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    Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life
    Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life
    Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life

    By Roger Rosenblatt

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Rule #1: It doesn’t matter. One of USA Today’s Best Self-Help Books of the Year: “Hilarious.” —People

    Prize-winning essayist Roger Rosenblatt has commented on some of the most important trends and events of our time in insightful columns in Time and discerning commentaries on PBSNewshour with Jim Lehrer. But at the dawn of a new millennium, Roger found himself facing an issue that he couldn’t talk his way out of: getting old.
     
    Luckily, aging couldn’t dull his wit, and he turned his sharp pen to creating a survival manual for the twilight of life. These fifty-four brilliant, funny, and indispensable rules range from how to handle a bad hair day (or a no hair day) to knowing the difference between humor and comedy to learning that, in the end, none of these little worries really matter. Practical, wise, and funny, Rules for Aging offers not only a new mantra for an older generation but “a guide for those in the younger generation who want to learn from the mistakes of their elders” (Newsday).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateNov 1, 2001
    ISBN9780547544441
    Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life
    Author

    Roger Rosenblatt

    Roger Rosenblatt  is the author of six off-Broadway plays and eighteen books, including Lapham Rising, Making Toast, Kayak Morning and The Boy Detective. He is the recipient of the 2015 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement.

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    Reviews for Rules for Aging

    3.5/5

    43 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Rule Number:

      1. "It Doesn't Matter"

      2. "Nobody is Thinking About You" sad, but true!

      3. "Ignore Your Enemy or Kill Him"

      10. "Swine Rules" " a. A Swine is Not a Swan....."

      17. "Everyone's Work is Magnificent"

      27. "Just Because the Person Who Criticizes You is an Idiot, Doesn't Make Him Wrong" Yeah, that's the ticket!

      37. "The Waitress is Not Waiting for You"

      41. "Never Work for Anyone More Insecure Than Yourself'

      52. "Live in the Past, But Don't Remember Too Much"

      Much of this work is humorous, but it's not always funny.....seems more like "Uncommon" sense to me.
    • 3/5
      A short book that includes both humorous and useful rules for coping with stresses, including relationships and insecurities. Nobody is thinking about you. They are thinking about themselves-just like you.
    • 4/5
      Really should be titled "Rules for Living" - a humorous little book, not to be taken too seriously, but still I had a few "take aways" from this one, and chuckled out loud more than once.
    • 4/5
      Published in 2000, Rules has aged well.It offers light and pleasurable and rewarding reading beginning with Rosenblatt'sfirst, and likely most enduring and important Rule: "It doesn't matter."This Rule may not resonate with younger readers, but almost everyone will gather a small collection of their own favorites which are fun to share and compare.(Note: The Rules do not encompass grief, loss, and health.)
    • 1/5
      Drivel. Like the first year of a bad blog. Many rules contradicted each other. Many were obviously dismissed by the author himself, the book being evidence. Many are mean-spirited.

      If one has lived to, say, 52, one has mastered the few relevant rules here. If one is a recent MBA, one *might* find a few helpful ideas. The only other audience comprises readers who are accustomed to getting their education from the mottos on coffee cups and motivational posters.
    • 5/5
      Genuinely lovely. Great to dip into with a tea. Joyful.
    • 3/5
      Pretty thin soup--some amusing points but didn't seem overly concerned with aging or anything else. I only paid $4 for it, which seems about what it was worth.
    • 4/5
      This one's a keeper!
    • 4/5
      A funny collection of life's lessons. I particularly agree with Rosenblatt's admonition not to be clever at someone else's expense.

    Book preview

    Rules for Aging - Roger Rosenblatt

    Copyright © 2000 by Roger Rosenblatt

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

    For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

    hmhco.com

    The Library of Congress has cataloged the print editon as follows:

    Rosenblatt, Roger.

    Rules for aging: resist normal impulses, live longer, attain perfection/Roger Rosenblatt,

    p. cm.

    ISBN 0-15-100659-8

    1. Aging—Humor. 2. Conduct of life—Humor. 3. Aging. 4. Conduct of life. I. Title

    PN6231.A43 R67 2000

    818'.5402—dc21 00-033539

    eISBN 978-0-547-54444-1

    v3.1217

    For Ginny

    (see 21a.)

    Introduction

    This little guide is intended for people who wish to age successfully, or at all. I very much hope that older readers may profit from it as much as younger ones, but the fact that one has achieved at least middle age suggests that one has already heeded most of the rules provided here. One may think of this work as a how-to book, akin to the many health guides published these days, whose purpose is to prolong our lives and make them richer. That is the aim of my book, too. Growing older is as much an art as it is a science, and it requires fewer things to do than not to do.

    What follows, then, is mainly a list of don’ts and nots, not unlike the Ten Commandments, but without the moral base. The rules herein are intended to be purely practical. When I urge you to refrain from a certain thought or course of action, I do not mean to suggest that you are in any way wrong if you do the opposite. I mean only to say that you will suffer.

    The rules are numbered consecutively for your convenience. Once you commit them all to memory, you may find it easier to simply refer to the appropriate number. Otherwise nothing is required of the reader but a willingness to change one’s entire way of looking at things. Resist every normal impulse, and a perfect life is yours forever. Good luck.

    Roger Rosenblatt

    1

    It doesn’t matter

    Whatever you think matters—doesn’t. Follow this rule, and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late, or early; if you are here, or if you are there; if you said it, or did not say it; if you were clever, or if you were stupid; if you are having a bad hair day, or a no hair day; if your boss looks at you cockeyed; if your girlfriend or boyfriend looks at you cockeyed; if you are cockeyed; if you don’t get that promotion, or prize, or house, or if you do. It doesn’t matter.

    2

    Nobody is thinking about you

    Yes, I know, you are certain that your friends are becoming your enemies; that your grocer, garbage-man, clergyman, sister-in-law, and your dog are all of the opinion that you have put on weight, that you have lost your touch, that you have lost your mind; furthermore, you are convinced that everyone spends two-thirds of every day commenting on your disintegration, denigrating your work, plotting your assassination. I promise you: Nobody is thinking about you. They are thinking about themselves—just like you.

    3

    Let bad enough alone

    This rule requires some amplification because it involves one of the more complicated, charming, and lethal human faculties—optimism—specifically the optimism that embraces the belief that persistent clarification after one has committed a social blunder will make everything all right.

    On the afternoon of September 24, 1980, William Agee, chairman of the Bendix Corporation, experienced a fit of candor and decided to make a speech before 600 employees. His intention was to put at rest, once and for all, the rumors that his admittedly close friendship with attractive, blond 29-year-old Mary Cunningham had a connection with her professional rise from executive assistant to vice president for strategic planning in the stunningly short space of 15 months. Having thus cleared the air, Agee settled back to observe the story of his affair with Cunningham dominate the headlines for many weeks—in a news era that could otherwise have been interested in a war in the Middle East and a plunging stock market.

    After Agee’s clarifying exercise, his company issued a statement that a major disclosure would be forthcoming; but upon further reflection, Agee decided that "we just

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