Tag: how to live

The Morning After Stage of Life: Unsolicited (but sound) Advice

hard partying Wendover

I’ve entered the harsh morning-after stage of my life and I’ve got some solid advice for those who haven’t crashed on the floor of their youth yet to wake up with worms in their mouths and strangers drinking from their sinks:

1.  If you don’t have a strong sense of curiosity, you better cultivate that shit before your brain mummifies in the arid desert of your disinterest.

2.  If you hate insects you but your dearest dream is to become an entomologist – you’ve got some crazy-ass wires not connecting in your head and it’s time to find a new dream.

3.  There is no situation in which giving up your autonomy of person to another person is going to pay off in empowerment and anyone who promises that if you give it up to them you’ll know true love/power/spirituality is lying their power-hungry asses off so they can take your light off of you. Walk away from those assholes and fight like fucking hell to hang onto yourself.

4.  If you’re allergic to shellfish, don’t eat shellfish motherfucker.

5.  Always trust your first instinct.

6.  Sometimes the people who reject you because you’re not perfect have herpes.

7.  The trick to motivating yourself to do things you don’t want to do is realizing that most of the things you don’t want to do aren’t as bad as being shot in the gut by a 9 mm bullet and left to bleed out in an alleyway full of human excrement and cockroaches.

8.  No matter what else is going on in your life or how much things are falling apart – ALWAYS BRUSH YOUR TEETH IN THE MORNING WHEN YOU GET UP AND AGAIN BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP.

9.  Fake mustaches fix nothing. NOTHING.

10.  Always be kind to homeless people. Even if they’re panhandling and you haven’t got any change to give them, look them in the eye, tell them you haven’t got anything and wish them good luck. Smile at them. Statistics can prove that that could be you one day.

11.  The most precious commodity you can possess is the ability to see beauty through people’s vast imperfections, both physical, mental, and spiritual. Walk through your day with the humility of a human who knows its own small shadow and be open to seeing gorgeousness in all the humans you pass. If you can’t see physical beauty in the unconventional faces and bodies, you’re fucked. You’ll never see the hearts and experience inside of them.

12.  Be kind to people who hate board games, they’ll be loyal to you for life if you never pressure them to play and you don’t own a gun.

13.  Everyone has to break at least one promise they’ve made. The human who hasn’t done so simply hasn’t gotten there yet. It’s healthy to feel remorse about it. It’s healthy to move on. Learn to give yourself a fucking break.

14.  If forgiveness isn’t part of your life ethos then you’re a fucking asshole to yourself more than anyone else. This isn’t my first harsh morning on earth and I can tell you that forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give to yourself and to others.

15.  Guilt is useless if you don’t learn from it and move on. It becomes a corrosive self indulgence if you let it take the wheel of your Mustang.

16.  Pretty sure even Jesus curses mosquitoes, so don’t sweat it if you find yourself cursing bankers, double standards, and weak beer.

17.  Always dress and undress in the proper order.

18.  STOP MAKING NOISES THAT MAKE ME FEEL HOMICIDAL.

19.  You feeling horny and no one wants to get funky with your body? MASTERBATE, DON’T RAPE!

20.  You like polka dots and stripes and plaid and you want to wear them all at the same time? YOU’RE PRETTY MUCH MY KIN AT THIS POINT AND IF THAT SCARES YOU – IT REALLY SHOULD!@!(*^&^e$&$#$%%*(&^(*

21.  If you’re in a city where a natural disaster has struck and you aren’t helping the older folks get supplies, I’m pretty much going to have to kill you.

22.  Develop your own yardstick for success. From scratch. Preferably from an organic 50 year old piece of drift wood you found on the beach.

23.  Don’t expect the people who love you to support your crime spree.

24.  If you know how to pirouette, don’t hold back! Do it in the rain, do it in the Walmart parking lot, do it for yourself when you’re alone in your room and in deep despair and your heart is breaking – pirouette your fucking toes off for all of us who can never stand that tall or spin like that.

25.  Write your own eulogy. If you don’t do it someone else will and they’ll find a way to mention gonads even if you don’t have any just because it’s all about them anyway and your spirit can’t rest with that bullshit floating around the pulpit.

25.5  Love. Just love everyone the best you know how, including and especially your absolutely wholly flawed self. You’re beautiful, you freak.