How to Ruin Your Life [Hardcover]

Ben Stein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 2002

A tongue-in-cheek guide to success describes the type of self-destructive behavior that will guarantee failure in life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Keeping a Chin UpOffering a tongue-in-cheek approach to living well, quiz show host and former White House speechwriter Ben Stein has written How to Ruin Your Life. Asserting that "failure is often a virtual road map to success in reverse," Stein tells readers, "[f]ollow these rules and you're guaranteed disaster. Avoid them, and you're on the high road to achievement...." He proceeds to explain how to "make yourself useless," "be a slob," "convince yourself you're all that matters" and "act like the world owes you." If ignored, his advice is sound and realistic, and may be the perfect way to push recent grads or other impressionable readers in the right direction.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Ben Stein, a nationally renowned "Renaissance man," is host of the long-running quiz show Win Ben Stein’s Money. He is a former White House speechwriter, Wall Street Journal columnist, trial lawyer, law school professor, scriptwriter, and novelist—and author of several self-help books on finance; including Money Power: How Profit from Inflation (out of print). He has seen the biggest (Richard Nixon) and the most famous (many Hollywood stars) ruin their lives. He has also seen how some seemingly ordinary people made something great of their lives—by doing the opposite of what he sees as ruinous acts and modes of thought. He resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife and son.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 110 pages
• Publisher: Hay House; First Edition edition (September 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561709743
• ISBN-13: 978-1561709748
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes it isn't sugar the medicine needs, but some bite, November 13, 2002

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Ruin Your Life (Hardcover)

I am glad that all three of Ben Stein's "How to Ruin Your Life" books are now together under one cover. Each was short and combined they still make for easy and delightful reading. The idea is that each book (you life, your love life, your financial life) provides a sardonic set of rules to ensure failure in misery in your life. For example, the very first rule in ruining your life is, "Don't Learn Any Useful Skills". This does seem an effective way to ensure misery doesn't it? The author then provides some commentary on the most effective ways to implement such a rule and the salutary effects it will have in helping ensure a ruined life.

The first rule in "How to Ruin Your Love Life" has been proven out in countless failed marriages and can be attested to by reading almost any divorce transcript you can find. The rule is, "Know That You Wishes Are the Only Ones That Matter In Any Situation." I am sure you have seen it applied in the lives of unhappy people you know and can attest that this rule can ensure the inability to form any long-term relationships that are actually long term.

And the first rule for ruining your financial life is "Forget About Tomorrow". You can see how this applies, I am sure. You should not only spend all you have today, you should borrow against tomorrow to have fun today. Yep, that will work.

So, each of these sections provides dozens of rules that can help the thoughtful think through their present actions and course of life and compare their behavior to these rules and see why things might be working out well or not. Sometimes the biting contrarian way of saying things helps us see more clearly than the sometimes too sweet way of saying things positively. Mr. Stein not only provides good advice in this inverse way, he make it funny as well.

Highly recommended and can make a great gift to the right son or daughter. Of course, it is the ones who need it less who will actually read it. As soon as I got it, my two youngest children, both teenagers, grabbed it from me and started going through it. I smiled.

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Witty and funny, August 29, 2002

By 

magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Ruin Your Life (Hardcover)

Ben Stein has been a securities lawyer, a Nixon speech writer, a game-show host, a journalist, and a speaker on success and financial management. If there's a wittier polymath out there I don't know who it is.

This book takes a perversely witty approach to the subject of success, not by showing you what makes for success, but by showing you 35 things you can do to avoid it. The book consists of brief essays on each of these topics, which include subjects such as never learn any useful skills, be perfectionistic, constantly criticize and never say anything nice to anybody, and in general, act like a jerk to anyone and everybody, including your friends and family (who needs them anyway?).

Stein says he got the idea for the book because, as he points out in the introduction, he's done more things in life than most people, and so he's had more opportunities to see people screw up perfectly good careers and lives than just about anybody else, too. So if you understand what these things are and avoid them, you may not become amazingly successful, but you'll probably do all right and possibly will become a great success yourself someday.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Nice Lunchtime Read That Will Stay With You a Lifetime, May 18, 2003

By 

Interplanetary Funksmanship "Swift lippin', e... (Vanilla Suburbs, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Ruin Your Life (Hardcover)

I picked up this book because I'm a fan of Ben Stein, the modern Renaissance man and ueber compassionate conservative. The droll title leads one to think it's anything other than what it is: A "self-help book in reverse."

Basically, this is Ben waxing dryly humourous on how to totally screw up your life: If you do the exact opposite of what he suggest, then you will succeed. A kind of backwards hermaneutics: From Ben's antithesis, you'll get his thesis for the good life, which if you apply to your everyday habits, will supply a generous synthesis of good vibes.

It is too soon to tell whether or not this book "worked for me," however, here's a clue that Stein is on the right track: If the reader is honest with himself, he will find himself guilty of some of these recipes for disaster. About 1/3 of the loser behaviours Ben outlines I have been, or currently am, engaged in. And you know what? Stein is right; these behaviours have not benefited me, but to some degree or another have conspired "to ruin my life."

Touche!