The Rules for a
Long and Happy Life
Robert
A. Hall
The
most important ingredient of a long, happy and successful life is
self-discipline.
You
also need to develop resilience and tenacity. Without these three things, your
life will likely be poor, short, and unhappy. I received them in Marine Corps
Boot Camp, Parris Island, in 1964. If you lack the fortitude or foresight to
serve in the military, you need to get them someplace else.
Discipline yourself to maintain a normal weight. Obesity is the
second largest cause of premature death.
Discipline yourself to get regular exercise. You’ll feel better
and live longer.
The
most valuable thing you can own is a good reputation.
Take
responsibility for your actions.
Stop
whining, complaining and criticizing. No one will want to be around you.
Stop
blaming others. The person who is responsible for over 90% of your problems you
see in the mirror every morning.
Always
give more than expected. Always do more than your share.
If
you once tell a major lie, no one will fully trust you again. If you regularly
tell lies, no one will believe you even when you tell the truth. The same thing
if you steal.
Don’t use recreational drugs. And use alcohol in moderation or
not at all. Addiction always leads to poverty, broken families, ruined lives
and often to an early grave.
Don’t smoke or use tobacco. On average smokers die ten years before
non-smokers. It is the largest cause of premature death.
Get enough sleep. Most people need eight to nine hours. But
don’t waste the whole day in bed.
Be slow to take offense, and never on little things, especially
those involving taste.
Be slow to anger and quick to forgive.
Everyone has bad days, but don’t inflict them on others. Greet
everyone you meet with a cheery hello. Even if they don’t return the greeting, you’ll feel better.
Don’t walk around studying your smart phone (or at mealtimes if
you are with other people). You’ll miss communicating with the real people you
meet, you’ll miss seeing the world around you, and you might become a statistic—pedestrian
deaths have tripled, due mostly to inattention.
Be very careful in choosing the person you marry. It can bring
you many years of happiness or many years of misery.
Get
your hands dirty. Many worthwhile things—Fixing a car, gardening, cleaning a
weapon, baking—require it.
Do
the disagreeable tasks first. Procrastinators suffer twice. Once in the agony
of anticipating the task, and again when they are forced to do it.
Here’s
your all-purpose job description or school, for work and for life. “Whatever
needs to be done.”
Be
the most reliable person you know. Under-promise and over-perform.
Be
kind. It makes the world a better place and makes you happier.
Be
punctual. If you’re not 15 minutes early, you’re late. People who are
chronically late are saying, “My time is valuable, yours is not.”
Banish
“It’s not my job” and “We’ve always done it that way” from your lips.
If you behave in a meretricious manner do not complain if people
treat you as a meretricious person.
Every day, life presents us with choices between what we should
do and what we want to do. Do the “Should Dos” first 90% of the time. People
who always do what they want first have sad, poor and unhappy lives.
Don’t always live in the “Now.” You may not believe it,
but tomorrow always comes.
Plan for the future. Yes, people, circumstances and plans
change, but at least you will have thought about it.
People change as much between 18 and 28 as they do between eight
and 18. But few 18-year-olds realize this. Which leads them to make bad
decisions.
Doing things for others is more rewarding than doing things for
yourself.
Happy people always care about something larger than themselves.
It might be family, job, church, community, country or the US Marines. Often it
is several things.
Pick up after yourself daily. You will live in cleaner, neater
surroundings and if you leave it for later, it will become an overwhelming job.
If you were born in the United States, or in fact in any of the
capitalist democracies in the west, you won the lottery. The free market system
has given the mass of people here by far the highest standard of living in
history and in the world today. Of course, many people don’t take advantage of
it. But if you want something besides capitalism, throw away all those consumer
goods—smart phones, computers, cars and so on—that were inventions and produced
under capitalism, and move to a country where socialism has given people a good
life.
Be
slow to borrow and quick to repay.
Be slow to lend. You will find there are people who will
convince themselves that they deserved the money and will become sullen and
hostile if asked to pay it back. You expect gratitude and you get attitude.
Be
slow to take offense. Those people who are “perpetually offended” are a trial
to everyone around them and are usually deeply unhappy.
If a couple is having problems, having a baby will not make
those problems vanish and bring them closer together. Usually it will make them
worse.
Large tattoos and face piercings do not make a person more
attractive.
I can’t tell you what to believe, but according to many studies,
people who believe in God are happier, because it gives their life meaning.
Studies also show that people in small towns are happier than
people in cities.
Everything
needs maintenance, cars, homes, people. Maintenance is time consuming and
costly. But if you don’t do it, it will be more time consuming and costly in
the future. Tomorrow always comes.
Ranting
and raving rarely changes the person’s behavior or the situation for the
better.
Make
your bed every day. It instills discipline and you’ll feel better about your surroundings.
“Thank
you” and “Please” are not old fashioned, out of date, or constructs of the
patriarchy. They are the essential grease that reduces friction and makes
civilization work.
Learn
to say, “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
If
you punish people for giving you their honest opinions, you will be surrounded
by “yes-men” and will have no warning of approaching disasters.
“Needs”
and “Wants” are not the same things.
Read
at least two books a month (I read three to five). Reading well and widely is
highly correlated with success.
You
are not entitled to anything paid for by money other people earned working. Be
grateful for anything you get.
Respect
must be earned. It cannot be given.
Some
people are poor because of circumstances, like illness or accident. But in
America most people are poor because they made bad decisions. There are four
rules if you don’t want to be poor: 1. Don’t marry until you have the education
or training for a career. 2. Don’t have babies before you are married, in a
stable, financially-secure relationship. 3. Get a job, even a bad one, and work
full-time until you get a better one. 4. Don’t get addicted to drugs or
alcohol.
Every
time you get in a car, you are at risk of dying. But if you follow four rules,
you can reduce your chance of being killed in an accident by about 90%. 1.
Always wear your seat belt. 2. Don’t speed. 3. Don’t drive if you’re are
impaired by alcohol, drugs or fatigue. 4. Don’t drive distracted by a phone or
other device. (And don’t ride with a driver who violates these rules.) One or
more of these factors are involved in almost every fatal crash.
That’s
it. Having a happy life is really simple, but it’s hard to discipline yourself
to follow these rules. Look at the many unhappy people you know and see if you
think they did.
*****
Robert
A. Hall served as a Marine in Vietnam, for fire terms in the Massachusetts
Senate, and for 31 years as an association executive. He holds a BA in
government, and MEd in history, and has 12 books in print on Amazon. He retired
in 2013 due to pulmonary fibrosis for a lung transplant. He now works part-time
at the Madison VA hospital, interviewing veterans and writing up their life
stories for their records and their families.
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