1) Have a “bro”-niverse.

Some dudes are in serious need of a bromance, plain and simple. Surround yourself around awesome dudes and a couple decent dudettes and you’re set.

It’s all in the picking. Avoid hyper-moral and hyper-ethical people. You don’t need clergymen in your life—you need friends! Avoid impulsive people, too. You’ll end up turning into their personal babysitter. Also, avoid situations where you feel you’re being overly judged. That’s just not right. Keep in touch with people and cast a wide net.

2) Keep it simple.

Describe your life in a sentence or two like you’re on a dating website. Don’t embellish. For me, it would sound something like this:

“Hi, my name’s _____. I hang out at cafes, Starbucks, and Barnes and Noble. I often read from non-fiction books a little each day and write in my journal. In addition, I like to write poems and email them to friends.”

That’s my life. I’ve accepted that it’s no great shakes and I don’t try to fool anybody. If someone asks what I do, I say I’m getting a Post-Doc in “Lebowski Studies,” a PhD in “Dude-ology.” Who gives a shit? Stop trying to make your life seem more interesting than it actually is. Boring’s the new awesome.

3) Read (mostly) what interests you.

Thinking back throughout your life, what are your 4 “core” books? What 4 books represent everything and anything about you? My four core books are the following:

“Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, “Wooden on Leadership” by John Wooden and Steve Jamison, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain, and “The Theory of Poker” by David Sklansky.

What would you call these books? These are my “passions!” These are the types of books that get me excited, get me thinking, books I actually read and won’t just collect dust on some Amazon wish list or show-off-y bookshelf. I try to read most books in those 4 genres—books on achievement, leadership, entertaining fiction (and poetry, too), and books about games and skill.

However, I will say this—would it kill you to read the newspaper every once in a while?! I highly respect people who actually know what the fuck is going on in “the world.” Reading the Facebook News Feed doesn’t count. I think 80% or so of reading should be of one’s passions, but branching out is super-important, too. Maybe read some of the “classics” to round yourself out.

As for newspaper, most people agree that The Wall Street Journal is pretty “middle of the way” and I always try to read some Op-Ed articles, articles on public health insurance, environmentalism, and world politics. At the end of the day, we ought to be informed.

4) Relax, motherfucker!

There are many ways of putting this. “Nowhere to go and nothing to do.” “Let the grass grow all by itself.” “The sun will rise and set without your intervention.” What I’m saying is, most people need to take a fucking chill pill! If you feel you “have” to do something, if you feel some type of crazy urge to intervene all the time in both other people’s and your own life, it probably means you need some serious R&R.

Go sleep, meditate, or both, for a while. If you wake up and still feel like you’re the general manager of the universe, go back to sleep again!

I highly suggest that you immediately lie in bed and listen to some guided meditation music. Remember that any rest or sleep you can get before midnight at any point during the week is just money in the bank. If you start harboring psychopathic thoughts, consider a nap. And if you start scrawling the “Great American Novel” over a weekend, consider hitting the snooze button before you email your manuscript to the publishers.

5) “Great” is the enemy of the good.

Aim to just be a good person, not a “great” person. Striving to be “holier than thou” in morality, ethics, religion, whatever, will only exhaust you and turn you from a righteous person to a self-righteous prick. If you’re “better” than other people for the wrong reasons, you will often lose your humility, perspective and modesty.

My old professor Dr. Witryol used to say that when we become self-righteous, we develop a lot of blind spots. You only end up become “hole-ier” than a piece of Swiss Cheese.

Don’t worry, trying to be merely good, trying to behave just decently, with straight shooting and plain dealing, will already put you in the upper 1% of awesomeness on this planet. Trying to be “too good” often ends up making you “no good.”

What I’m saying is, try to be more Homer Simpson and less Ned Flanders, and everything will turn out okaley-dokaley!

6) Obsessions and addictions are bad; passions and interests are good.

Anything you do mindlessly, compulsively, because you “have to,” is just creating deeper addiction grooves in your neurotransmitter-laden brain and turning you into a gross caricature of your original, spontaneous self (Facebook…cough cough…)

Giving in to your obsessions, things you feel you “can’t live without,” whether it’s an addiction to a woman or women in general, whether it’s “binge” TV-watching, even overworking and making lots of money, drinking, too much social media, reckless spending, it’s all bad in the end.

One more thing—the younger you are, the easier it is to nip your bullshit in the bud before it becomes a full-on midlife crisis. Your 20s is the perfect time to get rid of your baggage. Whatever your crap is, ditch it. Doesn’t matter if your “crap” is big or small—even if it’s just passive-aggressive behavior, or petty theft, or choosing bad girlfriends, doesn’t matter. Until you get a hold of your shit, your life will just be a never-ending vortex of crap.

By the way, what’s the difference between “addictions and obsessions” and mere “passions and interests?” Well, you always rule your passions and interests, but your obsessions and addictions rule you.

7) You are what you do, over and over again.

Want to only check your email once a day? Then do it! Only want to surf the internet for an hour a day? Well, what’s stopping you? Want to read the newspaper most days? Go right ahead!

We all have good, bad, and ugly pursuits. Just follow the good and the bad will eventually fall away on its own. Remember what my friend likes to say—“we can’t just define our lives by all the things we don’t do—we have to also pursue positive activities, too.” (This is why the whole Red Pill “monk mode” abstinence stuff has to also focus on not just avoiding negative habits but cultivating good, healthy habits at the same time.)

What matters is having energy, concentration, focus, relaxation, awareness, attention, self-control, peace of mind, and happiness—to do what you truly want to do—for the next 24 hours. That’s the “good life” in a nutshell. Good luck!

P.S.: And try to smell good most of the time—it certainly will help you, too!