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Live longer, folks! It's easy

Every time I pick up a magazine, there is an article about how to live long and be happy and healthy, except no one tells you how to balance all that happiness and robust health aspiration with the next article (it is always the next article), which stresses stress from debt, career collisions, hassles, tensions and the nitty gritty of the daily grind and tells you how sodding terrible your life is.
So I started messing about with my own little sortie in punditry and came up with my 10-point 'live longer' mantra and it works if you can get it together. I should charge you for it, but being a decent sort of cove, it's yours for free. If it brings a little sunshine into lives of quiet despair that will be reward enough.
It is working for me, but don't hold me to it. If it does not work for you, then that is your problem, let me off the hook. You are just not doing it right. So, here goes.
1 Don't cut out anything. If it exists and you like it, fine, just use moderation, that's the key word. More stress is caused by denial than this world dreams of. All these fancy diets and weight loss programmes and the misery that comes with them. Judicious dissipation, that is the answer. I eat everything but have learnt that genius lies in knowing where to stop.
2. Don't push yourself. As you get older, slow down and ignore all those experts who tell you about cardio whatever because crazy exercise is close to manslaughter, so sweat but don't sweat it. There is never anything to prove, so slow down and keep walking.
3. Drop envy as a companion. The green-eyed monster eats your heart out and nibbles at your mind like a rat. You cannot be the other person, so what's the point of working yourself over it. Remember, there will always be someone richer, more successful, better at your game than you, but look down the ladder and see the masses who would kill to be in your place. I figured out a long time ago that envy is so wasteful. Like I see someone in a Bentley or living in a mansion and it does absolutely nothing to me, not even a twinge. I am never going to have one, so what's the point?
4. Listen to your body. They don't call it body language for nothing. It always gives warning signs. Crisis is seldom sudden, it happens because we duck the signs, like it's only indigestion when it is not. It's your life... sobering thought... they will be talking on their mobile phones at your funeral and wondering if it is okay to buzz off now, duty done, see you at the golf course at 4.
5. Stay out of debt. Debt cripples. It has the ability to hang over your head like a cloud. Credit cards can kill you and there is nothing worse and more humiliating than being chased for money... as corrosive as rust. That rude phone call, the gut-wrenching response to the number that comes up on your mobile and ruins your mood. been there, done that.
6. Smell the roses. No point having a garden if you won't stop to enjoy it. The rich haven't figured this out either. Beyond a certain degree of wealth and success, it is all repetitive, so find repose, rest, relaxation and get a hobby even if you are 72... hobbies are good medicine. And nourish the mind. read, read, read and read some more. Ambition is fine but don't become road kill on the highway to success.
7. Laugh. It is incredible how problems shrink when you can funny mirror your life and yourself and all the pomposity around you. Be serious but don't take props seriously. Your designation, your seat of power, your perks, your silly car brand, your address, these are all passing fancies or sad, little crutches. It is a sobering thought that 10 years from the day you kick off, no one will remember you, you will be so irrelevant.
8. Don't drag the past with you. That's why it is the past. Yesterday. Learn from it, but if you insist on carrying it into the present and the future, all you'll end up doing is bleeding. Carpe diem, seize the day and to hell with yesterday, why fret about it if today is sweet.
9. Save your time. It is precious. Don't squander it on inconsequentials - be that events, people, hangers-on, projects, etc. Use it for family. Family counts. Much more than we give it credit for because when the chips are down, family rallies around and the same for friends, never take them for granted- they are the whipped cream on the sundae.
10. Do something good. For children. For the world you live in. For an individual. For an animal. Nothing like a good deed to get the adrenalin flowing... goodwill is so under-rated. Never be bashful about coughing up a hand, a littler bread, giving someone a break, so what if it massages the ego, it is better than not doing it. happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without spilling a few drops on yourself.
So live a little... and if you have any suggestions that are better than mine, well, don't just sit there, share them.
Till the next time around, stay well.
wknd@khaleejtimes.com