Simple Rules For A Better Life

1-Live within your means.
2-Promptly return everything you borrow.
3-Don't blame other people
(until they really did ill by you).
4-When you make a mistake admit it.
5-Give unworn clothing to charity
(bin clothing too worn to sell).
6-Listen more, talk less, use reason in speech.
7-Do good things naturally and discreetly,
(be modest but open about having done them).
8-Minimize your need for secrecy.
9-Walk 30 mins every day.
10-Strive for excellence, forget perfection.
11-Be punctual.
12-Don't make excuses to yourself  (other people
will see through them faster than you will).
13-If you need to argue, both be calm and use logic.
14-Be organized.
15-Be kind to unkind people
(whilst stopping them be cruel to you).
16-Take time to be alone.
17-Let people cut into queues ahead of you
when you have the time and they don't.
18-Cultivate good manners
(swear if you must but without anger).
19- Accept that life will not always be fair.
20-Go as many days as you can without criticizing people.
21-Know when to say less and make it sound enough.
22-Learn from the past, plan for the future, live in the present.
23-The small stuff is the small stuff, don't stress on it.

If you can do any or all of the above
without resorting to fear, defensiveness,
or a pietism that makes you seem falsely genteel,
then you will have gone beyond 'being an achiever'.

   

Death, Taxation And Misrepresentation

With its worship of weapons and militarism
through glossy videos the new militant Islam
makes the rhetorical patriotic fervour
of the USA seem weak, in media terms.
This makes me almost nostalgic
for a much cooler past-one that now
is barely understood-the time when Islam
meant 'submission' as much as it does now,
but for those born outside of Islam
(as many faith minorities were) a person
would have kept to their faith, and kept their place
outside The Islamic State, by maintaining
their place of worship and paying their taxes.
A faith is for life, Caesar's due is always limited.