How to be a bachelor : the 80% rule

This is not the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle) although you can use that to reach this.

As part of the how-to series I am writing, I will be pointing out times and situations in which you don't need to get more than about 80% of things to work. Your breakfast doesn't have to always be 100% healthy, your house doesn't always have to be 100% clean, you don't even need to pay 100% of your bills on time.

It's OK to cut yourself a little slack, as long as you know you are doing it and you are doing it for a reason.

Today's young adults, judging from everything I read in the papers, are critically loaded with stress. It's the cumulation of the last 50 years of the world showing you things you can't have, demonstrating skills you didn't master, expecting commitments you can't make. It makes everyone go postal.

Postal.

That's a word that my young friend didn't know the origin of. There was a time when postal workers ended up shooting up the post office. It turns out that requiring high levels of performance without providing any way to affect your performance will drive you crazy quicker than anything else. They were supposed to put through a certain amount of mail, but other people and machines were in control of the pace. They could not perform up to the USPS standards.

So they got fired, for not doing the job they had no way to do, then came back and shot up the place.

Young adults must feel that way these days. They know there are people out there with $100k jobs out of college and run the company by age 35. They know this because TV shows tell them so. Never mind that it's so rare that they made a TV show out of it.

Expectation of performance. No control over the outcome.

99% of people can't get there from here. Just can't.

So let's deal with what you can do and try to get that right about 80% of the time. Or less. It's OK to start where you are and go from there.

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