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The eight key rules of living by Alain de Botton that the world needs right now

Eight key rules of living a happier life according to Alain de Botton
Source: Unsplash/Greg Rakozy

Alain de Botton’s rules of living offer a roadmap for navigating the ups and downs of life and finding meaning in it all. Keep reading to discover the eight key principles that de Botton recommends for living a rich and satisfying life

Rules for living a happier life

Alain is the founder of The School of Life, as well as being a philosopher, a writer and a novelist. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a “philosophy of everyday life.” Here he pens eight declarations “that can be written down, or saved in a safe place, and returned to in moments of trial and crisis.”

Manifesto is a series on WePresent https://wepresent.wetransfer.com which invites activists and creatives with something to say to write 10 rules to live by, in order to help spread their message. Artwork: Shivani Parasnis.

A Manifesto by Alain de Botton Manifesto is a series on WePresent https://wepresent.wetransfer.com which invites activists and creatives with something to say to write 10 rules to live by, in order to help spread their message. Artwork: Shivani Parasnis. Source: wetransfer.com

Eight Rules of The School of Life

The School of Life has produced 500 films and written 5 million words. This is an enormous problem. To stand any hope of remaining in anyone’s mind, ideas – even very good ideas – need to be brief and reduced to an essence. That’s why, for the sake of their followers, they’ve summarised everything they believe down to eight key points: the credo of The School of Life. It goes as follows:

1. ACCEPT IMPERFECTION

We are inherently flawed and broken beings. Perfection is beyond us. Despite our intelligence and our science, we will never stamp out stupidity and pain. Life will always continue to be – in central ways – about suffering. We are all, from close up, scared, unsure, full of regret, longing and error. No one is normal: the only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.

2. SHARE VULNERABILITY

Recognising that we are each of us weak, mad and mistaken should inspire compassion for ourselves – and generosity towards others. Knowing how to reveal our vulnerability and brokenness is the bedrock of true friendship, which we universally crave. People do not reliably end up with the lives they deserve.

There is no true justice in the way that rewards are distributed. We should embrace the concept of tragedy: random terrible things can and do befall most lives. We may fail and be good – and therefore need to be slower to judge and quicker to understand. Those who have failed are not ‘losers’; we may soon be among them. Be kind.

3. KNOW YOUR INSANITY

We cannot be entirely sane, but it is a basic requirement of maturity that we understand the ways in which we are insane, can warn others we care about what our insanities might make us do, early and in good time and before we have caused too much damage – and take constant steps to contain rather than act out our follies.

We should be able to have a ready answer – and never take offence – if someone asks us (as they should): ‘In what ways are you mad’?

Most of the madness comes down to childhood, which will – in a way unique to our situation – have unbalanced us. No one has yet had a ‘normal’ childhood; this is no insult to the efforts of families.

4. ACCEPT YOUR IDIOCY

Do not run away from the thought you may be an idiot as if this were a rare and dreadful insight. Accept the certainty with good grace, in full daylight. You are an idiot but there is no other alternative for a human being. We are on a planet of seven billion comparable fools.

Embracing our idiocy should render us confident before challenges – for messing up is to be expected – comfortable with ourselves, and ready to extend a hand of friendship to our similarly broken and demented neighbours.

We should overcome shame and shyness because we have already shed so much of our pride.

Source: SchoolOfLife 

The alternative to perfection isn’t failure, it’s to make our peace with the idea that we are, each of us, ‘good enough’. Good enough parents, siblings, workers and humans.

You are good enough. The alternative to perfection isn’t failure, it’s to make our peace with the idea that we are, each of us, ‘good enough’. Good enough parents, siblings, workers and humans. Source: Unsplash/Aziz Acharki

5. YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH

The alternative to perfection isn’t failure, it’s to make our peace with the idea that we are, each of us, ‘good enough’. Good enough parents, siblings, workers and humans.

‘Ordinary’ isn’t a name for failure. Understood more carefully, and seen with a more generous and perceptive eye, it contains the best of life. 

Life is not elsewhere; it is, fully and properly, here and now. 

6. OVERCOME ROMANTICISM

‘The one’ is a cruel invention. No one is ever wholly ‘right’ nor indeed wholly wrong. 

True love isn’t merely an admiration for strength, it is patience and compassion for our mutual weaknesses. Love is a capacity to bring imagination to bear on a person’s less impressive moments – and to bestow an ongoing degree of forgiveness for natural fragility.

No one should be expected to love us ‘just as we are’. Learning and developing are at the core of love. Genuine love involves two people helping each other to become the best version of themselves.

Compatibility isn’t a prerequisite for love; it is the achievement of love.

7. DESPAIR CHEERFULLY

We are under undue and unfair pressure to smile. But almost nothing will go entirely well: we can expect frustration, misunderstanding, misfortune and rebuffs. We should be allowed to be melancholy. Melancholy is not rage or bitterness, it is a noble species of sadness that arises when we are open to the fact that disappointment is at the heart of human experience. In our melancholy state, we can understand without fury or sentimentality that no one fully understands anyone else, that loneliness is universal and that every life has its full measure of sorrow.

Despite the many hardships that exist in the world, it is important to remember that we are not individually cursed. In fact, against the backdrop of darkness, many small but sweet things stand out: a sunny day, a drifting cloud, the beauty of dawn and dusk, or a tender look from a loved one. With a realistic understanding of the tragedy of existence, we can find pleasure in the small, uneventful moments of life – a single day, some delicate flowers, or an intimate conversation with a friend. By learning how to appreciate and draw value from what is good, we can find joy in whatever doses it arises, whenever and wherever it may be found.

Despair but do so cheerfully: believe in cheerful despair. 

8. TRANSCEND YOURSELF

Despite our seeming importance, we are not at the center of anything. In fact, we are minuscule bundles of evanescent matter on an infinitesimal corner of a boundless universe. This is a liberation.

Rather than complaining that we are too small, we should delight in being humbled by a mighty ocean, a glacier, or planet Kepler 22b, 638 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus.

We should gain relief from the thought of the kindly indifference of spatial infinity: an eternity where no one will notice, and where the wind erodes the rocks in the space between the stars. Cosmic humility – taught to us by nature, history, and the sky above us – is a blessing and a constant alternative to a life of frantic jostling, humourlessness and anxious pride. 

A FINAL POINT: some of this may sound convincing. But that isn’t enough. We know – in theory – about all of it. And yet in practice, any such ideas have a notoriously weak ability to motivate our actual behavior and emotions. Our knowledge is both embedded within us and yet is ineffective for us. 

We forget almost everything. Our memories are sieves, not robust buckets. What seemed a convincing call to action at 8 am will be nothing more than a dim recollection by midday and an indecipherable contrail in our cloudy minds by evening. Our enthusiasms and resolutions can be counted upon to fade like the stars at dawn. Nothing much sticks.

For this reason, we need to go back over things. Maybe once a day, certainly once a week. A true good ‘school’ shouldn’t tell us only things we’ve never heard before; it would be deeply interested in rehearsing all that is theoretically known yet practically forgotten.

Source: SchoolOfLife Artwork: Shivani Parasnis.

The Eight Rules of The School of Life The School of Life is an organisation built to help you find serenity, resilience and connection. Here are 8 rules designed to guide you to the life you deserve, 8 key ideas to hold on to during difficult times. Source: Try/SchoolOfLife

Alain de Botton

Born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1969, Alain de Botton now resides in London. As a writer of essayistic books that aim to explore “a philosophy of everyday life,” he has covered a wide range of topics, including love, travel, architecture, and literature. In fact, his books have been bestsellers in 30 countries. In addition to his writing, de Botton is also the founder and a driving force behind The School of Life in London, an educational institution dedicated to a new vision of learning. Additionally, he has spoken about the significant influence that media has on our lives. You can find a very eye-opening video with de Botton’s views on media here.

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The School of Life is dedicated to helping people lead more resilient and fulfilled lives. The School of Life is an organisation built to help us find calm, self-understanding, resilience and connection - especially during troubled times.

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