I’ve been accumulating these life tips over the past few years with the intention of linking to them in a blog entry, but never got around to them — until now. Here they are, all in one place, with good advice for anyone who wants to make the most of their time on this mortal coil.
Maintaining friendships, much less forging new ones, is a question of choices. The choice to make the call, send the note, mark the calendar, reserve the time, follow-up, ask the questions, remember the answers. Over and over and over again. It is work, this friendship thing. For the ones down the mountain, I have to remind myself that it’s OK that sometimes I don’t want to log the hours. But for my top-of-the-mountain-people? Showing up when I don’t feel like it is when I put my friendship money where my mouth is.
So for the ride-or-dies, the 10x friends, show up even when you’re “busy,” because friendships often start by accident, but they are maintained on purpose. Show up even when you’re tired, because you know that your support—if only for a single drink, or an episode, or the first-half, or until you can’t keep your eyes open—is meaningful.
Try to answer the following two questions as honestly as you can:
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You might not realise, but real life is a game of strategy. There are some fun mini-games – like dancing, driving, running, and sex – but the key to winning is simply managing your resources.
Most importantly, successful players put their time into the right things. Later in the game money comes into play, but your top priority should always be mastering where your time goes.
1. Go for women you perceive to be “out of your league.” You’ll surprise yourself.
2. Never have sex with anyone that doesn’t want it as much as you.
9. Always look a person in the eye when you talk to them.
10. Buy a plunger before you need a plunger.
20. You can tell the size of a man by the size of things that bother him.
31. Nice guys don’t finish last. Boring guys do.
33. Don’t let the little head do the thinking for the big head.
36. The first one to get angry loses.
39. Always go out into public dressed like you’re about to meet the love of your life.
Life has a tendency to get stale. Like your favorite food, it loses its edge after a while, that special quality that made you love it so much in the first place. We, like the places we confine ourselves to, become as dull and boring as our surroundings.
New experiences are the reason we live. They are the reason we get up every day, the reason we carry on. While we enjoy comfort, we crave experience. The point of living is not to resign yourself to one part of life, but to continually redefine yourself. It’s to baptize yourself, over and over again, in new waters and new experiences.
You have your entire life to be comfortable, to sit in your house and bask in the familiarity of it. But right now, while you’re young and uncomfortable, keep going, keep challenging yourself. Keep making yourself uncomfortable. Because it’s only when we’re uncomfortable that we are growing and learning.
You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.
This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.
Question 1: What do I want?
Question 2: Whom can I serve?
Question 3: Why not now?
Beware midlife! You will be prone to sudden, disruptive upheaval. Around the age of 50 your productivity, creativity and adaptability begin their inexorable decline. With them, happiness ebbs. Your best years are behind you. Naturally, your job, marriage and shattered aspirations are to blame. If you or someone important in your life shows symptoms of midlife restlessness, be alarmed! The dashboard is flashing red.
Everything in the paragraph you just read is inaccurate. True, midlife is a tricky and vulnerable time. But most of what people think they know about midlife crisis – beginning with the notion that it is a crisis – is based on harmful myths and outdated stereotypes. The truth is more interesting, and much more encouraging.
Forget Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules” and go with Megan McArdle’s instead. A sampling:
Rule 1: Be kind. Mean is easy; kind is hard. Somewhere in eighth grade, many of us acquired the idea that the nasty putdown, the superior smile, the clever one liner, are the signs of intelligence and great personal strength. But this kind of wit is, to borrow from the great John Scalzi, “playing the game on easy mode.” Making yourself feel bigger by making someone else feel small takes so little skill that 12-year-olds can do it. Those with greater ambitions should leave casual cruelty behind them.
Rule 7: Don’t just pay people compliments; give them living eulogies. Tell them exactly how great they are, in how many ways. Embarrass them. Here’s a funny thing I have learned by being just a little bit internet famous: it doesn’t matter how many times you hear them, the words “You are amazing, and here’s why” never get old. They do not go out of style. You will be wearing them to your 80th birthday party, along with a dazzling smile.
You’d be surprised — or maybe you shouldn’t — how many angry reactions this perfectly reasonable and correct tweet got.
What’s holding you back? Your weight? An addiction? An unhealthy relationship? Depression? Uncertainty and fear? All of these challenges have real solutions, if you’re ready to leave the nest once and for all. If you’re ready to take the leap and soar.
Yes, sometimes the flight is bumpy. Sometimes it’s the wrong leap and we fall. Some falls take longer to recover from than others. But playing it safe and never leaping is its own kind of hell.
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