She writes (among other suggestions),
Always order one extra dish at a restaurant, an unfamiliar one. You might like it, which would be splendid. If you don’t like it, all you lost was a couple of bucks.
…Go to the party even when you don’t want to. Nine times in 10, you’ll be bored and go home early. But the 10th time, you will have a worthy experience or meet an interesting person.
Sounds like it fits with my own rule for taking risks with high upside and low downside.
Also,
we keep ourselves bored in order to protect ourselves from feeling stupid. This is a bad trade.
That supports my idea of looking for new challenges at work.
I really like this rule:
Don’t just pay people compliments; give them living eulogies.
I enjoyed several other of her rules. I’m guessing that a collection of “n rules for life” from multiple contributors would be a fun book to put together and to read.
….we keep ourselves bored in order to protect ourselves from feeling stupid. This is a bad trade.
Well, and particularly *looking stupid*. People have strong fears of showing incompetence and making fools of themselves. Is this irrational? Well maybe not — not for a competitive, status-seeking social animal where are reputations are important and durable (and gossip is endemic).
One of the problems with ‘rules for life’ lists is they often consist advice to override common human tendencies that (the rules writer believes) are maladaptive. But why would the species have evolved maladpative psychological traits? Chesterton is relevant here, I think — before you knock down that ‘fear of failure and embarrassment’ fence, you’d better understand why it was there in the first place and have a good argument for why it’s no longer needed.
I have not read the book Tribe of Mentors”, by Tim Ferriss, but that’s pretty much what it is.
If you like podcasts, James Altucher enthuses about the book and Ferriss discusses the contents and process of its creation here.
“Always order one extra dish at a restaurant”
Only a DINK would suggest that. 🙂
They are fine rules but I thought the order an extra dish at a restaurant and saving 25% really contradicted each a lot. As father of three kids, I can’t afford to either.
Like a lot of economic liberatorians, her list seems a bit elistist though.