3 rules to live an almost adversity-free life (barring any unforseen accident).

Living a life free of adversity? That's impossible. But you can keep it to the minimum, an almost adversity-free life. In fact, so minimal that you would not be able to recall a day where you have a heartbreaking experience, I mean ever.

Here are 3 simple rules to follow slavishly to live such a life. And if you should find yourself straying from the rules, then a quick self-administered trouble-shooting exercise would point you to 
a violation of either one or all of the 3 rules. Once the violation is found, swiftly correct and quickly re-apply the rules back into your life. Here are the 3 rules.

1) AVOID friendships at all costs. Please bear this in mind at all times. Of course, you can make friends but keep them really superficial. Touch and go (figuratively speaking). Most of life's sufferings come from friendship betrayals, envy and disappointments. You really don't need 
such crippling and unhappy emotions poking holes into your blissful sail in calm waters. 

The point is that you want to die with a smile, and long-running, intimate friendship, which are marred by the disappointing highs and depressing lows, does nothing but wipe that smile off your mortician-beautified face. It is therefore safest to make as few friends as possible, preferably none. 

So, avoid club membership, church services, social gatherings, birthday parties, and even water-cooler chats. The latter may seem harmless but you might just meet your life-long buddy or BFF in one of those harmless chats and that will be the end of the road of a blissful life for you. Don’t get lure in by the fake smiles, the enticement of eternal life or the heartwarming sentiments of a social bond. You just can't afford the time, emotion and effort regardless of how rewarding it may turn out for you. 

Remember, encouragement, support and good company are all grossly overrated. And you should keep everyone on a don't-need-to-know basis, that is, I-really-don't-need-to-know-your-problem level. You will know that you have 
succeeded in this rule if everyone you know, even your family members and relatives, remain nothing more than mere acquaintances to you. This way, their problem is really not your problem. And needless to say, your conscience is crystal clear because you really don’t know them that well to show them a smidgen of concern. 

It is said that hell is other people. So heaven on earth for you is naturally an island of one.

2) Whatever you do, DON'T fall in love. This is the most important rule of the three. They don't call it Venus flytrap for nothing. Although unlike a black widow spider where the male gets eaten alive right after sex, falling in love is falling into a black-hole of the most muddled and frustrating complexity you will ever experience in your life. You don’t need all that emotional pull-me-downs. Trust me, there is no better way of maintaining a neat and ordered life where you are in control till your last breath than to avoid that dreary marital road. 

For this reason and this reason alone, you must run for your life when you feel that tingling urge to commit unconditionally to the opposite sex for a lifetime. And courtship is a taboo word in this rule because you are not courting love or happiness but a lifetime of misery, pain and disappointments. The relationship of one is already complicated enough; imagine a lifelong relationship of two! 

You will know that you have failed this rule miserably if you take that fatal and sorrowful walk down the aisle. It’s all downhill from there. A marriage is a harvest of irredeemable sadness (rather be eaten alive just after sex right?) They don’t call it tying the “dead” knot for nothing. And the false advertisement of marriage is the inimical offspring and that dastardly marital bliss. In fact, the only bliss you will encounter is to wave goodbye to it almost immediately after the honeymoon is over. And I won't even start with the offspring because there are some god-forsaken places that even fearless angels fear to tread. 

So avoid falling in love if you want to live a life of never getting your heart broken. You have been duly warned.

And last but not least...

3) Find a career with LITTLE OR NO responsibility. Once you satisfy the two rules above, this last rule is chicken feet. It in fact comes naturally (or inevitably). And jobs like that are not hard to find. Just check out the classified ads for low-paying, routine-9-to-5, hidden-under-the-clerical-desk kind of work. 

Of course, you can forget about promotion, recognition, and accolades. Just be satisfied with sheer mediocrity. Live a wallpaper life. Stay invisible to all. Mind you, I am not being sarcastic here. Success is really overrated. Recall the saying appropriately adapted here: "Rather a big fish in a puddle than a guppy in a thriving ocean?" 

So learn to be immune to delusionary self-talk like "Be your best", "Be proactive", "Sharpen the saw" and "Live to make a difference". Water off a duck’s back I say. They are all delusionary self-talk because in a rat-race, you still die a rat. And if Skinner’s strict behaviorism were right about us, then we are all Pavlov’s dogs conditioned by a heartless system that makes us salivate for all the wrong reasons. 

So, be proud to be an underachiever. Be proud to be nothing. Be proud to achieve nothing. Now don't worry about being influenced by others who may inspire you to soar or despise you for your mediocrity or be envious of their successes because rule 1 and 2 above will effectively ensure that you have little or no friends, wife or children to make you feel even an iota of guilt. Your conscience will be insulated by a moat of blissful ignorance all the time, for all time.

So, once you stick by these three rules as if your life depends on them, you will flourish in your own idiosyncratic way. People will find you weird but that's their problem – not yours. You will hardly have any friends but hey, that's the price worth paying for not getting hurt. And without a wife and those cumbersome offspring, you are only accountable to yourself 
and no one else. How can your life not be almost adversity-free then? This is what it means to be in absolute control of your life. Further, your job will demand nothing from you. Absolutely nothing. Neither will life as a whole. You will be free, carefree and worry-free!

I guess freedom to live is to be free from disappointments, hurts and pain. And an adversity-free life is to be born and then to die; and in the middle, to avoid living altogether. Cheerz.