I've always like Ben Franklin's 13 virtues. It's a short list.

TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

>1) Do your work—do it on time and fully, if not early and overabundantly.

I cannot overstate how absolutely hollow it must be that work is your #1 rule of living

The next saddest thing is that the only mention of love is a fucking Machiavelli quote

“35) Give no second chances to anyone who shows disrespect“

This is one of the worst rules I have ever read. Taken literally it can squander a life otherwise well lived.

I like how these kind of lists get us talking and thinking about our own experiences. What do you agree with, not agree with?

“Those who bill by the hour work not for you but for the hour.” Strikes me as cynical. Yes some people can run up the clock, but paying by the hour is also fundamentally the most fair work arrangement. You are asking for someone’s time, you pay for that time.

Flat rate work gets into their own issues. For example, suppose you want your home deep cleaned and someone charges you $x to do so. A great deal!

Except you find after the fact they missed a lot of stuff. Technically they followed through on the letter of what you agreed to but they did the bare minimum. There’s no pride in the work. If you had paid by the hour, you could’ve asked them to stay and focus on some areas that matter more to you.

Or conversely, there’s lots of horror stories here about devs accepting flat rate work and getting endlessly dragged thru change requests

this feels like another person who sits by himself thinking about things that sound wise to him. he operates on the assumption that he is wise because wise sounding things sound wise to him, and also that those things are wise because they sound wise to him and he is wise. they're great for books, blogs and other one-way forms of communication where their entire job is just satisfying fridge logic so that the audience upvotes and moves along. not so much for dialogue and discussion that will eventually sort every point into buckets labelled "meaningless" or "self-evident". it's the tobacconist's yoga: a contortionate attempt to blow smoke up one's own ass unassisted.

If point 2 is something so subjective as "deal plainly", point 0 should probably be "be honest with yourself". More to the point—why would anyone want to do otherwise? The hard part is satisfying your own evaluation.

> 4) There exists uncanny congruity between thought and experience.

Charitably, there must be a more effective way to articulate this sentiment.

I could go on, but that seems sufficient to address the overall tone of the writing.

EDIT: I apologize for being so critical. These are clearly well-thought-out points and I'm not trying to detract from that. I'm just not sure how to process someone else's internal understanding of themselves in a generally useful manner.

I've narrowed my algorithm to three (not so simple) rules:

1. Know yourself.

2. Work hard.

3. Serve others.

I think 90% of unhappiness comes from violating at least one of these rules.

Conversely, of course, following these rules doesn't guarantee happiness, but (I think) it increases your chances.

> Prepare for the day when your best friend betrays you.

Before you strap those extra rounds of ammo to your vest, may I suggest simply finding better friends?

There's several on the list that sound a bit paranoid to me. And many more that make it feel like I'm being scolded by a schoolmarm. But there's definitely some gems. My favorite...

> Cynics know nothing.

Some points contradict others:

20) Get away from cruel people—at all costs.

58) “If we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.” (Machiavelli)

This is simply a self-help back-of-the-book quotes compilation.

I think that's a lot of rules to try to carry around in your head. If it works for this guy, more power to him.

For my money, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you shows up in some form or another in most major civilizations, and there's probably a reason for that. It's simple, makes sense, and covers a lot of situations.

If I had a number two rule to add, it would be slower traffic keep right. That's deep wisdom with a practical application.

101 rules? Too many. I vastly prefer not a rule but THE life challenge with thanks to Mary Oliver:

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

I often wonder if there's any real benefit in reading things like this. Philosophising (and meditating) without putting it into practice in your life is largely worthless, but I tend to think with ideas like this you only learn them through experience.

> 8) Speak only of what you know well.

OK, but that's going to wipe out 99%+ of Internet 'content', HN included.

1. Ignore lists of 101 anything.

> 7) Do not over-talk.

> 72) A positive mental attitude means evaluating circumstances based on their capacity for self-development.

89) Arrogance is a form of stupidity.

If you wish to train your mind with such aphorisms and craft your own, I recommend reading Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, or more modern thinkers like Heidegger and Adorno. Each of them has collections of aphorisms, akin to an elevated 'Farmer's Almanac'.

At some point a committee ought to write a manual for life and living. Though by most accounts it might be easier to write a modern standard library for C.

Be kind as in be like thyself as in see thyself in others as in don't be unkind as in be kind

The rest is noise in an expanding universe

Rule 1: Never read substack.

These things remind me of the book “My Year of Living Biblically” by A.J. Jacobs. In our lives if we stopped to consult a list of all the platitudes we’ve ever come across one by one each time we did or experienced anything it would be similarly as absurd full of contradiction paralyzing.

> Judge quality not category

I like this one. Would be curious to hear the author's elaboration.

> 44) Reduce food intake by twenty percent.

Why exactly twenty percent?

> 67 concentration produces power

Yeah but it also produces blindness and lots of it.

Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen

> In more than thirty years as a writer, editor, and publisher, I have, to my best reckoning, introduced, abridged, issued or reissued, and read nearly every major work of inspirational literature produced or translated into English.

I'm always wary of people who spend too much time in the world of inspirational books. It's healthy to read a little, and to "sharpen the ax" every so often, but reading too much of this stuff is mind-numbing outside of historiography reasons.

102. Exercise

More like how to be mediocre boring life advice

I always enjoy reading these.

> 100) Those who bill by the hour work not for you but for the hour.

This is just not true. Some bill by the hour to be certain that full and focused work is applied for you and your project. In other words, if someone is following even a fraction of these 101 rules, then they are working for you. Maybe I am misunderstanding what this rule is trying to say. But, it seems like the mode of payment is completely orthogonal to the motive and priority of the person working.

I didn’t know Thoreau read “The Secret”.

A lot of these are learned through experiences in life. When you’re young it’s almost impossible to understand or recognize some of these in the moment. As you get older, you start to learn what’s important to you, and what you like and don’t like. Then you tend to respond quicker to situations.

You do not need 101 rules. Just embrace the three treasures of the Dao:

Compassion, frugality, and humility.

> In terms of investments, virtually nothing, over time, outpaces an index fund.

Stopped reading here, waste of time.

honestly a very good list (is it good because I happen to follow nearly all of these rules?)

nonetheless i made an account just to support it

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Man, those are great.

Thanks for posting this!