Lilit Marcus is a fellow Sweet Valley High enthusiast, unironic wearer of hats, Jersey Shore savant and author of Save The Assistants: A Guide To Surviving And Thriving In The Workplace, a tome anyone who’s ever been at the mercy of anyone awful can vastly appreciate. She currently pens posts for Racked.com on all manner of things. I hit her up to share her Five Rules For Life. Here, Lilit’s words of wisdom.

1. A hot bath fixes just about everything.
Whenever I’m having a bad day, am coping with stress, or am starting to feel under the weather, I immediately run a bath (and dig into my stash of Lush products). There are actual health and beauty benefits to taking a bath, but the real pleasure of a proper bath is taking some time to relax and be alone with your thoughts.

2. When deciding between experiences and things, always pick experiences.
If you have to brown bag your lunch for a month in order to afford that trip, do it. You’ll remember the trip five years later, but you probably can’t remember what you had for lunch yesterday. I spent a year saving pennies from my assistant salary to afford a ten-day trip to Greece, and I am still grateful for that.

3. Be nice to interns.
And, while you’re at it, also be nice to receptionists, wait staff, assistants, and customer service people. And the delivery guys who bring you sushi in a hailstorm.

4. Sleep.
There’s a reason they call it beauty sleep. Also, wear eye cream.

5. Watch bad TV; read great books.

This year, my favorite pieces of culture were Honey Boo Boo, Teen Mom, and Middlemarch. It’s just like eating: some junk is fine, as long as you still eat your vegetables.

Thanks, Lilit!