1. Your domicile is inflammable. It may not be there in a recognizable state when you return.


2. You may not return. The odds are in your favor up to a point, but it really depends upon whether you like your domicile or not.


3. God does not really care about individual dwellings. Lightning, tornados, earthquakes and floods are relatively impervious to concern for or awareness of small box-shaped containers for hoarded consumer goods.


4. The people who manfactured your vehicle and those of the other people on the streets, roads and carriageways were most likely just like you, only more tired.
Approach your vehicle with caution and turn down the stereo every once in a while to see if it sounds like anything really useful is falling off or trying to escape.


5. Chemistry and metallurgy can go both ways. They can be beneficial right up to the moment that they kill you or make your life perpetually interesting. Please be aware of all stress thresholds and printed directions.
While you may be the most cautious creature in the world, and educated, to boot, an awareness of what other people might be actively avoiding knowledge of might keep you alive long enough to use your knowledge to kill the ignorant jerks...


6. If you haven't had an incident or an accident or a boo-boo recently, then you are due. Be careful.

This doesn't mean that if you had an incident or an accident or a boo-boo last week that you are home free for a while. It doesn't work that way. Such activities and happenings often come in packs of three or 52.


7. Time is nonrefundable. Use it wisely. Try not to plan your activities so that you are doing something at the exact same time that 4,000 other people are doing it, unless you are addicted to footy or sleep.

Try not to be in a hurry at any time. Plan your activities so that you have a safe margin for error. This is not carte blanche for stupidity. Just because you have a margin for error, you do not have to use it. You will not be penalized for being right on a regular basis.

If you have a need for thrills, take up a sport or rebuild your brakes. Do not indulge in adrenaline-pumping at other people's expense unless you really don't like them and you are prepared to accept the consequences.



8. Do not be impulsive without planning.

The essence of spontaniety is thought.

Think on this and don't touch that mouse.


9. If you've never done something before, there might be a reason.
Think. In some cases, if you haven't done it, you probably shouldn't.


10. At least once a month, consider your regular actions and habits and ask yourself if you really need to be doing that or if you have always done it and aren't sure why you started?

Many habits can be safely dropped in favor of more time for sleep or less opportunity of repetitive motion injury. Plus, opening a can of tomatos with a sledge hammer can be a bit more pleasing in the moment than that boring old can opener.


11. If you are healthy, keep yourself that way. If you are unhealthy, study a book on diseases and find out how much worse things can be. If you are terminally ill, congradulate yourself on not dying from something stupid, yet rather something even the smartest people on the planet don't know what to do with.


12. Youth is not wasted on the young. You can be youthful any time. All it takes is either getting your butt out of that chair... or getting your butt into that chair, depending upon the youths you are aware of.


13. Survival does not necessarily bring wisdom. Many people are very wise for a few seconds or minutes because of the knowledge or experience that they gained from doing whatever it was that shortened their life.

Many people grow old because they just haven't been stopped yet.


14. Religion is useful, up to a point. Everyone needs a moral compass, but some stray a bit too close to the big magnetic lumps of common idiocy. You may attribute anything but failure to your deity of choice. They will thank you for it, in the end.