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How To Live

Page history last edited by rsb 12 years ago

Dear alternate reality 21 year old Rich, if I may call you Rich,

It has been 20 years since I was your age.  

I have some recommendations for you that I must write down before I forget them.  

What you have before you is the letter I wish I had received 20 years ago from my future self.  

You should read this because I AM FROM YOUR FRIGGING FUTURE.

You may wonder why I choose to write you...no?...I’ll tell you anyway.

I have tried writing letters to past Rich in my own timeline, but this has proved practically impossible.  


I have left many notes to future Rich and found several of them.  Although these rarely prepare me for significant events, they are of some amusement.  That’s how I came up with the idea to write to you.  I hope this letter will serve a dual purpose - it will not only reach someone who can use the help, but will ultimately be pretty hilarious to future Rich in my own timeline.

You would do the same, alternate reality Rich, in time.

I am challenged by my ignorance of your reality - I don't know how close your universe and personal makeup are to mine.  If you plan to take these instructions seriously, for maximum benefit, you should be an imaginative, empathetic, middle-class male in northern California, struggling through his last year(s) in college - that is, extremely lucky.

I hope the correlations between your reality and mine are strong, as I can only offer advice from my personal experience.  If you have read this far, you are probably extremely lucky, imaginative, sensitive and awesome all-around.  I will generalize and qualify as best I can to increase applicability.

As you are 21, it is most likely that for the next twenty years you will be balancing working your ass off and mismanaging personal relationships. Your are in luck - I have experience with that.

Oh, and since you are wondering, I will tell you what the future is like before I try to advise you:

The world 20 years from the moment you read this contains at least one mind blowing technology that will benefit you every day.  Other than that, its the same.

Read on - many other clues as to your future are to be found herein.

But first, some fine print:

1) In the interest of full disclosure, it took me over 40 years just to get an idea of what the important stuff is.  I have mastered very little of what I am about to recommend.  And I have only known that I want to write this cheesy-sappy kind of letter for a short while.  

2) On re-reading, some of the warnings I am about to make seem to paint a bleak picture.  In the last 20 years, I have been through a lot, and seen others go through more, so to someone with less experience, these instructions will seem an odd, black comedy.  Life has it's weird, dark places, and so does this document.  We isolate those though - I’m still a very positive person and you will find me smiling on a daily basis.

3) Also, If someone writes "do one thing that scares you every day", they hope their reader is a thoughtful person with a ready supply of common sense.  They didn’t say to “balance fear and bravery” and ramble on for paragraphs about this epic trade-off.  They just picked a common problem, made a stand, and planted their idea.  I, occasionally, ramble.  

On with it.

How to live:

Be positive.

Encouragement in a direction that you have no interest in should be acted on only when proven to be indisputably in your interest and after a long period of consideration.

Discouragement should be questioned if not completely ignored, including anything you find discouraging herein.  Outside of questioning, I discourage responding to discouragement.

Send sensitive emails to yourself first.  Read them the next day.  Consciously apply whatever filters you can to that email that might make a happier future for everyone.  Know that others will forget to do this.

It is not what is in front of you that makes you unhappy, its what is in the back of your mind.

If you are a man, you may notice a lapse of discipline in yourself at certain times, and subsequently wonder on it.  Most of these, can be traced back to your manhood.  

You have probably noticed this phenomenon in certain instances, but you may not be aware of it’s true frequency and impact.  This is simply a cost of being a member of your sex.  You need to learn to be more aware of this than you are now.  You will have to accept certain losses from these lapses, stay instinctively alert to their possibility, and change course well in advance when they loom.  Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.  If you are female, as you can see, much of what I relay is indirectly applicable only - but feel free to laugh.

All things that apply high impact to your body will now injure you severely.  Bam.  That just happened.  Welcome to your twenties.  Adjust your activities accordingly.  It gets worse.

You have tremendous potential to do good for yourself and others.  No one will truly see this, or understand you in the least.  You will be underestimated on a regular basis.  This is completely normal.

Absorb the great works of comedians.  The cliff notes, audio book, or video versions are ideal.  Do that early and often.  It will be a lot of fun and a real time saver.  In my world, this means chris rock, mark twain, dave barry, douglas adams, jerry seinfeld, steve martin, robin williams.  You really can’t skip any of this material.  Season that with a few books from the greatest and most accessible philosophers and psychiatrists you can find (smith, kopp, peck), if you have the inclination.

Although I cant say whether doing things simultaneously or in the fastest way saves time, it reduces monotony.

Get plenty of sleep.

Don't do things that mess with your sleep if you can avoid them.  Staying up extremely late usually just means you are panicking or obsessing.  You think you cant do that thing tomorrow?  Tomorrow is going to be more fun than today.  Believe it.  Especially that morning part.  You want to be awake for it.  That thing will be more fun tomorrow, too.  If you are reading this when you should be asleep, stop now.  Go to sleep.  The internet will be here tomorrow.  Really, it will.  What I'm saying is, sleep is sacred.  Take pride in your sleep.  Unless you have kids or are in graduate school, in which case, good luck with that!

Have a vision of your life.
Eat healthily.
Entirely give up one crappy food at a time starting with high fructose corn syrup (careful, they change the name of this ingredient frequently).
Don't stay home alone too much.
Get plenty of exercise, break a sweat once in a while.

As we are clearly friends now, I’ll let you in on a secret.  Here is how you pick up women.  It’s called the Couch Method, and it has worked like a charm for me for 20 years.  You find a couch.  They you find a bunch of science fiction novels.  Now sit on the couch and start reading the science fiction novels.  Read as many as you can in your free time.  In five to ten years, someone will probably ask you out.  Date them for as long as is practicable, then start over.  Not only is this really easy, but it you will get to read a lot of really great stuff.  Even if no one asks you out, this is an epic win.  And it’s really easy.

Look up logical fallacies.  Its fun to spot them in the wild.

Watch out for abusive people.  Never be one.  I can’t stress this enough.

If you derive satisfaction from hurting others, or if you desire to hurt others, whether by ridicule, violence, stressing them out, or other means, you need to get help immediately.  It doesn't matter why you want to hurt them.  It just matters that hurting someone gives you pleasure.  That has defined you.  Get help as soon as you can.  Seriously.

If you condone, or join in with the aforementioned activity, or stand by, stop that now, stay clear of those people, reconcile with their victims, then get help.  Even someone who is a little evil, a minor evil, is still evil.  Come on, man, that’s who you are, don’t be evil AT ALL.

Many abusive people are kind most of the time, and get their fix when they have the least to lose.  They believe they are therefore good people.  This works because humans can convince themselves of anything, an incredibly powerful tool.  In all likelihood, the worst person ever to live was a five gallon blood donor and had a bunch of schools named after him.  He probably thought he was a really nice, well adjusted person, and everyone he met became his adoring friend for a while (if he didn't have them killed first).  It is a common evil to regularly tolerate evil acts by people who are kind some of the time.

Highly evil people always need at least one person to abuse.

You don't have time to fix abusive or generally evil people.  If you can, make them stop abusing in the present, discourage or prevent them from doing this in the future, then disassociate yourself.  Consider yourself lucky to get out alive and give them not another thought.  No, you can't kill them first.  That's illegal in the future too - although a heck of a lot of people are sympathetic with the impulse.  In the future, not killing those who deserve to die is still an important challenge that not all of humanity has risen to, so if the revolution ever comes, you can rest assured there is a long line of less thoughtful people who will address these issues promptly.

When I say "get help" I mean find someone who is going to make you talk about all the evil you have done to yourself and others until you figure out how to be a better person.  Anyone can talk to you about the evil done to you or the good you have done, especially if you pay them - too easy.

Pity, don’t hate.  “No man can stoop low enough to make me hate him” - Laurence Jones after being lynched.  Good people are strong.

A final trick for dealing with evil.  I sometimes imagine that evil people are no more good or evil than I am.  Imagining this doesn’t make them less evil, but the exercise itself quells anger. This is left as a non-trivial exercise for the imaginative observer.  One clue: Many people do not act on their evil impulses, and therefore are not evil.  Evil people are weak.

People DO change.  Long-term behavior change genuinely occurs and there is a science to it, sort of.  Seriously, you can look that up.  You are probably very proud of the changes you have made in yourself, and want to make more.  Know that everybody else feels the same way.

Reward acts of kindness.

Take your vitamins.  Especially D if you aren't getting any sun.

As far as the sunscreen thing goes, I'm going to assume you are smart enough to know the risks.  In the future, hats are cool.

Encourage yourself. Now would be a great time to do that.   Tell yourself you love yourself right now.  By name - "i love you ____".  That's a healthy relationship right there.

Drink plenty of water.  Drink some while you read this.

Should you quit?  Everyone wants to quit when they should stick things out. No one wants to quit when  they should.  What a crummy trick.  I think the best thing to do is talk to people about it and give it time, maybe a year or two.

If you hear things like:  “Stick with the place that you love, the work that you love, and the people that you love, but move when you have to”.  Realize that only lucky people get any of those things.  For what its worth, l have heard lucky people sometimes say they have the will to prepare every day for their next lucky opportunity.  I imagine they never skip a day, the lucky bastards.  

Even if you don’t believe you’re lucky (you are, only lucky people get to read blog posts), be thankful.  Being thankful often helps and never hurts.

Love the good in yourself, learn to appreciate what you have.

Make yourself lovable, especially to you.  Stop for a moment and take a minute to think about how you could make yourself more lovable to yourself today.  Tell yourself that you love you again right now.

If you find living things that you love, stick with them.  Within limits that probably do not concern you, it is  better to be poor and be close to these things than to be wealthy - if you pursue wealth, I think you are much less likely to have the things you love or to be happy.  Unless you become extremely poor, in which case you can ignore most of this until you are no longer in that state.

It’s good to go to bed exhausted.  A great feeling.  Sometimes you might work late to do that.  do as much of that work as you can for yourself. If you have to, make some stuff up to tire yourself out.

Ask questions
Be honest
Don't drink during the day before 5
Don't do things that hurt you
Don't hurt other people
Stay calm when bad things happen
Work on your mental health with things that are fun to you - read, solve puzzles, and write
Have a hobby that you want to keep up with your entire life
Assume the best of people (corrolary “take nothing personally”)
Don't be greedy, be generous
Stretch a little every day, maybe after a workout.
Enjoy the morning - let the light in, put on music, and prepare some food
Carry a book in your backpack

Don't hesitate to communicate when needed, but be as concise as you can.
Listen
Make gifts for your neighbors
Thank people
Don't get into a routine where you spend more of your time at home passively watching a computer or TV screen than spending time with others or working to improve your home and yourself - that's soul-sapping.  Habitual passive entertainment at night can really throw off your sleep.  Again, if you want to know where you stand, keep track of it.
Let grudges go
Work on your posture.  Start now.
Don't drink or do drugs of any kind to excess - especially when you are over 40.
First take care of yourself, then others.
You should probably floss
Find one thing that is hard and that you do not want to do, but that helps you every day - do that right away - then do the rest of the hard things, then the rest.
Practice the things that make you better.
Hug the things you love every chance you get.

Don't judge professions, relationships, cultures, religions.  All non-insane people, regardless of what they have ever had, want their world to be beautiful and meaningful, and their interpretation of that is probably yours.  Assuming otherwise is profoundly bad for you.

Talk to one friend everyday.
Talk to older people and younger people and people who don't share your interests.
Try complimenting others as a conversation starter.  You have to smile when you do it, I think.
Pay attention to things that bother you and other people long enough to see if they can be changed.

Call your mom and dad

Set an alarm every day - first thing when you get home -  Even if you don't have an appointment tomorrow.

Alerts are great.  Make maximal use of calendar alerts and phone timers and egg timers and stuff like that.  

It almost always works out better to prepare everything you can for tomorrow the night before.

Brush your teeth right after you stop eating for the night.  Don't wait until bedtime.   Brush in the morning too.

Skip through self judgement and psychic pain straight to the best solution - let the psychic pain stay there and have a party in the back of your mind, but take that shortcut and start implementing that solution.  When stuck, keep moving.

Encourage yourself. Now would be a great time to do that.  Get specific.

If you have a problem with focus or discipline, time yourself while doing some task every day for as long as you can until you no longer have a problem.  Doesn’t much matter what the thing is, as long as its hard for you to focus on doing.  You should have a timer in your phone and headphones in your backpack.  Warning: it can take years to make significant progress in increasing your focus and you have to keep measuring it.  Also, I suck at this.

If you need help exercising, make it trivial to keep track of exercise, then do a trivial exercise each day and track it.  If you can master that for 100 workouts, you will figure out the rest easily.  The tracking thing works for other stuff as well.  Here in the future, people are starting to get into tracking  their behavior, health, and all kinds of stuff.  Soon everyone will be doing it.  This pleases our robot overlords.

In general, when you are having trouble motivating yourself, make smaller goals.  This is the classic strategy: live one day at a time, then one hour at a time, etc.  If something is distasteful, make a goal to do some part of it that takes 5 minutes, and power through that five minutes.  Too long?  How about 30 seconds?  Think you can handle that? Good.

Avoid physical injury.  Other than as an opportunity to learn to deal with it, there is really no upside to physical injury.  This sounds like a no brainer, yet folks still injure themselves purposely.

I hope you will not be self destructive, or if you choose to injure yourself, that you choose to always find someone to talk to about it.  I’m not talking about aesthetics, here.  I’m talking about hurting yourself to get attention or express control or to distract you from other things.  Just FYI, communicating with others is distracting as heck, can hurt a lot more, and get you more attention.

Knowing how to avoid injury is insanely valuable and everyone older than you wishes they knew it better.  Physical pain is just noise to many older people, apparently.  Aside from an instinctual reaction, the only thing it means is that their body is trying to tell them something.  Injury is real loss.

Go through the logic of apology.  Someone says you hurt them.  It can be real or perceived, and you can care or not.  In all four situations, your best move is apologize and retract any statement perceived hurtful.  No skin off your back.  In the perceived/care quadrant you can clear up the misperception afterward.

“life is good” - an extremely helpful belief that is well worth engaging in, delusional or not.

Take notes.  Carry folded 3 by 5 cards in your wallet, or something similar, and a pen to take notes.  Something you can file later.  Guys with phds all carry backpacks with spiral notebooks.  or use your smartphone.

If you find a place depresses you, try to understand why and change it

Take care of your hygiene every morning - especially if you are living outdoors.

Thank people - show your appreciation to those you love every day.

Be a safe place in the storm.  Fear motivates people and informs their actions.  It's good for you and for others to not be fearful, and to quell fear.  To do this, you have to be stable, healthy, and live beneath your means to the best of your ability.  I think you should figure out how to save money regularly today.  Even if its a penny per paycheck - even if you have debt - save every time you make money.

Never get sloshed.  If you have any inkling that maybe you should not finish that drink, switch to water, which is good for you.

You may find, experimentally, that you are happy when you give to others.  The more you give to people who need it, the happier you are.  Don't base any validation on praise or thanks.  Instead, feel how good giving feels without recognition.  Cover that homeless person with a nice blanket in the winter while they sleep.  Sacrifice.  Give away something that is a comfort to you because you are sure you are doing a good.  Then watch as the sky brightens.   Hard work and giving to others satisfies the mind, and helps you to be truly happy.  At least try to see things through the lens of giving once in a while.  People are naturally more attached to those with whom they can exchange the greatest gifts.  Giving and relationships are intimately related.  I don't claim to understand this process or its limits, but it agrees with experiment.  

You will be happy when you receive, too.  Both processes not only agree with experiment, but can be extended and generalized into a useful view of the world.  Free and open exchange supports human harmony.  People that do it live in peace, same goes for organizations, nations, etc.  You can look all this stuff up, it’s all true.

In general, you want to be a good person.  Few things will feel better than knowing this is true about yourself.  The opposite is also true - unreasonably selfish people compose a society that hates themselves as much as they hate others.  A large part of what makes a society good for humans is that they generally agree that unreasonably selfish people are crazy.  Sometimes they are completely understandably crazy, but they are still crazy.  

You can extrapolate the truth - just be a good person.  

Remind yourself that you are a good person.  

At a crossroads, ask yourself what a truly good person would do.  Do not emulate Chuck Norris.

Want to find something good to give?  Find out what someone really wants to do, give them the highest quality product you can afford.  Let them know they are the kind of person you expect to gainfully employ the best product available.    This only works sometimes, and only if you know what they really want to do.

Simplify simplify simplify.

Don't collect things.  Get rid of everything you don't need.  Try boxism - put a bunch of stuff in boxes, and take back out only the things you must as you use them - keep those out.  At the end of the month, craigslist or give away the contents of the boxes.

Suffer.  It is necessary.  Notice that avoidance of this does not work.  Look for opportunities to suffer and accept moderate risk.    Take a few punches to land a significant blow now and then or you will be cornered and take a beating. Try boxing sometime if your body can handle it and you will remember this.  Unless, probably, you are a woman or have kids, or are over 40, in which case you can ignore everything I say here.  As consolation, when you resign yourself to suffering yet again, sometimes you don’t suffer.

When someone makes a mistake, you are given a rare, golden opportunity to be kind.  Take it.  They did not intend to make that mistake, otherwise it would not be a mistake.  If possible, tell them that its ok, make the mistake a small thing, to be laughed at together and learned from.  In that moment, you will improve everything.  If that's not possible, get as close to that as you can.

With regards to violence.  I'm not very good at it, and I think that’s the way to be.  People who are good at it might walk among those less good with some confidence in some situations, and some overconfidence in others.  It seems truly confident people can try anything, lose anything, with no capability to do violence.

However, if you find a fun group of people, martial arts can be a healthy good time.  The problem with the military (one problem), which is generally a fun group of people practicing martial arts, is that you could be ordered to do evil, by a chain of command whose agenda is far from clear, which could complicate your life, or end it prematurely.  So don’t pick that group.  I’m not saying they are bad people, just that I don’t want you to pick that group to hang out with on the job.  Additionally, martial arts are a bit addictive and tend to screw up your joints.  I would just steer clear of the whole thing.  You need to care about your safety, but not that way.

Put a lid on the macho.  Everyone has a little of this, but more than a little just makes you look ignorant and offensive.  Its really an emotional act - people act superior and tough while putting others down - they just don't realize how stupid it makes them look.  This is mostly a male issue, but “maturity”, sadly is twisted into macho by women quite often.  Macho also prevents people from enjoying things a child would enjoy, which are some of the more fun things.

It's probably ok to feel and express a little anger.  In the rare circumstances when think you can be fair in an angry way, express anger.  Be honest, say what you feel, and stick around to hear the other persons side if you can.  I have never been very good at that, but I read a couple books on anger so i thought i would throw it in here.

It's probably healthy to have a rapport with someone that allows a little colorful expression.  However, don't be a yeller on a regular basis.  Unless, perhaps, you are from any part of the world (northeast US, most of asia, any Jewish or Cuban or Thai community or similar) where yelling is normal, in which case you can laugh off everything I say here.

Getting 8 hours of sleep, an early wakeup, a good breakfast and a hard cardio workout in is huge.  It almost guarantees a good day.  This requires an early bedtime and a reasonable work day.  being born lucky also helps.  Again, if you have kids ... aren't they cute!?!?

It is said that children are the orgasm of life.  I need not remind you that the regular kind of orgasm is also pretty good and does not demand college tuition and then spend it on a road trip.

Don't start arguments late at night - instead, try to stop them.  To make that happen you might need to study argument timing.  Ask me about that later.  In general, missing a little sleep to keep a layer off the onion is great, but your chances of success are very low at night, so both parties simply compound their losses by arguing at that time.

If you are living with someone, it might help you to keep the same schedule.  have breakfast and dinner together.  have the same friends, the same hobbies if you can.  figure out how to spend free time together regularly both at home and outside.

Is it fair? Is it true?  Is it a fact? Is it kind? These are the questions you need to ask before saying something in an argument.  You can’t ask them of the things other people say, as they may just be blowing off steam or need someone to hear them out.  Consider things other people say in argument as arrows, going right by you, for you to inspect, but not necessarily directed at you.  They can’t hit you.  For your part, argue slowly.  Consider each arrow, aim it, and when you can, fire wide.

If you have to work late to finish a big project, set minimum standards for your health, think it through days ahead.  Only sacrifice sleep, not diet, exercise, cleanliness.  Drink lots of water.

Give up control.  If you want to enjoy someones conversation, you don't try to control it.  If you try to control someone, you will never know them.  In all areas.  Let it go.  Then when you want something, make it clear.  You will get what you need, and you will get to see what other people are like and what they have to give.  Many people are wonderful.  Control them and you will never know.

Don't confuse demanding control with asking for what you want.  Asking for what you want when appropriate helps everyone.

Skirting the line of appropriateness, where no one knows the answer, and asking for what you want with confidence is called Mojo.  I don't have Mojo so i cant help you with that.  Please send a jar of Mojo to my address in the future.  I will forever be in your debt.  Thanks in advance.

Along those lines, be direct.  Indirect is hard to pull off without being creepy.

Sadly, being kind and considerate in your communications is, subconsciously, a sign of weakness to many people.  I think this is some primitive bug in their systems that makes them get things backwards.  Anyway, there is nothing you can do about this.  Those people will underestimate you in all things and also think you are creepy. You wont be hanging out with them much.  If it helps, they are a bit ignorant.

One more thing on asking for what you want.  It’s essential at work.  If you don’t demand the resources you want, you will lose your job.  Being smart and getting things done is not sufficient.  Especially in an organization of any size.  When in doubt, ask for more resources than you think you need and promise less than what you think you can deliver - the subsequent negotiation will end up somewhere in the middle and you will still have to work your ass off.  Until you are an expert in estimation: For projects: calculate exactly what they need, double it, add 10%, and ask for that much time and money.  For personal work plans: under commit to the extent that you cannot fail, and list everything else you want to do as bonus tasks.

If you want someone to do something, don’t suggest something kinda like what you want be done at some indefinitely high priority level.  Tell someone what you want done exactly, and by when, and to ignore anything else that comes up, unless the building is on fire, and even then to just call 911, and then to continue to focus on the exact outcome you desire non-stop until it is delivered.  

That thing you want done is called a frog.  Every day, you must identify a frog, and single-mindedly attempt to kill it and eat it.  If your manager does not have time to point out the frog, you will identify it yourself, hunt it down, and end it.  Then you can eat other things for the rest of the day, or take the day off - you have my permission.

 

Don’t trust organizations.  Trust people.  (Considerably watered down from my original rant).

 

Any lasting organization is designed to last.  The company you work for, the society you are a part of, every organizational unit you can think of that is going to last a long time is designed to use people to achieve its goals.  

Societal norms are NOT there because they are the best thing for personal happiness.  Performance reviews are NOT designed for the good of everyone.  That organization cannot have two goals.  That organization has a life of its own and is only there to survive. 

The only way being part of an organization is remotely ethical is if someone tells you what I have told you and you are completely aware of it all the time.  Now you know.  People who know this impose their goals on organizations, and eventually kill them.  

Now get out there and create and subvert organizations for good - they hate it when we do that.  


If you want to know something about someone that matters to you, ask them.  Their opinion is the most important opinion on the matter.  Talk to them about it for a while.

If you feel you can’t trust them, or that they are wrong about themselves, try to work that out with them.  If that doesn't work, then ask them who you should talk to about it, but come back to them and get their opinion.  Take them out for a walk and be kind about it.  You will both learn from this, if they agree to do it.  In any case, honesty, respect, and consideration changes people for the better.  If finally you know you can’t trust someone, effectively trust them to the limits of ability and circumstance.

Plan simply.  People are always shocked to find that the simplest things work the best even at the highest levels of achievement.   It is not always quick or easy to find the simplest path.

At the expense of memory, understand people and things.  Knowing less and understanding more than the next guy is a great place to be.  Most things are, for all practical purposes, unknowable.

That said, it seems that most people who have improved their financial lot tremendously know more about some topic than almost anyone.  They are also very popular at parties.  That's just based on my data points.

Stressed out people often have a laser sharp focus on only a crummy outcome.  A nice gift to yourself and the world at large would be for you to learn how to choose to focus on something other than that, such as the middle of the road, pretty o.k. outcome that occurs all but one time out of a million.

Almost everyone works for someone, be it their boss or their customers.  Be aware that salarymen are myopic, esp. those with large expenses.  "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."  - Upton Sinclair.  People who have done a lot of evil also have to justify what they have done.  It may not be worth your time to try to convince people in those situations of anything - find another way to get it done.

For those who have both accepted their own death and are ready to die, I wont discourage you.  You might find that there is something in you that will never quit.  It's that thing that picks up craggy, bloodied, broken pieces, and makes art.  It will probably have you working your ass off again pretty soon.  Each time you will be reborn.

 

Learn to meditate. 

 

Fixup your posture right now.
Tell yourself you love you again.
Smile.
Close your eyes, take a big breath in and hold it for a few seconds, then let it all the way out and then open your eyes.

See you in twenty years, my friend :).

 

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