This is my first attempt to discuss Red Pill theory. I'm looking forward to constructive criticism and hopefully this sparks some intelligent discourse and assists some of us who are swallowing the Red Pill for the first time.

TL;DR

There are three rules I attempt to live by. These rules are simple and can be followed by everyone. They are: 1. Depend only on yourself for your happiness. 2. Treat others the way you want to be treated, and 3. Always be comfortable no matter where you are, what you're doing, what you're wearing, or who you're with.

Background

In 1991 I entered my senior year of high school and terminated an on again/off again relationship with a long time girlfriend. It didn't take me long to find the absolute perfect girl. I won't lie. She took my heart in a way no other girl ever has. Unfortunately, I didn't see what was in front of me at the time, and I broke up with her for reasons I don't want to go into and are not currently relevant. Three years later, however, she came back from college and I was able to date her once again. I had about a month with her before she chose someone else. I was quite beta with her, and looking back I believe that was part of the problem, as she chose someone who had not treated her terribly well. She married him and has four beautiful kids.

Depressed, I locked myself into the trailer I was renting on my parents' property while I made a run at college, and did nothing but come out to work. I spoke to no one. One day I decided to write down every sentence I'd said all day and it came to something like 122 words. I even got out my AR15, cleaned it, oiled it, and cycled the action through a twenty round magazine. Carefully, I reloaded it, and put the barrel in my mouth. That was rock bottom. The only way I could possibly have been lower is to have been in a coma with one of the goddamn Kardashians making terminal decisions for me.

This was long before the Red Pill. This was long before MGTOW or Men's Rights was even a thing. All I had was a deep dissatisfaction with my fast food job, lack of prospects for advancement, complete inability to make a worthwhile girl attracted to me, and a feeling that I wanted more from life than living in a trailer on my parents' property and trying to come up with reasons not to put a 5.56 round through the back of my skull.

Out of this morass of personal pain was born The Rules. I have lived by them for about twenty years now. They had an immediate impact on my life. Within three months of adopting them, I entered a long term relationship with a low CC, very sexy girl just shy of her own graduation from high school. Despite her relative inexperience (I was her third cock, in a time before 'sex positive' was even a thing.), she was the most submissive slut for me that one could imagine. That relationship lasted for more than a year, and it set me on a permanent path to what would eventually lead to The Red Pill. Additionally, at the same time I was beginning this relationship I was offered a better job, with more upward mobility (and stepped from there to the military for even more and for college money). I've published books, coached sports teams, and taught classes for the Armed Forces and in civilian life, and I consider these rules to be the cornerstone of every success I've had.

The Rules.

Rule Number One: Depend only on yourself for your happiness. This first rule is the most important, and also the only one to have the language change significantly. The previous iteration was “Don't depend on other people for your happiness.” While this is effective, I prefer to teach from positive rather than negative statements.

You are the only person that you will be with from this very moment until the day you die, hopefully in a threesome with supermodels. I sincerely hope that each of you reading this requires the services of a master embalmer to get the terminal smile from your faces, and I also believe that this will never happen if you place responsibility for your happiness into the hands of other people.

When I lost that “love of my life” I was depressed because I had not only failed to internalize Abundance Mentality, but I had also placed sole responsibility for my personal feelings of joy and pleasure into the hands of someone who could not handle that load. This is no personal slight to the girl in question; no one will ever be as effective at making you happy as you, yourself, can be. It is actually somewhat unfair to place such a strain on another person.

If we continue to examine closer, we'll find that much of my dissatisfaction with my employment was due to the same feelings of scarcity and internalized “knowledge” that I simply didn't deserve a decent job with a livable wage. I didn't deserve the finer things, like a drop dead gorgeous girlfriend who turned heads when she came into the room and begged for anal because she knew I enjoyed it. I was living with a scarcity mentality, and one of the side effects of such a mental block is that you feel like everyone else has control of your happiness.

This is not the case! William Ernest Henley said it best:

It matters not how strait the gate/

or charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the captain of my fate.

I am the master of my soul.

I first read these lines in Piers Anthony's book, On a Pale Horse, and they have become an important part of my daily meditation. I urge you to consider their meaning as well.

Rule Number Two: Treat others as you wish to be treated

Ah! The Golden Rule. The one rule that all religions are supposed to have and yet the one so infrequently followed. This rule is the lifeblood of The Red Pill. I can't speak for the moderators here, or the individual who started this subreddit, but I have a sneaking suspicion that part of why they did it was a sincere desire to help others because they probably wish they'd had a resource like this to lean on and learn from when they were trying to take their lives back. I look at the hundreds of thousands of words written by notable contributors such as /u/GayLubeOil, Rollo Tomassi and others, most of whom make little or no profit from the hard work they put in to drag their brothers from the sticky mud of failure and depression.

Why do so? Why put forth the enormous effort of putting pen to paper? Why risk the potential outing and harassment at the hands of feminists and their white knight followers?

The answer is complex and probably different for each one of them, and yet I find that one thing remains constant throughout this subreddit: a powerful and altruistic desire to improve others. It is almost as if the men who have reached the top of the mountain have looked back and said to themselves, “I would like my brothers here with me.”

Treating others as you wish to be treated doesn't mean being a pushover. I am kind and compassionate. I have spoken before that most of my life has been spent learning some form or other of self-defense system. I defend others. I treat the people around me with respect. However, and some have noted here that unsourced statements, inaccuracies, or fabrications are met with quick and decisive catcalls. The hidden side of this is that this is how I desire to be treated! If I am wrong, prove it to me and I will retract my statements. If I am right, acknowledge and we will move on together.

There is a well-known aspect of game theory called the Prisoner's Dilemma. The general gist of the game is that a prisoner who gives information about a fellow prisoner receives a reward while his compadre is punished. If both prisoners give information they are both punished. If neither gives information, they will be neither rewarded nor punished. Each of these decision frames is one set, and a game may be any number of sets.

One of the more effective ways to be successful in the game is to use the “Tit for Tat” method, also called the “Tough but Fair” approach. To explain it simply, “An agent using this strategy will first cooperate, then subsequently replicate an opponent's previous action. If the opponent previously was cooperative, the agent is cooperative; if not, the agent is not (Wikipedia).”

In practical, day-today form, Tough but Fair works perfectly with the philosophy of treating others as you desire to be treated. I greet everyone warmly. I make eye contact and smile to those I meet. I shake hands firmly. I trust-- but verify-- those who are unknown to me. In short, I give everyone a chance to prove they are worthy of respect. It is only those who demonstrate they are unworthy that incur my wrath, and only until they redeem themselves! (This philosophy works well in self-defense, I might add, since it limits the amount of force needed to establish a victory condition and reduces the overkill that can get you prosecuted for excessive use of force.) The moment an adversary alters his stance from disrespectful or contemptuous back to reasonable and respectable, my stance alters as well, returning to the respectful person I prefer to be.

And finally, we reach Rule Number Three: Always be comfortable no matter where you are, what you're doing, what you're wearing, or who you're with.

After ingesting the Red Pill, I would probably alter this to “hold your frame.” However, you should bear in mind that these rules were scribed some twenty years prior to my discovery of The Red Pill. It began with simply being comfortable in any situation. I noticed that I was closing myself off from my friends and family, locking myself away in my trailer, because I was unsure and uncomfortable in social settings. I am a “shell introvert” or “outgoing introvert”, which is essentially an introvert who seems to be an extrovert. Because of this, a curmudgeonly lifestyle becomes inertial. First, you stay home because you don't feel like going out, even though when you finally do go somewhere, you enjoy the company of people and you enjoy making them laugh and being a part of their joy of life. Then, because you're used to staying at home, it becomes harder and harder to leave for social activities.

Particularly after joining the Armed Forces in 1997, I realized that the travel I was required to perform put me in prime position to gather “ports.” (In another thread we have been discussing this term. A “port” is simply a long distance plate you see only when you travel to her area.) However, my natural inclination to refrain from social contact unless necessary caused problems. I was forced to add to my rules, deciding once and for all that comfort was a state of mind, not a condition of reality.

In the book Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, a History and Moral Philosophy teacher ridicules the three inalienable rights of the American Constitution. While I cannot agree with all of his points, there is one that bears repeating:

"The third 'right' -- the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."

So too, with comfort. Comfort is itself a universal condition that cannot be removed from the man who forces it upon himself. The man who enters a bar as if he owns the place, does so for that moment. The man who comfortably and warmly greets a subordinate will gain his allegiance. The man who comfortably works with those placed above him by appointment or ability will gain their respect. Comfort is about more than wearing a certain fit of clothing. It is about wearing an event or a room with equal facility. It is about the recognition that all eyes may be upon you and that is okay because you deserve to be seen!

I find that many of those who are uncomfortable in certain social situations are so inclined out of a deep seated belief that mirrors where I was when my long ago “One” walked away. They feel they don't deserve the spotlight or admiration of others. They feel they didn't earn the respect they desire, and as a result, it makes them uncomfortable to receive it.

No! I sit here now at a desk where my grandfather, the most Red Pill Alpha I've ever known, once sat, and I tell you that you do deserve the recognition for the hard work you do. You deserve the spotlight and the admiration of others. You damn well deserve it because you have worked for it.

Accept it and own it. Be comfortable in it.

Summary Depend upon yourself for happiness. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Always be comfortable no matter where you are, what you're doing, what you're wearing, or who you're with. I hold these truths not to be self-evident, but buried within us all. They are practical, easy to follow, and constructive. They allow for simple self-reflection: Why did I fail to gain a number close? Because I was depending on her to make me happy (i.e: respond favorably to my approach) instead of seeking my own happiness from within (i.e: maintaining abundance mentality).

I hope they serve you well.

EDIT: Credit to u/baleet for correcting the text of Invictus. My quoted source was incorrect. Thank you!