How to Be Liked

Do not do as you're told.

Challenge authority - politely.

Respect others' boundaries.

Break all of your own.

Be interesting.

Have adventures.

Tell incredible stories.

Listen to other people's.

Laugh and cry not in all the right places,

but where you feel you should laugh and cry.

Try persuading everyone else to laugh and cry there too

but stop when you see the storyteller start to crack.

It's his life; let him have it.

Read books.

Watch movies.

Be a participant in the world.

Form unbendable opinions,

and then some that stretch just a little more easily.

Take showers, eat healthy and get enough sleep.

Take care of yourself, but

let other people matter more than yourself.

Smile at children and pet dogs, unless you're allergic

in which case it's fine to just wave.

Water your neighbor's plants while he's away and help that old lady across the street.

Go to Halloween parties you're invited to, or if you feel like it, decline

and spend the night curled up with a horror movie and a bag of candy.

Either way, smile the next time you see them

and be there for them as a friend, if not a party guest.

Attend funerals as well as weddings.

Wakes as well as births. 

Be the first one to remember the happy times and the last to bring up the bad.

Be the person you want to be and refuse to be anything different,

but let others do the same. 

Rage against the system. Save the people you love from danger and corruption.

And let them save themselves. Let them decide

what danger and corruption they can't handle.

For that matter, let them decide whether or not the danger and corruption is dangerous and corrupt in the first place.

Hold a torch in one hand and leave the other open; you never know what the world may require ofit.

Start fires, but always keep a bucket close by. 

Be a fearsome ocean.

Be the soothing sand.

Exist for the sake of yourself, and for the sake

of humanity.

Someone will love you no matter what you do. Make sure you're worthy of that love.

Love others. Love yourself.

How to Be Liked: Part 2

Love.