Rule of Life (7 page)

Unfortunately not—it just doesn’t work like that. When this R U L E 2 3

and that gets changed, there will always be something else, waiting its turn and putting off that happiness until some later date. If you were to suddenly find that you were slimmer/fitter or whatever, then you’d probably find yourself wanting to be richer or that your partner was more loving. You’d find other things to wish for to make you happy.

Forget bigger and better and richer and thinner. The key is to appreciate what we’ve got right now and yet still dream and plan. That way we’ll be a little happier now than if we’re constantly looking to the future, where happiness apparently lies.

And don’t go thinking it’s all right for me; it’s not. I too, need to lose a few pounds, certainly get fitter, get more stuff (and how we all love stuff). But I also value the way I am and appreciate what I’ve got right now because—and this is the secret—it is real. The me that is now is the real me; the future one isn’t yet born and may not happen. (You mean I might not lose that extra weight or get fitter? Yep, right.) And the stuff I have now is at least real, tangible, solid. Dreams are great, but reality is fine, too.

D R E A M S A R E G R E AT , B U T

R E A L I T Y I S F I N E , TO O .

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Get On with Life—

It’s Whooshing Past

Every day, every second, life is whooshing past at an alarming rate. And it goes on getting faster and faster. I once asked an 84-year-old man if life slowed down as you got older. His reply was unprintable, but he explained to me in no uncertain terms that no, it didn’t. It carried on getting faster. I sometimes wonder if we aren’t picking up speed for take-off, if you know what I mean—a sort of trial run before we leave. But the Rule, if you want your life to be successful, happy, fulfilled, meaningful, jam-packed with adventure and reward, is to simply get on with it. And I’m sure you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this.

So, how do we get on with it? Well, the easiest way is the same way we would get on with anything else we knew we had to do. We start with setting a target (a goal, an objective), make a plan, formulate a set of actions to take us toward the target, and then, well, get on with it.

Imagine you were a project manager for a big company that wanted you to organize, say, an exhibition. You would begin with clarifying what you wanted from the exhibition, what it was supposed to achieve (for example, to sell 100 items or to give away free gifts or to drum up 20 new customers). This gives you something to aim for. Then you would formulate your plan—booking the stand, arranging the staff, getting stuff printed, etc. With the plan in place, you would work out what you needed and then get on with it.

Life isn’t so different. It’s a project—albeit on a vast scale and much more important than an exhibition stand.

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I’m sure you get the idea. You have to get on with life, but it is so easy to wallow if you don’t have a goal (or goals) and a plan. It’s very easy for the days to blur into each other if you’ve no idea where you are going or what you want to achieve.

None of this, by the way, need take away any spontaneity from life if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t regard life like a work project, honestly. I do see it as a challenging, rewarding, exciting, rich and diverse, unexpected, and rather fantastic experience. But you have to give it a bit of thought if you want to get the best out of it. Without that thought, the days will blur. Without that thought, it’s easy to find yourself adrift—

floating downstream.

I used to think that whatever turned up would be fine. I was a sort of adventurous fatalist—I would be ready for whatever challenge was thrown my way. But, increasingly, I see the huge advantage of having a goal and working toward that rather than drifting aimlessly. It makes it so much easier for good things to happen.

YO U H AV E TO G I V E I T

A B I T O F T H O U G H T I F YO U

WA N T TO G E T T H E B E S T

O U T O F I T.

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Be Consistent

I had an email from a reader of the first edition of this book, who pointed out that an example I gave in one of the Rules in this book was in breach of another Rule. Nope, I’m not going to tell you which one. You’ll have to work it out for yourself like he did.

In my defense, I’d like to point out that this means I was following the Rule about not being perfect. However, there’s no denying that the reader in question had me figured out and, as he observed (very politely I must say), it’s important to be consistent.

Well, I’ve never been arrogant (or stupid) enough to claim that I never break any of the Rules. After all, they’re Rules that I know work from observing other people, not a list of personal preferences. So I try to follow them as closely as I can, and the older I get the more often I get, it right. But that’s not the same as always.

However, we certainly should aim to be consistent about following whatever Rules we decide to live by (the ones in this book and/or any others). There’s no point in choosing a path if you’re just going to wander off it at whim.

I find that my children are a big help here*. (If you don’t have kids, you’ll have to work that bit harder to identify your own inconsistencies.) If you’re debating a point of disagreement with the children (yes, that is indeed a euphemism), you can rely on them to draw your attention to any inconsistencies in your line of argument, or indeed any inconsistencies between what you’re telling them now and what you did yourself

* See! I always knew they’d come in handy for something.

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yesterday. It’s a fine line between inconsistency and hypocrisy, and the more clear we are about what we believe and why, the easier it is to be consistent in what we think, say, and do.

For example, suppose your son points out that you criticize him if he complains about classmates behind their backs, but you were moaning about a colleague on the phone to your mom last night. You may need to think about the difference between complaining and having a much-needed moan, and then make sure you’re consistent—with yourself as well as your child—about what you allow.

And here’s another thing. It makes life easier for everybody else if you are consistent. Erratic people are difficult to live with and be around. So are moody people. If your friends and family don’t know how you’ll react to the same event or suggestion from one day to the next, you make them live their lives on edge. Unless you are a hermit. I’m not talking about being predictable and boring. Your ideas and activities and enthusiasms can be wonderfully unpredictable and fascinating. It’s just your behavior toward other people that needs to be reliable and consistent. You have the potential to make people’s lives richer and easier and better—or darker and trickier and more exhausting. Which do you choose?

T H E R E ’ S N O P O I N T I N

C H O O S I N G A PAT H I F

YO U ’ R E J U S T G O I N G TO

WA N D E R O F F I T AT W H I M .

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Dress Like Today Is Important

Today is important. It is the only day you’ve got that has some reality to it. Why shouldn’t you treat it as important? It is. So dress like it matters. And no, I don’t mean in the way my mother always used to tell me, “Make sure you’ve got clean underwear on; you never know when you’ll get run over by a bus.” I loved this as a kid. I couldn’t see how important clean underwear would really be if I were lying there in the road.

And I used to imagine how, if my parents got me to the hospital in time and the doctor stripped away my torn and blood-soaked trousers, he’d look down and gasp in horror,

“Don’t look! This kid has got yesterday’s pants on—get him out of here!”

Look, a lot of these Rules are about conscious choice, conscious decisions, conscious awareness. Those I have observed who seem to have a handle on this thing called life are conscious people. They are awake and aware. They know what they are doing and where they are going. If you, too, want your life to be more than a set of random events that happen to you and instead make it a series of stimulating challenges and rewarding and enriching experiences, then you, too, have to be conscious.

And you do this by greeting each day as if it is important. You get up and shower/wash/shave/put on make-up/comb hair/brush teeth, etc. to make you look good, feel good, smell good. And then you dress smartly, cleanly, snappily, stylishly, as if you were going to a job interview or a birthday party or an outing. If you dress for each day expectantly, importantly, smartly, then each day will become that.

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People will react differently to you if you dress as if it matters—and you’ll react differently to that different reaction.

It’s an upward spiral. I have to stress we’re not talking formal here; you don’t have to be buttoned up and uncomfortable.

Just dress as if it matters.

But what about weekends, I hear you ask, surely we can relax then? Of course, but it doesn’t mean you should let yourself go. On weekends you’re going to see friends and/or family (unless you spend every weekend totally alone), and they, too, deserve to see you looking good, and as if they matter. Hey, not even your friends want to see you slovenly, dishevelled, untidy, uncared for. But this bit is really about you. If you greet each day as if it is important, then it will do wonders to your self-esteem, your self-respect, your self-confidence.

But, hey, I don’t want you taking anything on trust. Try dressing like today matters and see what happens. If you don’t perk up and feel completely different within a fortnight, then go back to your old ways and to hell with this Rule. But I can guarantee you’ll feel great and face each day livelier and more energetic and happier.

If you adopt the conscious approach to living, you’ll find it quite hard to consciously dress down.

P E O P L E W I L L R E ACT

D I F F E R E N T LY TO YO U

I F YO U D R E SS A S I F

I T M AT T E R S .

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Have a Belief System

No, no, no, this isn’t where I begin a religious rant or a New Age indoctrination process to welcome you into a strange cult.

This is where I simply say that those who have a belief system to sustain them through times of crisis and trouble do better than those who don’t. It’s that simple.

Now what do we mean by a belief system? Ah, that’s harder to put into words. I guess a belief system is what you think the world is all about—the universe and everything. It’s what you believe will happen to you after you die. It’s what or who you pray to when the night is dark and you are in trouble. Those who have a handle on this curious thing called life seem to be the ones who have worked out, satisfactorily for themselves at least, what they think it’s all about. And it doesn’t seem to matter what it is they think that is. You could believe in God or many gods, or you could believe in something or someone else—maybe that we’re all the product of some weird alien experiment, or you might be a fervent flat earther—it doesn’t matter. Well, I guess it will to you, but as long as you have a belief system, you will do better than those who don’t. Being a seeker is not conducive to having a happy life.

I know you’re going to say, “But what if I haven’t been able to find an answer and don’t have a belief system? What am I supposed to do then?” Why, carry on looking, I guess, but do try to wrap this one up pretty quick, as it’s an important Rule. Put aside some time to think about it, and make sure you put it high on your list of priorities.

I hope you notice I’m not giving you any advice here as to what sort of belief system to have. Any one will do as long as R U L E 2 7

it supports you in times of trouble, answers your questions about your life and what you mean to the universe, and gives you comfort.

You have to be comfortable with your belief system; it’s no good having one in which a vengeful and violent deity watches your every move and terrifies you into submission.

(Sorry, if you’ve already got one like that, you might need to rethink it.)

You might want to think about whether your belief system makes you feel guilt-ridden or unhappy, asks you to cut bits off your body or in any way mutilate or change your appear-ance, excludes anyone else on the basis of their race or sex, or needs any formal ritual to bring you the comfort it promises.

For some, the ideal belief system won’t have any sort of figure-head who needs worshipping, obeying, or submitting to in any way, shape, or form. This is personal, but it’s worth thinking about what you are OK with.

A belief system has to be that—a belief. You don’t have to prove it to anyone else, justify it, [or] show it (see Rule 1), convert anyone else to it, or preach to the world in general.

You may feel free to take bits from all other belief systems to build your own. But if you can, have something.

YO U D O N ’ T H AV E TO P R OV E

I T TO A N YO N E E L S E ,

J U S T I F Y I T ,

[ O R ] S H OW I T.

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Leave a Little Space for

Yourself Each Day

Most people think they get this, but most people might be wrong. You may think you have a little quality time each day for yourself, but I bet you don’t. You see, even in our time alone, we spend so much of it worrying about others, caring for our family, friends, and loved ones, that there is very little left over entirely for ourselves. What I am proposing isn’t revolutionary or difficult or extreme. In fact, it’s pretty easy. Just leave a little space for yourself each day. Perhaps only ten minutes (ideally half an hour) put aside and devoted entirely to yourself. Selfish? You bet. Of course it is and justifiably so—

you are the captain, the engine, the driving force, the motivator, the rock. You need that time to regenerate, renew, invigorate yourself. You need that downtime to recharge and repair. If you don’t, you aren’t taking on fresh fuel. Your engine will run down, and so will you.