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Friday, August 17, 2007

What's missing here?

Found this from Lifehack.org (they expand on these more in the article):

"10 virtually instant ways to improve your life"
  1. Stop jumping to conclusions
  2. Don’t dramatize
  3. Don’t invent rules
  4. Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations
  5. Quit being a perfectionist
  6. Don’t over-generalize
  7. Don’t take things so personally
  8. Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy
  9. Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic
  10. Don’t hang on to the past
Okay, who caught what is missing in this list? Besides the lack of ambiguity in this list of rules, that is. (How can you follow these rules when #3 tells you not to make up rules?)

Here's a hint: what are you supposed to do?

Answer: nothing, apparently.

Don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other thing. These all sound so good, but what are you supposed to do in the end? I'm not sure they know. The kicker is, of course, that we have to do something. Practically everyday I do something. Now some people might argue with that, but upon further review I seem to have done something everyday this past week. I even enjoyed some of it, like going to see Love's Labor Lost at the Houston Shakespeare Festival on a date with my wife. That was something, wasn't it?

May I suggest that the people at Lifehack read some of good ol' Paul's letters. Maybe start in Colossians; I'd suggest
20Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21"Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? 22These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
Colossians 2:20-23 (NIV)
Eh, just a suggestion, guys. Take it as you will.

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4 comments:

Amy said...

That really is rather funny. Obviously if you are going to stop doing that many things, you have to replace those behaviors with something, for example, if you stop jumping to conclusions, what do you do instead?

Chaotic Hammer said...

WARNING: Snarky mode set to FULL.

1. Stop jumping to conclusions
How do you know I'm jumping to conclusions? Don't look now, but you just did.

2. Don’t dramatize
I need to dramatize sometimes. It's likely that the fate of the entire world may depend on my decisions.

3. Don’t invent rules
Especially not stupid rules for improving your life, which typically come in groups of 10 for some reason.

4. Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations
I bet you anything that the pea-brained doofus that came up with this one is your typical busy-body who can't even keep her own house clean.

5. Quit being a perfectionist
I'll make a deal with you. You quit screwing everything up, and I'll quit being a perfectionist.

6. Don’t over-generalize
Tell me about it. Everyone who over-generalizes is a complete idiot.

7. Don’t take things so personally
You have no right to assume that I take things personally. I'm very offended by this.

8. Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy
I have a strong feeling that there's a lot of truth in this one.

9. Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic
Absolutely. We're all going to die anyway, so why be glum?

10. Don’t hang on to the past
Yeah. I still remember that time I held onto the past, and every time I think about it I deeply regret doing it.

euphrony said...

Hey, C-Ham. Nice to hear from you. How was Cali? Grab a beer and catch good movie. Forget you ever read this list.

Chaotic Hammer said...

I reckon that proper etiquette as a blogger would be to return from California and blog about it, instead of going back to my old habit of lingering around other bloggers' comment sections.

Forget you ever read this list.
What list?

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