A WARNING

Issued By :

THE DEPARTMENT FOR CORRECT LIVING & CONVENTIONAL CHOICES

Have you dedicated your life to making the right decisions? From day one, have you believed that the pathway to success is to study hard, work hard, get married, have children, go on vacation, eat meals, retire and die? If you have, we salute you. You have honored the conventions that make this Nation great. Conventional living brings stability. Stability brings prosperity. Prosperity brings jobs. Jobs bring money. And everyone likes money.

Do you excel at conventional living? Are you a manager at your job? Do you lead at work rather than follow? If you do, chances are you are a successful person. Successful people excel at conventional living because they follow all the rules every time. They do what they are told, make their way up the ladder and take home big paychecks. If you excel, chances are you walked a hard road to get where you are. There are many rivals on the road to conventional success, and winning is everything. There is no second place or runner-up prize for a close loss. It matters how you play the game, but winning is far more important than how you win.

To win at life, you need to work, work and work some more. Yet there are other elements in a conventional life that compete with work; and it is a challenge to balance them. To truly win at life, you not only must work more than your rivals, but you must also find the time to find an attractive wife, beget children, raise your children, go on family vacations and buy Christmas gifts each year. You must take time off work, which jeopardizes your success in the career race. But without attending to these other matters, you will not master conventional living. The truly successful man finds time to eat a balanced breakfast, work 15 hours a day, go to the gym, keep off the love handles, say good night to his children, pick up his dry cleaning and convincingly have intercourse with his wife on a semi-monthly basis. If you fail to accomplish any of these tasks, you risk your success.

Sadly, there are many "near-successful men." Most near-successful men focus exclusively on work; and for good reason. After all, work is the key to all other conventional living goals. Conventional living depends on careful planning, and careful planning depends on a reliable money source. Reliable money sources can only come from reliable, lucrative employment. Part-time jobs and contracts will not suffice. Only full-time, regular employment in a respectable field will supply the money necessary to fuel a conventional life. Near-successful men understand this. That is why they dedicate all their energy to their work. They stay hour after hour in the office, zealously advancing their employer's cause. They rightly think that enough dedicated work will eventually propel them to higher positions and a larger income. This may be true, but a man can never go beyond "near-successful" if he does not attend to conventional matters other than work.

Society mistakes near-successful men for truly successful men. Near-successful men project a confident, get-it-done attitude at work. They win their superiors' admiration with fanatical devotion to business. They stay late every night. They sacrifice their weekends to get projects done. They go on company outings and trips. They regularly travel, even to foreign countries. They do this for years on end, and their superiors reward them well. They bring home ever larger salaries and bonuses, delighting their wives. But during these "successful" years, they neglect the other key elements of successful conventional living. They get home late at night, long after their wives and children have gone to bed. They drop exhausted into their own beds, knowing that in a few hours they again will have to get up and head back to the office. They rarely see their wives and children awake. Even on weekends, they see them only for brief intervals before "putting in a Saturday afternoon at the office for client development."

This is the life of the near-successful man. Society may think that he is a great achiever. But in fact he is in great danger. Today, we present A WARNING to near-successful men: Your wife is cheating on you, you idiot. What did you expect her to do: You're never there! Did you truly put your trust in the wedding vow she gave you six years ago? Did you think she was going to let her erotic life go while you fanatically pursued an increased salary? All you do in bed is sleep. She is sick and tired of being unfulfilled. You don't even give her the emotional support she needs. When you do show up, all you do is talk about office intrigue, bosses, quarterly revenues and possible Christmas bonus amounts. True, she genuinely appreciates the life you give her, but she understands that there is more to life than sitting in a nice home and eating meals. You have not met the other requirements for a successful conventional life. And what about your children? They do not even know you because you are never there. It's always: "Daddy needs to go back to the office now," or "Maybe next time, kids." Pretty soon they will be adults and you will have spent 1 day out of every 30 with them for their whole lives.

Here at the Department, we recognize that we framed our advice in male terms. But we recognize that it is 2008. Women, too, pursue vigorous and challenging careers. We applaud them for their commitment to conventional living. Nonetheless, we present the same warning to near-successful women that we presented to near-successful men. In fact, we make an even more acute warning to working women, because women must work twice as hard to achieve the same success as a comparable male in the same industry. Your success will depend on your dogged dedication to company interests. That will leave you precious little time to be with your husband and children, assuming you elect to have children. Like the near-successful man, you too will be utterly exhausted when you return from work each night at 12 midnight. Neither you nor your husband will have the appetite or capacity to satisfy your erotic desires. Yet those desires will burn in both of you despite your efforts to suppress them. He will cheat on you, and you will cheat on him. It is merely a matter of time before it happens.

We present these warnings in order to spot trouble in your spouse before it develops. We do not advocate negative measures intended to root out cheating. That would betray the spirit of true success. After all, a truly successful man pleases both his wife and his employer. He is "near-successful" because he only satisfies his employer. Spying, suspicion and other devices intended to "catch" an unfaithful mate merely perpetuate near-success; they do not solve the underlying problem. If the man were truly successful, the wife would not even think of cheating. Thus, when a man adopts nefarious machinations to catch a desperate wife, he has admitted his own failure to please her. And when he admits that, he confesses that he is not truly successful in conventional living.

In that light, redouble your efforts. We understand how easy it is to devote all your energy to your employer. But there are other parties to please. Do not surrender. Fight harder. Tell yourself that you can work 16 hours a day, get a promotion, say good night to your children AND THEN make your wife feel like she did the first time when you were both 18. You can do it. You are almost there. You work harder than almost anyone else. You support our economy and set a wonderful example for every lazy sluggard in the world. But there is more to be done. Conquer your fatigue. Go the extra mile. Dig deeper. Remember: Life is a race. You don't want to lose, do you?