Rules *NOT* To Live By  

Don't wear white after Labor Day. Never eat until everyone at the table has been served. Always send a gift if you've been invited to a wedding or baby shower. These are just a handful of the "social conventions" we absentmindedly follow without a second thought.

Of course, we all have our own rules to live by. Sometimes, they're lessons we've learned along the way-- like knowing not to mix beer and liquor during a Saturday night binge, or never pairing your shortest mini-skirt with your highest heels. But other times, they're ridiculous notions we religiously follow without rhyme, reason, or even sanity.

I have some of these rules to live by. Ok, ok, I have a lot of these rules to live by. As a previously-confessed Type-A (as in anal), it should come as no surprise to you that I have a little bit of OCD. All too often, this tendency to micro-manage every little piece of my life-- whether it be in my home, at my office, or even out in the real world-- can bite me in the butt. So I thought I'd take note of some of these worthless "rules NOT to live by", and let them go.

RULES NOT TO LIVE BY:

1) Don't use a sick day in the two weeks prior to or following a vacation.
-The day we got back from vacation a few months ago, I realized I already needed a vacation from my vacation. So naturally, I found myself up at 2am, unable to sleep, and obsessively counting down the minutes until my alarm would inevitably wake me up for the work week. DH urged me to take the day off-- but I'd just used five (count 'em, five of TEN!) precious vacation days, and I refused to use one of the three sick days I had left for the year. So what did I do? I staggered into work half-asleep, where I nearly made a grievous mistake that could have gotten my station sued. Lesson? If you're too sick or sleepy to work, then DON'T WORK!

2) I must go to the gym at least three times a week.
-There are two reasons for this useless rule. First, because I don't want to get flabby. But the more important, more pressing reason why I drag myself to the gym at least three times a week (almost always at an ungodly hour of the morning or night) is because I paid for my membership in advance, and BY GOD I'm going to get my money's worth. This is the motivation for a lot of what I do. I am a miser, a scrooge, and penny-pincher, and I hate to waste my hard-earned coin. But all too often, doing so comes at my expense (haha, no pun intended). I find myself at the gym when I could be home resting up for the day, or when I could be spending quality time with my DH after G goes to bed. Lesson? Time > Money. Therefore, by the transitive property of math, it is a greater grievance to waste time than money.

3) The bed must be made every... single... morning.
-I think this is a rule that irks my DH more than just about anything else. If it were up to him, the bed would never, ever be made. I, on the other hand, equate hospital corners to manna in the desert: absolutely necessary. At the end of a long, hard day, there is nothing better than crawling into a well-made bed and nodding off to sleep. I feel this way about a lot of household chores: I enjoy showering in a clean bathroom more than a dirty one, eating in a clean kitchen instead of one that's got food splatters everywhere, watching TV on a monitor that isn't caked with dust. It's just who. I. am. But you know what? On some rare occasions during which cataclysmic events have prevented me from finishing a chore to my lofty standards, the world did not end. Lesson? Things don't always have to be perfect, even for a perfectionist.

I'm curious to hear what some of your "rules to live by/not to live by" are... and the lessons you've learned by giving them up.