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ro_in_motion's avatar

What are your 10 Universal Rules for Living?

Asked by ro_in_motion (2258points) April 10th, 2012

The game is this: You are handed a piece of paper and asked to put down your 10 Rules for Living. It will be sent off to space to be picked up by some future alien race. The 10 Commandments won’t work as you have only room for the 10 Rules and no explanations allowed. Your audience may never have heard about God nor understand what is meant by God.

What are your 10 Universal Rule for Living?

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24 Answers

ucme's avatar

1: Peace, unity, love & having fun…let’s move on, coz it’s time to groove on, hear the drummer get wicked.
2: Don’t make rule #1 so long next time.
10: No more rules sucker.

tom_g's avatar

Not sure I completely understand this, but I’ll give it a shot…

List<UniversalRule> rules = new List<UniversalRule>();

for(int i=0; i<10; i++)
{
rules.Add(null);
}

syz's avatar

Be a good person.
Do the best you can at anything you do.
Find balance in your life; make time for fun.

Pretty much any other items I can come up with fall under number one (be there for your friends, take care of those weaker than yourself, speak for those who cannot, do what you know is right even if it’s not popular, don’t accept rumor – seek information for yourself).

JLeslie's avatar

1. Treat others as you want to be treated
2. Family is important
3. Do what you want to do while you can do it
4. Appreciate how you look now, because in ten years you will look back and think you were an idiot for being so critical.
5. Don’t be greedy
6. Pay it forward, help others when it is easy for you whenever you can.
7. Treat your body well, be healthy.
8. Always be happy to see the ones you love. Smile, let them know you are happy to simply share the same space with them.
9. Praise those you care about, support their goals and efforts.
10. Pursue your dreams

ro_in_motion's avatar

@tom_g Since your program is less than 10 lines, it’s perfectly acceptable. For non-coding Fluthers, Tom has created 10 empty lines of Universal Rules. :)

marinelife's avatar

Have no rules.

thorninmud's avatar

Pay attention
Pay more attention
Repeat the following on at least 3 occasions daily: “I really don’t know shit”
Be easily satisfied
Seek the well-being of others
Don’t waste
Forgive
Wonder
Love
Let it all go

ragingloli's avatar

1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence!
2. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams!
3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit!
4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates!
5. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek!
6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires!
7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all!
8. Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!
9. Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!
10. Hail Satan!

Ron_C's avatar

You don’t need 10 rules all you need is :
1. Treat others the way you expect to be treated.
2. Cause no harm.

They apply to everyone and all situations including how you interact with your neighbors, politics, and the environment.

Rock2's avatar

1 – 10 Don’t screw up.

Ponderer983's avatar

Life’s a bitch and then you die, so fuck the world and let’s get high!

Rarebear's avatar

I go by the rules of Zombieland
http://www.zombielandrules.com/

ro_in_motion's avatar

@ragingloli Of course, the aliens won’t know who Satan is but you make him sound like I’d like to hang with him. ;)

flutherother's avatar

1 Change socks at least 3 times a week
2. Have respect for alien life forms
3 Treat all extraterrestrials with dignity
4. Be careful with thermonuclear weapons
5 Create one original and beautiful thing every year
6 Early to bed and early to rise
7 Moderation in all things
8 Don’t drink too much tea before going to bed
9 Stop wrecking the planet
10 Don’t tell others what they should do
11 Arbitrary rules can be broken.

JLeslie's avatar

@flutherother I really like your 7,8, and 9.

SmashTheState's avatar

My father gave me three pieces of advice when I was a child which I have always remembered, and found applicable to so many situations.

1) Never pay for sex. There are enough people out there who will put out for anyone or anything that as long as you’re not choosy, you need never pay for it. While I am asexual, I find the principle applicable to a good many things in life. There’s almost always someone willing to give for free whatever it is you need… as long as you’re not choosy.

2) Don’t wait for the fight to start. Sucker punch him. Life ain’t fair, and good thing, too, or I’d have been the recipient of a lot of beatings over the years which I was able to otherwise avoid. If you know there’s going to be a fight and there’s no way to avoid it, don’t grab the guy and dance with him, don’t exchange insults; just smash him right on the button as hard and as fast as you can. And again, this rule is applicable to everything from lawsuits to public relations: don’t wait for a “fair fight” to develop, because you might lose. Hit hard, and hit first.

3) You don’t need to win every fight, just get at least one good one in so they remember you next time. I can’t stress how important this rule is. It’s the solution to nearly every conflict you will ever face in your life.

I’m 6’ 5” and the size and shape of a refrigerator. I have always been bigger than everyone else. My parents were worried that I might hurt someone, so they taught me to be a pacifist, never to raise my hand to another person. As a result, when we moved to a tough neighbourhood, I began getting beatings every single day. Eventually the beatings became so severe and sustained, with multiple people surrounding me and kicking me as I laid on the ground, curled foetally, that I required a police escort to and from school. When my parents asked some of the kids beating me why they did it, they answered, “Because he doesn’t tell the teachers and he doesn’t fight back.”

That night, my father – who had been an amateur boxer – brought me down in the basement and told me, “You’re going to learn how to fight.”

I told him I didn’t want to fight… so he punched me in the face.

Crying, I asked him why he’d punched me.

“If you’d had your guard up, I wouldn’t have been able to hit you. Put your guard up.”

I put my guard up. And he hit me again.

“If you’d had your guard up properly, I wouldn’t have been able to hit you. Put your guard up.”

And when, in time, I had learned everything he could teach me about fighting, he set me loose to hunt down the kids who had beaten me. Over time, I took on each and every one of them. Often I was facing older and larger kids, and in numbers, but my father told me that I didn’t have to actually win the fight. I just had to make sure that I landed at least one really good punch so that the next time they wanted to pick on me, they’d think twice and find an easier target. If I came home with a fat lip or a black eye or a broken nose, my father would ask, “Did you get a good one in?” And if I admitted that I hadn’t, he’d say, “Then I have no sympathy,” turn on his heel, and walk away.

Over the years, this experience has given me success after success as an activist. When I’m organizing, I’m facing forces which are infinitely stronger, richer, larger, and more influential than us. But in order to win, I don’t need to beat them, I only have to put up a fight good enough that I bloody their nose or blacken their eye so that they become wary about tangling with us in the future.

People could do far worse than to follow these rules.

Paradox25's avatar

I don’t have ten universal rules lined up but thinking about this (and they’ve changed over the years) I could post the most important ones to myself in a pinch.

1) Treat others as you would want to be treated yourself.
2) My rights end where somebody else’s begin.
3) Respect is a two way street.
4) Always be yourself and learn to be confident with it.
5) Most self help and dating advice is garbage.
6) Do not murder
7) Do not steal
8) Respect others property/possessions
9) Do not shove religious beliefs down another’s throat.
10) Live and let live.

Blondesjon's avatar

1. Don’t forget to breathe.
2. Don’t forget to eat.
3. When motor vehicles are present be sure your way is clear before proceeding.
4. At all costs avoid bullets traveling in your direction at high velocity.
5. Do not get lit on fire.
6. Do not try to slap a bear’s nuts.
7. Don’t ever, EVER do that one thing again. You know what it is.
8. Avoid falling from great heights,
9. Try not to stay underwater for any longer than you can hold your breath.
10. If a person takes a bite of something, says, Ugh. This tastes like shit, and then offer you a bite, don’t take it.

Hawaii_Jake's avatar

1. Breathe continuously
2. Eat when hungry
3. Fornicate often
4. Find shelter
5. Sleep nightly
6. Poop and pee daily as needed
7. Exercise daily
8. Love friends and family as appropriate
9. Love yourself
10. Work at what you enjoy the most

ro_in_motion's avatar

@SmashTheState I am new here and don’t really know you. However, I am quite sure you won’t like this but I really feel that your post puts you in a horrid light. I am not sure you’re physically fighting as an activist. If so, I feel sad for you.

As a child I was incredibly uncoordinated, had a speech impediment, and was , by far, the smartest kid in my class. I was a walking target. Unlike you, I never had to be mean to anyone.

As an adult, I continue to be ‘un-mean’. There’s simply no cause to be.

What I discovered early on was that being nice actually works. I find that talking with someone calmly and politely gets me more progress than when I am mean. I am not a pushover: I have very strong, well-tempered beliefs. I win far more than I lose and I more often than not have new friends who were on the opposite side when we first hashed things out.

I don’t want people afraid of me. I want them to know that I am serious about my goals and win them over to my side.

It has worked for me. Peace.

Berserker's avatar

@ragingloli Marilyn Manson says, all your Satanic Church are belong to me.

1 Opinion isn’t fact.
2 Don’t talk about Fight Club.
3 Bitch about food only when you have none.
4 Stop worrying about what people think of you. Chances are, most don’t even give a shit about you, anyway.
5 Number four is only applicable if they’re trying to hurt or use you. Learn Kung Fu.
6 Don’t rape kids, don’t sell drugs, don’t cut in line.
7 Don’t pollute. (these rules are contained within a discarded bottle)
8 Live and let live, dammit.
9 Don’t be a dick.
10 Shut the hell up.

augustlan's avatar

1 Do the right thing, period.
1A If unable to determine what the right thing is, choose the thing that causes the least harm.

rooeytoo's avatar

Only 9 for me and they are not original but if I really work on them, they get me through almost anything okay!

1. Just for today, I will try to live through this day only,
and not tackle my whole life problem
at once. I can do something for twelve hours
that would appall me if I felt that I had to
keep it up for a lifetime.

2. Just for today, I will be happy. This assumes to
be true what Abraham Lincoln said, that
“most folks are as happy as they make up
their minds to be.”

3. Just for today, I will try to strengthen my mind.
I will study. I will learn something useful.
I will not be a mental loafer. I will read
something that requires effort, thought and
concentration.

4. Just for today, I will adjust myself to what is,
and not try to adjust everything to my own
desires. I will take my “luck” as it comes,
and fit myself to it.

5. Just for today, I will exercise my soul in three
ways: I will do somebody a good turn, and
not get found out. I will do at least two
things I don’t want to—just for exercise.
I will not show anyone that my feelings are
hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not
show it

6. Just for today, I will be agreeable. I will look
as well as I can, dress becomingly, talk low,
act courteously, criticize not one bit, not
find fault with anything and not try to improve
or regulate anybody except myself.

7. Just for today, I will have a program. I may not
follow it exactly, but I will have it. I will
save myself from two pests: hurry and indecision.

8. Just for today, I will have a quiet half hour all
by myself, and relax. During this half hour,
sometime, I will try to get a better perspective
of my life.

9. Just for today, I will be unafraid. Especially I
will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful,
and to believe that as I give to the world, so
the world will give to me.

-Kenneth L. Holmes

FutureMemory's avatar

@ro_in_motion I think he meant it mostly figuratively.

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