The NEET Commandments (Part One)
Living With Purpose and Meaning
The post-employment era is here.
The biggest myth is that “hard work” or “being educated” pays — it doesn’t. Hard work is the fastest path to mediocrity. You’re better off doing as little as possible and being a work minimalist instead of a work maximalist.
As for formal education, it’s an expensive investment with higher costs and diminishing returns. With a curious mind and an appetite for risk, you can learn more for free online than any college degree or formal qualification.
So the natural path forward for happiness is to pursue NEETdom. However, as you may have read in the The NEET Compass, being unemployed doesn’t guarantee happiness or meaning.
Some wagies are actually more happy and free than NEETs because of how they’ve designed and optimised their life.
What’s the secret to being happy then? It’s beyond simply quitting your job: it’s living by a set of guidelines that ensure sustainable meaning and happiness.
So whether you’re a NEET or still trying to make it out of the wage cage, here are the 10 NEET Commandments that I live my life by:
1. Thou Shalt Stop Caring
We suffer more in imagination than in reality. So many of our problems do not exist; they just seem to exist in our minds.
An embarrassing moment from high school may live rent-free in your head for the rest of your life, when you’re the only one who has kept the thought or memory alive.
When a memory is paired with a strong emotional feeling, and you re-live that experience over and over again, it begins to shape who you are at your core.
The solution? Stop Caring.
You can’t change things that have happened in the past. For better or for worse, they’ve led you to where you are now. The only thing you can do is use your experiences to your advantage and avoid repeating mistakes.
Also, imagine caring what other people think of you to the point where it has a stronghold over you. That’s like caring what NPCs in a video game think because you’re jumping or rolling around everywhere.
Let’s take another common situation: outrage culture.
The news and social media is engineered to get a strong reaction out of you. So many normies fall for the bait and constantly use social media to vent their frustrations and share their worthless opinions.
People fall for this trap so badly, they end up caring about people and places that they can’t pinpoint on a map.
I’m constantly asked for my opinion on Israel or Palestine. Russia or Ukraine. More recently, Trump or Elon. People seethe when I simply say “I don’t care.” They spend countless time and energy thinking about people and problems that do not impact them directly.
Not caring is a muscle. The more you train it, the less you care about the things that don’t matter and the more mental space you have to care about the things that matter.
Your priority should always be addressing things that impact you and the people around you directly. Focus on improving your own living situation instead of wasting time and energy caring about literally anyone or anything else.
I even made a Stop Caring Bot on Twitter to remind you every day that it’s simply not worth it. Your modus operandi should be Not Caring, and simply enjoying a peaceful, happy life.
2. Thou Shalt Leave The House
The quickest way to become a low-functioning NEET is to spend all your time indoors.
Once a day, make a conscious effort to go outside.
If you’re a NEET, you can effectively go anywhere and do almost anything. You have the added benefit of doing it outside of peak hours, so you can enjoy empty roads, beaches, parks and gyms.
Why would you make the most of it? Wagies only have a limited and finite amount of time and energy. As a NEET, you have 10x the amount of flexibility.
My advice is to leave the house once a day and go for a walk. Walking activates multiple parts of your brain, it’s light exercise that keeps you healthy, and if you choose somewhere nice to walk, you get to enjoy fresh air, sunlight and beautiful scenery.
3. Thou Shalt Spend And Invest Wisely
Do not fall for the trap of consumerism. It’s a bottomless pit.
You don’t need a fancy car, an expensive watch or designer clothes to be happy or to have made it.
The primary goal of building wealth shouldn’t be to flaunt it to other people. If anything, you’re better off hiding and downplaying how much you have. Remember, you don’t care what other people think of you.
There’s a fine line though. You should definitely look presentable, drive a clean car that doesn’t break down and not wear dirty clothes that have holes in them.
It’s just much more valuable in the long-term when you have your money working for you in assets that appreciate in value, instead of spending and wasting money.
You’re often confronted by two extremes. There are people online who say to invest every penny in index funds to retire in 40 years.
Then there are people who live off credit-card debt, constantly flexing on social media, travelling to new places and dining at fancy restaurants.
The truth? You’ll probably find happiness somewhere in the middle.
Your financial goal should be to sustain your NEET lifestyle for as long as possible. That often means having most of your capital deployed in investments, but always having enough in savings to cover expenses.
Keep track of what you have saved and invested and what you can afford to spend. It reduces your cognitive load and allows you to live a stress-free life.
4. Thou Shalt Make Frens
It’s dangerous to go alone.
The worst thing you can do as a NEET is isolate yourself. There are too many frens to be made.
Most people becoming miserable, hollow versions of themselves because of work. It puts them in a bad mood, drains them of their time and energy, and forces them to become someone they’re not in order to fit in.
As a NEET, you’re free from this. You do not have to pretend to like people and go out for a team lunch or drinks with every week in order to keep your job. You can be your truest self.
That comes at a cost: your social skills will likely plummet if you’re not regularly talking or interacting with people. It’s way too easy to be terminally online and avoid interacting with real people.
You want a balance of online and offline friends. Both have their benefits as well as their limitations.
Online, you can meet a lot of people beyond the scope of your physical location. I’ve known some people online for years and have even helped some improve their lives with good advice, or just shared some good times in group chats.
It’s easier to find people with common beliefs, interests and values online. It’s also very easy to connect with people.
Offline, however, has it’s own benefits. Having friends in-person can be valuable and rewarding. There might be certain aspects of their appearance, personality or beliefs that you may not 100% agree with, but that’s the reality of friendship.
Depending on how you’re friends with, you will absorb their best qualities and become like them. It’s the simplest, easiest way to level up as a person: make better friends.
Don’t neglect socialising. Be proactive in meeting new people online and catching up with friends in-person.
5. Thou Shalt Not Goon
Gooning is probably the most self-destructive habit you could ever fall into.
If you regularly watch and masturbate to porn, you’re literally re-wiring your brain and turning yourself into a slave living off synthetic bursts of dopamine.
There is no limit to the amount you can goon. There is an endless amount of degenerate adult content out there. You can spend all day watching it and never be satisfied.
Over time, your brain and body will begin to change. You begin to become slow, lazy and unmotivated. You rarely see the effects of gooning. The decay is gradual, but it always happens.
Most normies live mediocre, forgettable lives because they settle for instant gratification. It’s easy to sit and watch slop on Netflix. It’s easier to order Uber Eats. And it’s easy to watch reels of girls dancing and jerk off to porn.
You will never achieve anything significant or surmount to anything if you constantly settle for instant gratification. You will never be happy if you pursue and indulge in what is fake instead of what is real.
Being porn-brained and constantly preoccupied about sex and your next orgasm is no different to a drug addict constantly chasing your next high.
The solution? Never Goon.
It starts with a simple choice. Avoid interacting or engaging with content that includes pictures or videos of half-naked women.
As tempting as it is, if you start viewing suggestive pictures or reels of, the algorithm will start showing you more of it. It’s much easier to block or mute and quit while you’re ahead.
If it’s already too late for you, you need to take a drastic measure. Unplug your internet, log out of social media, turn off your phone, and reset your brain.
The less time you spend online, the easier it is to avoid gooning.
Once you fix your dopamine levels, you’ll find it becomes a lot easier to get things done. You’ll have a clearer mind and more energy to pursue what you actually want to.
The highlight of your day won’t be getting off.
Never Goon. Not even once.
Thank you for reading Part One of the NEET Commandments. I hope you found it valuable and informative.
Part Two is coming soon. Make sure you’re following me on Twitter and Telegram to be notified when it goes live.
Until next time,
— NEETOCRACY
🥂
anon do you have even one netflix show you genuinely enjoyed?
besides baki, that one is peak dude comedy
Never goon