Big Red Car here.  Need some more Rules? You got it.

Friendship

Don’t be just a friend.  Be a great friend.  You will have them lined up around the block to be your friend.

When you friend needs you.  Stop what your doing.  Go to them.  Stitch them up.  Clean their wounds.   Tend to them.  Smile.  Comfort them.  Don’t ask why.  Just do it.

Make time and space and energy available to be a friend.

There is rarely a dispute so big that it should cost you a friendship.  Even if your friend steals your Big Red Car.  You can share it.

Life

All the time you have is borrowed.  Live life like you are on borrowed time.  You are, my friend.

Go places.  See stuff.  Take pictures.  Get tee shirts.  Make blankets from the tee shirts.  Snuggle with a loved one under the blanket of life.

Live life in the present.  Sleep innocently.  Don’t fret about tomorrow.  It will be here shortly.  Be at peace.

Honor.  Understand it.  Live an honorable life.  It will cost you something to do this but your memories will be sweet and provide you great comfort the second time around.  That is called a dividend.

Sometimes problems are to be bypassed like guardrails propelling us along rather than obstacles to be overcome.  Know the difference.  Do not try to solve every problem, just avoid some of them.

Winning

 When you are counting your winnings take a second to reflect as to whether you LOST anything in the process.  Your integrity?  Your friends?  Your family?  Your soul?  Sometimes your winnings are not enough to make up for your losses.  Go fix it NOW.

When counting your winnings, put aside something for those who assisted you along the way.  A great assistant?  That third grade teacher?  Your parish priest?  Give them their cut right away before the noble notion fades.  Follow your better angels while they are on the job.

Save one half of your winnings.  A bit of doo dah is OK, but save as much as you can.  Savings = lockbox.  Do it.

When you go to the pay window, drag your entire crew with you.  Share the winnings.  When you go to the pay window, everybody goes to the pay window.

Get in the habit of going to the paywindow and sharing and doing good works.  It is one of the few addictions the Big Red Car approves of.  More real good works are done with real money than great intentions.

Losing

No, grasshopper, you will NOT win at everything.  Rarely in life do you go undefeated.  A record of 34-2 may be a championship season.  But make them almost kill — figuratively — you before you admit defeat.  Go down swinging.  Die hard.  And take the lesson of your loss — the why — home as a trophy and put it up on the same mantle as your wins.  The lessons are really the same.  Just the outcomes are a bit different.

You may, in fact, lose in some encounter and you may learn a painful lesson.  But that does not make YOU a loser.  Actually it makes you stronger.

Sometimes, losing at an instant in time is just evidence that you arrived early.  Too early for the world or the marketplace to see the wisdom of your idea.  Don’t throw away the original drawings.  Wait on the market.

Manliness

Be a man.  You are the top of the food chain.  Act like it.

A time may come when you will have to fight.  Reason will have slipped out the side door.  Persuasion will go missing.  And you will be left only with the raw, naked necessity to fight your way out.  It happens.  Go somewhere before this happens and learn to handle your fists.  Learn how to fight.  Learn how to stick your thumb in someone’s eye.  How to chop them across the larynx.  How to break their nose and jam it into their brain.  Stomp on their foot and break that bone along the top — hurts like Hell.  How to tear an adversary’s ear off — nobody continues to fight when they only have a single ear.  Be prepared to save yourself and your loved ones.  Mark the mortgage on your life at a very high amount to be paid in blood.  Do not go easy.  Life is a bitch.

Alternatively, get a concealed handgun permit.  Learn how to handle a gun.  Don’t be foolhardy, be prepared.

When you see injustice speak up.  The unjust are always cowards.  They will flee in the face of a good man.  Be that good man.  Because, guess what, you are.  You just have to be reminded of it from time to time.

There is nothing that will differentiate you in the eyes of a good woman like manners.  Not good manners, courtly manners.  Consistent and relaxed and natural and graceful.  A woman whose opinion holds great sway with me told me that courtly manners are sexy.  Turns out she was right.

The Nerd

OK, Football Team Captain, the Nerd — you know the one who you picked on  in high school who sold his company for $300,000,000 and has been keeping company with your hot former girlfriend?  Seems he has a few extra rooms in his house — damn nice house by the way — and that sexy little vamp has moved in.  Who would have ever thought it?  They seem to be collaborating on something — calculus?  She says: “Hi!”

But, hey, what the Hell do I know anyway?  I’m just a Big Red Car.