a “population.”
-
Suffering does not equal value. I feel surrounded and sometimes partake in a performative value hierarchy that equates suffering with value. It’s bullshit. Learn to find pleasure — in your body, in work, with others, through music — and value it for its own sake. A post-Puritan pseudo-intellectual BS equates “smartness” with suffering, and joy with stupidy. Talk to any distraught naval-gazing college philosophy major who laments the day they started reading philosophy. For the most part, it’s rooted in a weird, guilt-ridden psychosis that chooses facile individualism over a more complex, social understanding of self. Remember the air your author was breathing when they wrote. Were they locked in an ivory tower — friendless, physically weak, existentially distraught, and depressed — or were they bond to a community, grounded in reality, able to love and be loved. Ad hominem can be a good consideration.
-
Almost nothing matters. Life is in the almost.
-
Play