Life Manual

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Hurry up and learn to talk so you can understand the world around you

It’s easier to listen if you know how to speak, so never stop learning how to talk

Constantly evolve with generational phrases and uncovered subject matter

Begin this perpetual learning now, because it only gets harder

Don’t forget

Life is not for living, it’s for achieving

Set milestones!

Learn to crawl

Walk

Run

Sprint

Spend your days practicing writing and reading

Here’s where that talking and listening skill comes up already

Learn to interact with strangers

Social skills will never not be important

Dedicate the majority of your conscious to society and the anxiety of fitting into images

Treat this dedication like religion

Pray to the god of change at the dinner table, bathroom scale, classroom corner, state fair port-a-potty, and overcrowded concert line.

Change your look

Change your hair to get comments

Change your outfits to be seen or unseen

Change your attitude so you can upgrade friend groups

Social lives are just practice for future networking

As you’ve been learning to exist, did you forget to constantly challenge, change, add to, and alter your knowledge?

If so, the public school system is a wonderful reminder of the mediocre shape they need you to be

Read letters

Now read letters this way

Now connect the letters so it says the same thing but in fancier font

You’ll never need this skill except at the cash register

Now write papers

Write papers like this for me

Write them like this for a different authority

Learn how to write the same paper a dozen ways, and remember none of the are the right way

Keep your nose to the page like record scratching vinyl

Pass classes

Graduate and keep working

Go to college and convince yourself you are already what you never wanted to be

Change your hair again

Change your clothes again

Change your attitude….again

Change everything until the reflection in the mirror needs to be introduced to its beholder

Fail exams and papers

Skip classes and lectures

Scramble and study to pass and persevere at the last moment

Reach the golden finish line of higher education with a diploma in hand and direction in life

Start walking that path

Keep your head to your shoes and count the 68 steps it takes to get from your front door to the bus station

The 4 full stops before your own

glance the hundreds of cracks in the sidewalk on your way to work

Repeat until you need to reset or the game ends

Repeat until you need to reset or the game ends

Repeat until you need to reset or the game ends

Remember the game ends

The game you forgot to enjoy

The game you didn't realize you were playing rather than surviving

Think back to the school days and realize none stick out

Think back to formation of behavior and question who told you how to be

Think back to the walk from home to work you took for years

Question whether there were even roses to smell

Try to remember the mosaics of the sidewalk fractures meeting along fault lines

Realize all the missed shows you never saw

Lament the lost travel chances and forgone escapes

Question the last time your smile sat squarely on your jaw with no extra adhesive

Change your hair because you want to

Change your attitude as life challenges it

Smile more

Start each day with optimism and cut out unhealthy behaviors

Take the same walk but slow your pace and look up at the world around you

Devote your time to what you love more than what you think you should

Sit on park benches rather than bus seats

See the difference between life and living

preach it to the next generation that steps off school buses onto mosaic cracked sidewalks with their eyes glued down

Teach people to learn from your mistakes

Walk back to the revolving door of life and finally stop moving as you sit on the outside waiting for your turn to spin

Take a deep breath and count

3

2

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Ready

Set

Go

Hurry up and learn to talk

...and maybe a little quicker this time