Rules for Aging: Resist Normal Impulses, Live Longer, Attain Perfection

Roger Rosenblatt

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000 - Humor - 148 pages

Acclaimed and beloved prize-winning essayist Roger Rosenblatt has commented on most of the trends and events of our time. His columns in Time magazine and his commentaries on PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer have made him a household word and a trusted friend of millions. Now, at the dawn of a new millennium, Rosenblatt offers the American people a survival manual-fifty-four gems of funny, brilliant, wise, indispensable advice. It doesn't matter: Whatever you think matters-doesn't. Follow this rule, and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late, or early; if you are having a bad hair day, or a no hair day; if your boss looks at you cockeyed, or if you are cockeyed; if you don't get that promotion, or if you do. It doesn't matter. Nobody is thinking about you: Yes, I know, you are certain that your friends are becoming your enemies; that your grocer, garbageman, clergyman, sister-in-law, and your dog are all of the opinion that you have put on weight. You are also sure that everyone spends two-thirds of every day commenting on your moral disintegration, denigrating your work, plotting your murder. I promise you: Nobody is thinking about you. They are thinking about themselves-just like you. A book to savor, a book to keep, and a book for all ages.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - m.belljackson - LibraryThing

Published in 2000, Rules has aged well. It offers light and pleasurable and rewarding reading beginning with Rosenblatt's first, and likely most enduring and important Rule: "It doesn't matter." This ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Cheryl_in_CC_NV - LibraryThing

Drivel. Like the first year of a bad blog. Many rules contradicted each other. Many were obviously dismissed by the author himself, the book being evidence. Many are mean-spirited. If one has lived to ...

Contents

• It doesnt matter: 1
• Nobody is thinking about you: 3
• Let bad enough alone: 5
• Ignore your enemy or kill him: 11
• Boo yourself off the stage: 15
• Yes you did: 17
• After the age of 30 it is unseemly to blame ones parents for ones life: 19
• If something is boring you it is probably you: 21
• Stay clear of anyoneother than a clergymanwho refers to God more than once in an hour: 23
• Swine rules: 25
• Listen for the word Great: 29
• Listen for the question What are you talking about?: 31
• Appearance is frequently reality: 33
• Be not witty neither shalt thou be clever: 35
• Pursue virtue but dont sweat it: 41
• Do not go to your left: 45
• Everyones work is magnificent: 49
• Consult everyone on everything and dont forget to send ingratiating notes: 51
• Strife is better than loneliness: 55
• And loneliness is better than Eggs Benedict: 57
• Male and female compatibility rules: 59
• Run when you hear any of the following in a sentence: 61
• Never miss an opportunity to do nothing: 63
• Do not go for Cyranos nose: 65
• That couldnt be a book: 69
• Do not keep company with people who speak of careers: 71
• Just because the person who criticizes you is an idiot doesnt make him wrong: 73
• Never go to a cocktail party and in any case do not stay more than 20 minutes: 75
• Envy no oneever: 77
• Believe everyonealways: 79
• Do not attempt to improve anyone especially when you know it will help: 81
• If they tell you that its a long shotit is: 83
• Never bring news of slander to a friend: 85
• Its not about you: 87
• Never say any of the following: 91
• If you want to keep a man honest never call him a liar: 93
• The waitress is not waiting for you: 95
• Push the wheel forward: 97
• Dress for duress: 101
• A long and happy life lasts five minutes: 103
• Never work for anyone more insecure than yourself: 105
• The unexamined life lasts longer: 107
• No they dontand so what?: 109
• Abjure fame but avoid obscurity: 111
• Fast and steady wins the race: 115
• To thine own self be trueunless you would like to be someone else: 117
• Culture rules: 119
• If its just a teenyweeny bit wrongdestroy it: 121
• Never think on vacation: 123
• Change no more than oneeighth of your life at a time: 125
• Expect gratitude from everybody for everything: 127
• Live in the past but dont remember too much: 129
• Never do it for the money: 131
• Remember the Amana: 133
• If you are strange enough they will come: 135
• Never light the fire from the top: 137
• The game is played away from the ball: 139
• Apologize reconcile give help: 141

Bibliographic information

• Title: Rules for Aging: Resist Normal Impulses, Live Longer, Attain Perfection
• Author: Roger Rosenblatt
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000
• ISBN: 0151006598, 9780151006595
• Length: 148 pages
• Subjects: Humor / Form / Essays