How To Ruin Your Life – A Satire

Ben Stein wrote a book several years ago and it is a satire (sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly). He entitled it How to Ruin Your Life. He gives 35 ways to really mess up your life. Let me share a few thoughts with you from Stein.

Here’s how to ruin your life.
1. Don’t learn any self-discipline. “Be a slob,” Stein says. “Don’t make yourself work when you’d rather play… Life is short… Don’t bother to develop any sense of discipline in anything and you’ll be really happy and proud of yourself!”

2. Convince yourself you’re the center of the universe. “You’re the only one who matters in any given situation… Why listen to anyone else’s troubles? Your problems are the ones that make the difference…So what if, after a while, no one wants to talk to you? That’s just proof of what dirt-bags they are.”

3. Never accept any responsibility for anything that goes wrong.

4. Criticize early and often. There’s something wrong with everything and everyone if you look closely enough, and by golly, you have to make it your job to find it first and complain about it loudest… The whole world needs to know that they’re far from perfect.

5. Envy everything; appreciate nothing.

6. Don’t enjoy the simple things in life. Ignore life’s little pleasures… Be miserable about the fact that the world has cheated its only deity…again.

7. Fix anyone and everyone at any time. Believe in your heart that you can do the impossible – change and fix people.

8. Hang out with the wrong crowd. Associate with unlucky, unsuccessful people with revolting habits on a regular basis.

9. Make the people around you feel small. Belittle them on a regular basis, and brag as much as you can about your family, your job, your car, and the people you know.

10. Keep score. This is about letting the universe know that you’re owed a better deal.

11. Remember that no one else counts. You came from the womb perfect, without any need for human companionship or assistance.

12. Don’t clean up after yourself.

13. Have no respect for age or experience.

14. Do it your way. The rest of the world has to adjust to you. You’re the Messiah of doing your own thing. All hail!

Thank you Ben Stein. I simply call it “Meism”. It will ruin your life.