The table of contents listing those 101 things, plus a bonus of five more, is masterful, but so is each of the chapters expanding on each table of contents entry. If you are like most of us and have forgotten these lessons, I suspect you’ll remember them after reading the book.
I flipped over the book because each lesson struck me as important and because reading the explanatory chapter convinced me in a persuasive and entertaining way that the lesson was important.
So first take a sample from the table of contents:
· One true friend is worth more than 10,000 superficial ones.
· Good deeds are seldom remembered; bad deeds are seldom forgotten.
· The surest way to failure is trying to please everyone.
· Your past is always going to be the way it was – so stop trying to change it.
· A walk or run in nature is the best medicine for many of your ailments.
· The shortcut to being truly fit and trim is long-term rigorous action.
· Compromising your integrity for money, power, or fame will come back to haunt you.
· If the grass on the other side of the fence is greener, try watering your side.
· No matter how successful you become, the size of your funeral will still depend on the weather.
· Be happy while you are alive because you are a long time dead.
I don’t know about you, but I think those lessons of life are not only central to a good life but are also well stated. This Zelinski guy knows how to write prose that has the potential to become those old proverbs everyone repeats.
One of the lessons is “Do the difficult and uncomfortable if you would like an easy and comfortable life.” That hit a homer for me, as during my years as a professor, I found the key mistake students make is believing that something is wrong if the educational process isn’t entertaining and titillating. I found exactly the same problem with the many dozens of student interns I supervised while on television. I would try to explain that work is often a grind, that all of us sometimes have to endure what might seem unpleasant, but that if we want to get the job done, accomplish something worth accomplishing, and achieve our goals we can’t always take the easy and comfortable path.
Zelinski says once you master the rule embodied in this lesson, “success will come relatively easy – much easier than it came before you mastered this rule.”
So I’m about to give you the master key to success in life, and you won’t even have to buy and read the book. Zelinski explains, “The Easy Rule of Life tells us that when we always do the easy and comfortable, life turns out to be difficult and uncomfortable. When we do the difficult and uncomfortable, however, life turns out to be easy and comfortable. Think about it carefully, and you will see how this rule applies to your life.”
Here is the concrete illustration that Zelinski uses: “Taking the easy and comfortable way – sitting at home and watching a lot of no-brainer programs on television – will put you on a dead-end street. Long-term satisfaction can only be attained by undertaking the challenging activities that are at times difficult and frustrating. We must pay the price with time, effort, and frustration in completing these activities.”
That little paragraph of wisdom explains why we seem to be going down the tubes. We have too many children and adults taking the easy and comfortable way of watching television until their brain wastes away. They should be reading, writing, discussing, studying, and equipping themselves to accomplish something in life and to succeed in what they want to do. But it’s easy to sit and watch television (and also snack on foods that will assure premature death due to heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and all the other ailments that our current lifestyle sets us up for). Neal Postman wrote a great book with a title that describes much of our problem, Amusing Ourselves to Death.
You should actually force yourself to do something difficult and uncomfortable every day. The author says if you are one of the legions who always wanted to write a book, sit down and write for an hour or two every day starting today. Zelinski says 81 percent of Americans think they should write a book, but only two percent have produced a manuscript.
I’ll give you the main reason that the 81 percent drops to two percent. Writing a book is not easy and comfortable. For that matter, writing even a column is not easy or comfortable. It’s work. I would much rather watch the Phillies win a baseball game or the Eagles get their season back on track. I would rather do a million things other than that, but I want to do something worthwhile, something more important than watching television. (I’ve also found I can’t eat while I’m typing out a column on my computer, which fact I consider a big plus.)
Here’s another great example. How do you feel about giving a speech, one of the most important abilities you can have if you want to accomplish something, if you want to succeed, and even if you want to be president.
But consider Zelinski’s sage advice on the subject: “Alas, most people would rather be comfortable than do whatever it takes to be successful. Be different from the masses – be willing to be uncomfortable! If you want to become a professional speaker, but would be scared half to death to speak in front of more than two people, then choose to be terribly uncomfortable. Make your first speech in front of one hundred people. Just as telling, be willing to do your first speech wrong, but at least do it. You will feel great because you know that you have done your best.”
In other words, if you want the joy and satisfaction, the resulting happiness that comes from true achievement, you have to concentrate on doing the difficult and uncomfortable. You have to think about and work on important things.
Now I could relate to this, because in my pre-teen years I was extremely shy. But I was smart enough even then to figure out that wasn’t a good thing. So when I got into high school, I decided to take debate and journalism, as I thought that would get me out of my shell. As many now know, I’m out of my shell. In fact, some say I should get back in it. But I succeeded in doing what I wanted to do, because I decided to do the difficult and uncomfortable.
And now the bottom line on this one lesson that will change your life, from Ernie Zelinski, who knows how to compress wisdom and invaluable advice into a readable, delightful, and powerful message. He predicts the success of all readers of this wisdom, if they only follow the final bit of his advice: “How long does it take to change your ways and start using The Easy Rule of Life to your advantage? But a second or two. Then the uncomfortable work begins of continuing to utilize The Easy Rule of Life. One day at a time – forever! Repetition makes the master. When you eventually achieve success in your life by using The Easy Rule of Life, you will joyfully tell yourself, “It’s all in how to play the game, isn’t it?”
I’ll give you one of the other rules to get some action: “To know and not to do is not yet to know.” You may “know” The Easy Rule of Life in some vague intellectual sense, but you will not truly know that rule until you do it.
Now that’s just a small sample of one of the 106 rules. That should tell you something about the book from the Ten Speed Press, which deserves kudos for publishing it.
Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, professor at the Wharton School, and
Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National
Academy of Sciences and is a board member of the Center for Safe Medication Use. He is an adjunct
professor of insurance and information science and technology at Cabrini College. You can write Herb
at POB 7301,St. Davids, PA e-mail him at hdenenberg@aol.com or reach him at his two Web sites:
thedenrep_archive.org or denenbergsdump.org