How to Lead a Life of Utter Mediocrity

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Problem: Life doesn’t come with an instruction book, and knowing how to get through it unscathed is quite a challenge.

Solution: With just a few simple steps, you can escape the risk that comes with doing anything interesting, and lead a perfectly safe and mediocre life.

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They say that fortune smiles on the bold. Life, done correctly, is fraught with danger, but not everyone is searching for a way to feel alive or expend a lot of energy to do something remarkable. Far more popular, actually, to look for the easiest way to get through life.

And who can be blamed for this? Danger, adventure, and great achievement are fun to talk about, but let’s be realistic, most of us are happy to do just that—talk about it.

If you’re looking to lead an average life that doesn’t require much effort or involve a lot of adventure, you’re in luck; it’s not very hard to do. Here are a few guidelines you can follow to ensure that you never end up with many challenges to face:

• Check your email whenever there’s something important to do. It doesn’t necessarily have to be email, either. There’s a multitude of distractions you can use to keep yourself from doing your most important, but often uncomfortable work. Twitter, Facebook, solitare, TV sitcoms, and evenings at the bar are suitable substitutes.

• Make fun of artists. Never create anything. Know that it’s only a fool who tries to make a living from her art, and quietly poke fun at anyone you know who does so. If they’re just starting out, they’re chasing a pipe dream. If they’ve actually succeeded, they’re the lucky one in a million. Besides, everyone knows that money is the ultimate measure of success.

• Plan every detail. Never unleash an idea until you’re completely sure it will succeed. Engineer out every possible thing that could cause your project to go wrong, ensuring that it’s a mostly uninteresting success story if you even get around to it at all.

• Never leave home. Rely on the news to tell you everything you need to know about the rest of the world, and quietly live in fear of different people, places, and experiences while you explain to your friends that you’re a well informed citizen because you watch the 24-hour news networks.

• Steel your beliefs regardless of their merit. Know that consistency, in any form, is better than changing your mind. Allowing new information to change how you think about something is a sign of weakness, so be sure to make up your mind about the world early on and never let challenging information persuade you to look at things differently.

• Collect objects rather than memories. Find something interesting to collect, and get as many of them as you can. Don’t concern yourself with where they come from or why they exist. Just keep finding them. Whatever you do, don’t try to get familiar with the places that they come from. If you do happen to travel, ignore any signs of culture, and spend your time in tourist shops looking for more trinkets.

• Hate your job. Understand that it’s everyone’s lot in life to despise what they do for a living. Be proud of the fact you’re able to tolerate something dull and unbearable in order to make enough to survive and collect more trinkets. Know with certainty that any job change that results in less money automatically qualifies you as a failure at life.

• Practice cynicism as a comedy style. Get really good at being the likeable asshole. Know how to push the envelope just enough so that your friends understand that you look down on their decisions and have little hope for the world, but also that you “just do it to be funny.”

• Believe that big problems are someone else’s job to solve. Think often about the world’s big problems like hunger, poverty, education, and the environment. Talk about these things with your friends—cynically, of course. Come up with novel ideas to solve these problems, but end every conversation with, “It’s so obvious. Someone should do that.” Use this strategy at work and at home, too.

• Complain about being busy. Complain about the work you do, and when someone asks what’s going on in your life, make sure they know just how busy you are and how stressful it is for you. Ignore the fact that they’re also busy, but don’t mention it. Whatever happens, never be happy for having a lot to do.

• Never take responsibility for your mistakes. Understand that you only react to how others treat you, and that you can’t be held responsible for the things you do, especially when someone else forced you to do it! At work, it’s always your boss’s fault because it was his plan. Or maybe your co-worker screwed things up when you weren’t paying attention. At home, be sure to blame your problems on your spouse or, better yet, use that stressful job as an excuse. When things go right, make sure you take all the credit.

If you follow these simple rules for a mediocre life, you’re practically guaranteed to make it all the way through without too much strife. Of course, on the other hand, you could:

• Sit down and do the hard work even though it’s scary.

• Create your art despite the hardship and mental anguish.

• Try new things without a guarantee that they’ll succeed.

• Travel to understand the world even though it costs money and takes time.

• Challenge your own beliefs and even change your mind when you realize you’re wrong.

• Pursue meaningful memories instead of objects even though it takes a little more work.

• Allow yourself to do work you love, even though you might make less money.

• Learn to build people up rather than tear them down.

• Actually try some of those solutions to the world’s big problems even though you might not solve them and it could take an awful lot of effort.

• Be grateful to have so many interesting things to work on even though sometimes you get stressed out.

• Take responsibility for your mistakes and work to fix them, even though it’s occasionally embarrassing.

These are the kinds of things that a remarkable life are made of, but they’re also a lot more effort, and there’s no guarantee that things will work out. I add them here only for those who don’t find mediocrity appealing (strange, I know). I just want to make sure I’m fair and balanced.

Of course, there’s no wrong answer, so which list do you pick?

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For more on living a remarkable life, be sure to read this brief guide to world domination.

Image by: bendylan