Rules for Life: Revision II

1. People are stupid, selfish, and small-minded. Yes, as a whole. Exceptions only serve to prove the rule.




2. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger. That doesn't mean you get to do stupid shit without consequence, because not everyone makes it to category 2, and some of the things you lose you can never get back.

3. If you sit down in a theater too early with more than 3 people, and put your feet up, at least 2 of you will be footrest-hijacked before the previews are over.

   - Unless you stop expecting otherwise, in which case life will take the chance to screw with you.

4. No matter how unique your blend of emotions might be, there is always music to draw it out and help you through it.

5. When discussing the opposite sex, the rule is: Single, attractive, mentally stable - choose two.

6. Everybody lies, usually about the least reasonable - and most important - things. See rule 1.

7. If your neighbors or coworkers do not seem quirky or off-balance, they are almost certainly serial
killers.

8. In regards to rule 7 - 'normal' is a word that applies to statistics, not people. A truly normal person would be a waste of space. Crazy people are way more interesting.

9. Also with regards to rule 7; the quiet, gentle, nice person is the most likely to become a homicidal maniac. There is a price to pay for being kind to stupid people.

10. Hope is the most incredible and the most lethal force in the universe. It will save a drowning man and drown a healthy one. Treat it with caution and respect, and never - never - let someone give up theirs. You don't come back from that.

11. Men and women could communicate extremely effectively if both parties could drop the pretense for ten seconds without feeling like a traitor to their gender.

12. Stolen from Murphy - if everything appears to be going well, you've overlooked something.

13. Horns and a tail are not required to be evil - for reference, investigate insurance companies and lawyers. Evil hides well.

14. No one can drive in inclement weather. The rain/snow/etc erases their memory of basic road rules like, "Don't accelerate hard on ice."

15. Friends who do not discuss politics or religion and who grudgingly agree about everything are not friends. They are acquaintances. Friendship requires the kind of openness that gets you into trouble with everyone else.

16. There isn't really an escape from drama, because some people never got out of high school emotionally. You can, however, tune them out and stop letting it ruin your days.

17. There is no greater tragedy than a parent out-living their child. None.

18. Technology more advanced than, say, a can-opener, knows when you need it to work fast. It chooses these moments to break down and slow down.

19. The phrase, "Hey, watch this." has only ever ended well for the creators of Jackass. Everyone else is on the Darwin list.

20. When two people, particularly women, need to talk to each other about something meaningful, they will talk to everyone else first.

21. Also stolen from elsewhere: No one -needs- alcohol to have fun, that doesn't make you special. But really, why start a fire with flint and sticks when someone has invented the lighter?

22: 80% of car accidents involve a man driving, and 90% of these are caused by a woman.

23: Most of the conflict in the world can be traced back to a lack of sex. Getting laid makes the world better.

24: Contrary to the philosophy expressed in chick flicks, love is more likely to be a harmful force than a helpful one. Love can save you, sure, but it can just as easily kill you.

25: Yes, religion has a tendency to make people small-minded. Ironically, so does science. What's the common thread? Oh, that's right - people. Don't blame God or Logic for the failures of humankind...those are all ours to carry.

26: At any given sports event, at least 70% of the officiating staff must suffer from one of the following: blindness, deafness, severe mental retardation, home team bias, or chronic attention-deficit disorder.

27: In general, the more attractive a person in a workplace is, the less functional they are. Pretty people don't get jobs because they worked really hard - even if they did.

28: Hate Crime is one of the most useless notions ever conceived. There is nothing at all worse about killing a person because they are black/gay/Jewish/etc than killing them because you felt like it. Murder is murder, rape is rape, and trying to blur those lines results in the kind of moral bankruptcy that makes it okay to sympathize with sociopaths. 

To be continued...