Personal Conduct

“Live every day as if it were your last, and one day you’ll be right.”
“Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.”

If we may meet God at any time, it is important to maintain proper conduct at all times.

Personal

Clothing

• Dress properly at all times.
• Plan what to wear in advance. Use the outfit-image-retrieval-system to help select outfits.
  • The system maintains a collection of outfit images that can be retrieved with natural-language queries.
  • When new outfit images are added, the system:
    • computes a perceptual hash,
    • generates a description,
    • stores both for later retrieval.

Grooming and Hygiene

• Brush your teeth and wash your face at least twice daily.
• Wash your face with a facial cleanser.
• Floss at least every other day.
• Maintain a clean shave by shaving at least every other day.
• Keep the body clean and trim body hair at least every other week.
• Shower at least every other day.
• Before interacting with others, use mouthwash and apply perfume or a light fragrance.

Posture and Bearing

• Keep the neck straight and avoid craning it forward.
• Maintain good posture and keep the back upright whether sitting, standing, or bending down.
• Walk at a moderate pace, neither too fast nor too slow.
• Carry as few items as possible.

Eating and Drinking

• When hungry, give consideration first to drinking, since thirst is often mistaken for hunger.
• Since tasks are not evenly distributed through the day, eat and drink opportunistically during lighter intervals.
  • Keep smaller, balanced snacks at hand, especially those combining protein, fiber, and healthy fat.
  • Favor things that can be eaten within five to ten minutes without breaking concentration or losing momentum.
  • Such smaller meals are often easier on the gut, may help regularity, and tend to blunt the post-breakfast/lunch/dinner slump better than a large, carbohydrate-heavy meal.
  • When this is possible, preserve the longer breakfast/lunch/dinner interval for rest or a short siesta.
• If there is a choice, prefer foods that accord with the land, climate, history, and inherited way of life of the region in which one lives.
  • In the Americas, rely less heavily on beef, dairy products, and wheat, and give greater place to foods more proper to the land, including chili peppers, corn, and beans where fitting.
• After eating:
  • wipe or wash your face,
  • rinse your mouth or drink water to remove food particles.

Daily Attentiveness

• Check all email and social media accounts every day.
• Let correspondence and ordinary channels of communication not be neglected.

Professional

Written Documents

• Let important discussions be driven by a written document.
• A written document is demanding in a good way. You cannot write a coherent argument about a decision, proposal, or strategy without first understanding your own position.
• Writing forces you to answer questions such as:
  • What problem are we actually solving?
  • Why does this matter?
  • Who is affected?
  • What are the tradeoffs?
  • What evidence supports this recommendation?