Living a good life is a matter of doing simple things.
- Avoid stupid, obvious errors. Lottery tickets won’t make you a millionaire.
- Do the obvious, right things. Get enough sleep every night, eat healthy food, etc.
- Don’t stop.
That should work. Our fickle Goddess, Fortune, may have a gift for you, but for the things within your control those three rules are sufficient.
If you strive to avoid stupidity, you will develop a sense of how to spot it. You will correct your course of action when you inevitably fall for something. (We all do). In other words, all other principles for living will come from this.
If you strive to do the obvious, right things, you will develop a thirst for knowing what is right. This thirst will keep you pointed in the right direction. And a focus on the obvious will help you stick with impactful, obvious actions and help you avoid spending time and effort on inconsequential matters.
If you keep going, success is inevitable. That is true no matter what Fortune delivers.
This way of life gives Fortune fewer opportunities to give you hand grenades and more opportunities to give you cupcakes.
It’s pretty easy to follow this path, at least for me. Decisions are based on a handful of emotional responses I watch for.
I do stupid stuff or have stupid ideas? The emotions are evident. Laziness or haste indicate an unwillingness to consider the big picture, thereby missing an obvious flaw in my reasoning. A feeling that I’m so clever indicates a possibility that my thinking is flawed. Yes, I’m smart enough and skilled enough to outwit a casino’s odds at the dice table. Watch for these.
Do the obvious right thing? Look for and appreciate the boring, the cliché, the slow. Save money from every paycheck? Boring. Make your bed? Cut Cheetos and Diet Coke out of your diet? Well of course but . . . .
How do you plot the general direction for life? Your compass must point somewhere. How do you choose which way to go?
I remember as a teenager/college kid vowing I would never be like my parents. They had a station wagon and lived in a suburban house. Years later, I had a blinding flash of the obvious: I was married, lived in a suburban house, and had a minivan. And life was good. Very good.
The path blazed by millions of others over hundreds of generations just might be a good path to follow. Don’t worry. There is an infinite universe of fantastic possibilities within even the most prosaic endeavor. You won’t be bored.
Afterthought. Let’s bring this back to personal impact. This is not some self-help book I’m writing here. It’s an exploration with an audience of one: me, the author.
Do the obvious today. There is a job that needs to be finished. It’s bedeviling me. It’s hard, boring work to get it done and shipped. Let’s ship it today. Obvious: do the boring. Sit with a piece of paper and a pen and edit by hand until finished.