1

"Treat Other People How You Want To Be Treated!"

Yeah, I'm debunking the Golden Rule. I don't even give a shit. "Treat others how you want to be treated" works great if you happen to have the exact same values. But guess what? The guy who's always screaming at you the moment he doesn't get his way? He's doing it because that is in fact how he wants to be treated. That's how he thinks human interaction works.

This is also the mantra of every puritanical scold. "Well if I was dressed like a whore, I'd want someone to tell me!"

So how about we tweak this to:

Figure out how other people want to be treated, and go from there.

It can get complicated. You know that friend who you're constantly bailing out of a crisis? I'm going to tell you a secret: It's very possible that they like being in crisis.

But that brings us to ...

2

"Be Kind!"

Shit, I'm already realizing that I'm probably not going to get a public speaking tour out of this. My reasoning here is that the world is so short on kindness that when we finally run into it, we tend to be way too forgiving. "Don't be so hard on her, she was trying to do the right thing!"

3

"Listening Makes All The Difference!"

Here's an example of why this advice is bullshit:

The average person who says they're a vegetarian actually eats about one serving of meat a day. About 60 percent of self-described vegetarians will admit in surveys that they've eaten meat in the last 24 hours (a third of them say they usually do so when drunk). And an astounding 84 percent of vegans and vegetarians eventually go back to eating meat. Which is to say that everyone is lying, just ... all of the goddamned time.

Oh, sure, listening definitely matters. What most people want is for you to listen to them, even if you don't actually do anything to help. But if you want to understand others and thus navigate this scary world of ours, the rule should be:

Carefully watching what people do makes all the difference.

4

"Speak From The Heart!"

I guess this just means "Be honest," and no, my counter isn't "Lying can fix almost any problem!" (Even though that happens to be true.) No, my better advice is,

Learn to read the goddamned room, people.

It doesn't matter what you say. At all. What matters is what the other person hears. People aren't robots, and all words are filtered through a thick layer of mood and context. If someone's convinced you're out to get them, then literally any criticism, no matter how logical and carefully explained, will be heard as "You suck, I rule, I am establishing my dominance over you." If the other person thinks you're incredibly attractive, the only information they'll retain from your exchange is "My crush noticed me!"

If you speak honestly, openly, and clearly and the other person reacts badly because you didn't take five seconds to first consider their state of mind, that's on you.

5

"Follow Your Passion!"

This career advice is pointing out something that's definitely true: If you aren't passionate about your work, it's hard to muster the energy to be really good at it. (Note: Being really good at something takes a fuckload of energy! Way more than you think!) But the reason most people who follow their passion never arrive at their passion is that this advice is incomplete to the point of being wrong.

A better version:

Follow your pain.

That is, figure out what costs you're willing to accept to do the thing you're thinking about doing. If you're passionate about writing poetry for a living, then you have to realize that it pays shit and ask yourself if you're willing to accept the pain of poverty in order to be a poet. If so, go for it! There are other forms of wealth in life! Otherwise, you'll be tying yourself in knots trying to always have it both ways. Passion, by nature, doesn't take into account how the economy works.

Learning this lesson was a hard road for me. Specifically, I had to read this article giving me this very advice, and then I thought, "I'm going to share that with people!" Jesus, that's not going to work on the speaking tour. I need to make up an inspirational backstory, don't I?

6

"Stop And Smell The Roses!"

This is advice that's popular among middle-aged professionals who are afraid that in the course of pursuing their careers, they forgot to raise their children. I don't think this is the big problem right now for most of you. My alternative:

7

"Don't Let The Haters Get You Down!"

We live in a magical era when you can post a picture of your dog on Reddit, and within five comments have someone say that they hope your dog dies, that you die, and that racism is very good. It's true that trying to function in such an environment means being able to tune out shitheads, but what you don't realize is that the shitheads were themselves once like you.

When you encounter a shithead, you're usually encountering somebody who is bristling with defense mechanisms, and they built up those defenses to -- you guessed it -- fend off shitheads. That, ultimately, is the true danger of encountering shitheadery -- not the immediate distress of having people curse at you, but the long-term change in your own personality that occurs in response. You know, kind of like how the real damage of 9/11 came from the reaction and not the attacks themselves.

8

"What Matters Is What's In Your Heart!"

This is a case in which people misinterpret the intentions of the original author of the phrase (a copywriter at Newark Refrigerator Magnet Solutions, LLC, who oddly enough later turned out to be the infamous serial killer known as the Jersey Cannibal). I'm sure it's supposed to mean that it doesn't matter how poor or ugly somebody is, what matters is their character.

Unfortunately, how people actually live this advice boils down to, "What matters isn't what I do, but how I feel about it."

Yes, these are the Thoughts and Prayers people. If they've wronged you, they'll feel guilty as hell. The guilt is, in fact, the fee they make themselves pay to do the shitty thing the next time. But their guilt won't lead them to actually try to make things right. "What do you mean you want me to pay back the money I stole? I told you I was sorry!"

9

"Results Are All That Matter!"

Allow me to present the single most damaging yet almost universally believed piece of advice in the world. This is the bullshit spouted by every "loose cannon" cop on TV who violates all the rules but still gets the bad guy ("I don't like your methods, but damn it, you get things done!"), every talentless pseudo-celebrity who insists that their 15 seconds of fame is proof that they were right to drop out of college, every asshole who got rich off one lucky investment and then acts like they're a goddamned wise life guru. "I'm proof this method works!"