1. Start having sex way too early.
Like, when you’re 12. Or sometime in high school, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right, and you don’t want to be the only virgin at graduation… Or, ack, did you miss out until college? Quick! Hurry! Before it’s too late, attend drunken parties, sleep with random people, and stock up those cherished memories. Because these are the great experiences of life, right? Right?
2. Pretend you have no regrets.
That way you can go on pretending you already know everything, and you won’t have to listen to anybody say otherwise, and you can keep on messing up your life until you die. Wheeeeee.
3. Go through an extended period of predictable adolescent angst and rebellion.
Why be a trend-setter when you can be just like everybody else ? Yes, all your peers are/have gone/will soon be going through this stage too. What a magnificent way to waste years of your life, cause hurt and tension in your most valued relationships, and build up a pile of stupid decisions behind you. Great thinking, Scout.
4. Never make a decision.
You know, you really shouldn’t. Because what if it’s the wrong decision? And then you’ll have done the wrong thing and your life will be messed up forever? Except: not. Here’s how it really works, peeplings: almost any decision is worse than no decision. No decision means you’ll stay stuck where you are and/or you’ll simply be floated on the current of least resistance which (in case you haven’t figured) doth not to good places go. You know that scene in the cartoons where they realize they’re about to hurtle over a 100-story waterfall? That is where the current of least resistance goes. Not deciding just means you don’t have the balls to take responsibility for what happens in your life. Grow a pair, start making your own decisions, take responsibility. You’ll learn from your mistakes, and you’ll still be better off than you would be with the waterfall option.
5. Over plan.
Over planning is a superb way to avoid making a decision, all while making people think you are actually doing something. Except that you aren’t. Here’s another life secret: most events in life, even the major ones, require far less planning and far more doing than we actually want to admit. Plan for about 10% of the time, and ACT for 75% of the time. That still gives you 15% of your life to just goof off.
6. Stay in college for a really, really, really long time.
I’m not knocking higher education. It’s good to learn how to spell and read and write and think and do math and make things and talk to adults and understand complex theories and stuff like that. It’s also good to wean yourself off the milk of academia and sink your teeth into the meat that is life in the real world. Don’t stay in college because you’re scared. You’re only delaying the inevitable, and usually at the cost of excessive student loans which will haunt you well into the future. Learn what you need to learn and move on.
7. Get into debt, as much and as quickly as possible.
The debtor is slave to the lender, said a wise man. If going through your life as slave sounds like your ideal, well, sign up. If not, well, you can draw the obvious conclusion.
8. Do things to impress other people.
By all means, mess up your life simply for the mere entertainment of a few other people who probably won’t remember your name next year. S-M-R-T.
9. Create mental dichotomies which will become the limiting dogmas of your life.
For example: faith v. fact, science v. religion, democratic v. republican, career v. kids, rich v. poor, etc. These are so much fun for you tote around your entire life. They’ll open up so many doors, really. Other people will gain such great knowledge from you, and your life will be filled with varied and rich experiences.
10. Quit reading books.
Really. You can get all the news you need online. Google knows everything. Youtube is an adequate substitute. Texting is the same as writing and reading, right?
11. Watch a lot of tv.
Because that’s what smart people do.
12. Avoid people who are different than you.
Because if they’re different, they probably won’t like your dogmas (see #9) and that will rock your little boat right out o’ your puddle. Can’t have that, now can we?
13. Consume copious amounts of alcohol, please and especially while hypothetically getting an education and/or establishing yourself as a young professional.
People. Please. Getting drunk is so 1995. No, no, wait: 1895. Oh, nope, people were doing it before then, too. 1795? 1695? In brief: getting wasted is nothing new, or clever, or interesting. Stupid people have been killing off their woefully small allowance of brain cells via alcohol for centuries, and doing stupid things, all while thinking they were being new, and clever, and interesting.
14. Slack your way through college/early adulthood.
There’s not really that much to learn there, anyways. Plus learning actually interferes with your drinking, does it not? And if you waste those 3, 5, 10 years of your young adult life, that’s no big deal. You’ll have plenty of time to catch up. Sure.
15. Experiment with drugs.
Because you’ve got so many brain cells left from the alcohol, you can spare a few more. And you won’t get addicted. You’re not an addictive personality. Sheesh.
16. Get married because you’re lonely.
Perhaps one of the most common reasons to get married. Perhaps the worst reason to get married. Heads up, lonely hearts club: gettin’ hitched will not magically erase the loneliness. Find a way to make friends and have relationships and be real with the people already in your life. Then you can get married because you’re in LOVE and you’re happy and it’s right, and that is a much better beginning.
17. Get married because you’re pregnant.
Not that being a single parent is a piece of cake, or anything, but being married to a jerk or a loser just because he happens to be the father of your child is even worse. If you’ve got the challenge of unexpected parenthood upon you, don’t add to it the challenge of a poor marriage.
18. Put off having kids until it’s convenient.
It never is. It never will be. It’s just one of those things that has to happen (if you want kids, that is) and waiting for a perfect time is the same as waiting for a unicorn to slide down a rainbow and hand-deliver a pot of gold to your doorstep.
19. Turn down work that is beneath you.
Excepting, of course, work which poses a moral conundrum, e.g. prostitution, selling drugs, working in a hot dog processing plant. Otherwise, work is work. When you’re jobless, is there really any such thing as “work with is beneath you?” Eh. That’s what I thought. Unless the dark damp coolness of your parent’s basement and a life spent playing video games alone really is what you truly, truly want.
20. Spend more than you earn. Habitually.
Fun to do, not so fun to undo.
21. Spend too much time figuring your self/life/dream/calling/passion out.
This is the work of a lifetime, and if you wait till you’ve got it figured out before you begin your life…. You’ll miss out on life. Life is figuring it out. Life is trying one thing after another. Life is doing a job you hate, but learning that you have the guts to do something well even when you hate it. Life is not knowing who you are, but doing what’s right anyway. Life is letting go of your passion because you need to take care of someone else for a while, or forever. Life is finding a new passion. Life is seeing a dream die, and then seeing it come back in the most unexpected way. Life is the calling. You can’t plan this stuff, or figure it out, or diagram it, or get the answers to it on a quiz.
22. Fail to know yourself at all.
The converse mistake to #21 is simply going through life blind, missing out on the possibilities, settling into a rut and staying there because anything unfamiliar seems so very scary that you’d better not risk it. Failing to know yourself at all means that you will be no good to other people. You will not be able to give much, if anything. You will be limited by your own lack of understanding. Grow up and grow out, know yourself, know what you have to offer, so you can offer it.
23. Cultivate an awesomely stupid habit.
Like smoking, or gambling, or serial dating, or playing the victim. These are all excellent ways to spend the money you make before you make it, ruin the relationships you have, and end up sad and lonely. More sad and lonely than you are now, I mean.
24. Let other people set your limits.
Providing you’re over, say, fifteen years old: why would you allow other people to define who you are and what you can do and what your limits are? They know you so well? They have your best interests at heart? They care that much? No, they don’t. They can’t. People have great intentions, the best of hearts, but no one can be responsible for your own life but you. So why should anyone else set limits on your life but you? I’m not talking about the understood limits, like don’t kill people and do wear your seatbelt. No, we’re talking about the greater limits, the higher limits, like what are you capable of? and what can you accomplish? and who do you want to be?.
25. Do any (major) thing because “it’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Supposed to is usually the worst reason.
26. Do any (major) thing for the sake of being different.
Being different merely for the sake of being different is just you tailing behind the pack of teenagers in the mall. Think for yourself, sure. Do something because you love it, or it’s a great idea, or it sparks your interest, or it will help people, or because it’s right, or because you can’t imagine another way to spend your life, or because it will benefit someone you love, or because it will help you grow. Do something strange and challenging and new and unpredictable because you want to grow, because you want to learn, because you care enough about life to take the risk. Don’t do anything just because you’re trying to be a rebel. Get your cause, first.
27. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.
Do I really need to explain this one?
Image: pretty autoretrato by gogoloopie
