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How to Ruin Your Life
by Ben Stein
Great advice from Ben Stein
Ben Stein says that he has been studying how people ruin their lives since he was in elementary school. Stein, himself, seemingly has not ruined his own life. He graduated from Columbia University with honors, and from Yale Law School, where he was the class valedictorian. He went on to work as an attorney and taught at colleges and Pepperdine Law School. Stein was a speech writer for presidents Nixon and Ford, and then wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal. More recently, Stein became a successful actor and television writer. All this is not to mention that he has found the time to write seventeen books.
Using ironic humor in this book, Stein passes on a wealth of tough advice. To ruin your life, he suggests first, “Don't Learn Any Useful Skills.” “Make yourself useless,” Stein says, “Don't practice decent study habits. Don't bother to acquaint yourself with history, languages, or mathematics.” He continues, “You were born knowing all you need to know, and don't you forget it.” Stein provides the reader with thirty-four other rules to assure failure. These range from, “Be a perfectionist,” and, “Never be Grateful,” to “Use drugs and alcohol freely,” and, “Live above your means.” Stein end his list with, “Whenever possible, say, ‘I told you so.'” The text that accompanies these ruinous precepts is powerful stuff, which should make the densest in-duh-vidual (thanks, Dilbert) sit up and pay attention.
> The only question is how can we distribute this to the widest possible audience? First, every high school student should be given this book. Copies should then be handed out to everyone enrolling in post-secondary education (just in case they misplaced their high school copies), and finally, to all those who apply for marriage licenses. That would be a start anyway. I can see people buying boxes of this book and anonymously sending copies out to acquaintances, with bookmarks in appropriate sections.
Title: How to Ruin Your Life
Author: Ben Stein
Publisher: Hay House
ISBN: 1401902405
Review written by: William Keogan
Reviewer's Rating:9
Reader's Rating: 7.67
Reader's Votes: 6
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