How to Ruin Your Life by 20

I recently saw a book entitled How to Ruin Your Life by 30 and I thought I would go back even further to when most people begin to make life-changing decisions. So, here is my list.

How To Ruin Your Life by 20

1. Never or seldom listen to your parents' advice, guidance or wisdom. Assume they know nothing and you can run your own life.

2. Experiment with illegal drugs or alcohol. Say "yes" every time someone offers you pot, a drink, or anything else that will change your sobriety.  Assume you can "handle" it, it's only temporary (or a one-time thing), and you can stop whenever you want.

3. Have sex young and outside of marriage. Assume you will not contract a lifelong incurable sexual or life-threatening venereal disease, get pregnant, or ever leave your current relationship. Also believe the lie (s)he told you to get you into bed: "I want to marry you," "I love you," "You are the only one," "We will always be together," "We are meant to be together," blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum.

4. Don't take school work seriously.  Assume you can catch up with what you need to know about the world later, when you're on your own and all you have to worry about is a full time job, bills to pay and a family to support.

5. Treat authority with disrespect and disdain. Assume they hate you personally and exist merely to ruin your life.

6. Have a lousy work ethic. Only do the minimum to get by in life: at home, at school, at a job (if you can keep one), and in a relationship.

7. Make every decision in life based on what it will mean to you personally. "What's in this for me?" is your theme and you never stop to consider the thoughts, feelings or needs of any of the other 6.97 billion people sharing the planet with you.

8. Run from God. Assume you don't need Him, if He even does exist, and you don't think He does.

9. Act like you're already grown up when you do wrong things, but still a child to be protected when you get busted for something. You think you're old enough to drink, have sex, gamble, drive, etc, but not to take responsibility for an accident, a pregnancy, a stupid act or crime.

10. Seek out "bad" friends because you think you can "help" them. You know they won't bring you down to their level, because you are too smart for that and it has never happened to anyone in the entire past history of the world. You can handle their bad behavior, you won't copy it, and you will end up helping them straighten out their life.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the top ten that come to mind.