The Seventh Rule

Rule Number Seven:

If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space!

 

Ever wish you took more vacations, or spent more time with the kids, or caught that movie while it was still on the big screen, or jumped out of that airplane and slowly drifted to the ground? Hopefully your life doesn’t have too many moments like that but if it does maybe you are spending too much time taking up space and not enough time pushing the limits. You can sleep when you die there is far too much going on now to let even a moment of this short life slip through your fingers. Make sure every moment of your life is filled, and not with reruns of Giligan’s Island. Life is out there go catch it!

XKCD agrees

This rule serves a very similar purpose to #5, in that it defends and encourages appreciating the good things in your life and keeps you from missing opportunities to make wonderful memories. However, the danger here is not letting your obligations and responsibilities overshadow the simple pleasures of the world, but rather letting apathy and personal comfort keep you from expanding your horizons. At its core, its a warning against spending all day staring at a screen (or a page, if you are old fashioned), passively consuming because its easier then what you really want to do.

It is, perhaps, the most relevant and important rule on the list, especially in these modern times where amusing, but ultimately hollow, entertainment sits prominently in the center of the living room, directly across from the bed, on the desk in the office, in the side of your bag, and now even in the bottom of your pocket.

However, it is imperative that you do not follow it.

Even if you disregard the dangerous advice in this rule (why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?),

"This seems unwise." -Every Reasonable Person Ever

wasting time for hours on end is exactly what this site and those like it are for, and the people who make them depend on both your social isolation and boredom for their livelihood. If you go out and start seizing the shit out of your day, you are depriving someone of their income and contributing to the destruction of an entire industry. During the middle of a recession you should be creating jobs, not helping to eliminate them! Why do you hate America!?

So, please, look deep inside yourself (eww, not that deep, back it up a little), and pass up those potential adventures so you can keep reading about them on the internet.