--YOU AND I ARE LIKE CONTROLLED
HALLUCINATIONS
…I saw this and thought it was
interesting:
The 14 Habits
of Highly Miserable People
How to succeed at
self-sabotage.
November 18, 2013 |
Most
of us claim we want to be happy—to have meaningful lives, enjoy ourselves,
experience fulfillment, and share love and friendship with other people and
maybe other species, like dogs, cats, birds, and whatnot. Strangely enough,
however, some people act as if they just want to be miserable, and they succeed
remarkably at inviting misery into their lives, even though they get little
apparent benefit from it, since being miserable doesn’t help them find lovers
and friends, get better jobs, make more money, or go on more interesting
vacations. Why do they do this? After perusing the output of some of the finest
brains in the therapy profession, I’ve come to the conclusion that misery is an
art form, and the satisfaction people seem to find in it reflects the creative
effort required to cultivate it. In other words, when your living conditions
are stable, peaceful, and prosperous—no civil wars raging in your streets, no
mass hunger, no epidemic disease, no vexation from poverty—making yourself
miserable is a craft all its own, requiring imagination, vision, and ingenuity.
It can even give life a distinctive meaning.
So
if you aspire to make yourself miserable, what are the best, most proven
techniques for doing it? Let’s exclude some obvious ways, like doing drugs,
committing crimes, gambling, and beating up your spouse or neighbor. Subtler
strategies, ones that won’t lead anyone to suspect that you’re acting
deliberately, can be highly effective. But you need to pretend that you want to
be happy, like everybody else, or people won’t take your misery seriously. The
real art is to behave in ways that’ll bring on misery while allowing you to
claim that you’re an innocent victim, ideally of the very people from whom
you’re forcibly extracting compassion and pity.
Here,
I cover most areas of life, such as family, work, friends, and romantic
partners. These areas will overlap nicely, since you can’t ruin your life
without ruining your marriage and maybe your relationships with your children
and friends. It’s inevitable that as you make yourself miserable, you’ll be
making those around you miserable also, at least until they leave you—which
will give you another reason to feel miserable. So it’s important to keep in
mind the benefits you’re accruing in your misery.
•
When you’re miserable, people feel sorry for you. Not only that, they often
feel obscurely guilty, as if your misery might somehow be their fault. This is
good! There’s power in making other people feel guilty. The people who love you
and those who depend on you will walk on eggshells to make sure that they don’t
say or do anything that will increase your misery.
•
When you’re miserable, since you have no hopes and expect nothing good to
happen, you can’t be disappointed or disillusioned.
•
Being miserable can give the impression that you’re a wise and worldly person,
especially if you’re miserable not just about your life, but about society in
general. You can project an aura of someone burdened by a form of profound, tragic,
existential knowledge that happy, shallow people can’t possibly appreciate.
Honing Your Misery Skills
Let’s
get right to it and take a look at some effective strategies to become
miserable. This list is by no means exhaustive, but engaging in four or five of
these practices will help refine your talent.
1. Be afraid, be very afraid, of economic loss. In hard economic times, many people are
afraid of losing their jobs or savings. The art of messing up your life
consists of indulging these fears, even when there’s little risk that you’ll
actually suffer such losses. Concentrate on this fear, make it a priority in
your life, moan continuously that you could go broke any day now, and complain
about how much everything costs, particularly if someone else is buying. Try to
initiate quarrels about other people’s feckless, spendthrift ways, and suggest
that the recession has resulted from irresponsible fiscal behavior like theirs.
Fearing economic loss has several
advantages. First, it’ll keep you working forever at a job you hate. Second, it
balances nicely with greed, an obsession with money, and a selfishness that
even Ebenezer Scrooge would envy. Third, not only will you alienate your
friends and family, but you’ll likely become even more anxious, depressed, and
possibly even ill from your money worries. Good job!
Exercise: Sit in a
comfortable chair, close your eyes, and, for 15 minutes, meditate on all the
things you could lose: your job, your house, your savings, and so forth. Then
brood about living in a homeless shelter.
2. Practice sustained
boredom. Cultivate the feeling that everything is predictable, that life
holds no excitement, no possibility for adventure, that an inherently
fascinating person like yourself has been deposited into a completely tedious
and pointless life through no fault of your own. Complain a lot about how bored
you are. Make it the main subject of conversation with everyone you know so
they’ll get the distinct feeling that you think they’re boring.
Consider provoking a crisis to relieve your boredom. Have an affair (this works
best if you’re already married and even better if you have an affair with
someone else who’s married); go on repeated shopping sprees for clothes, cars,
fancy appliances, sporting equipment (take several credit cards, in case one
maxes out); start pointless fights with your spouse, boss, children, friends,
neighbors; have another child; quit your job, clean out your savings account,
and move to a state you know nothing about.
A side benefit of being bored is
that you inevitably become boring. Friends and relatives will avoid you. You
won’t be invited anywhere; nobody will want to call you, much less actually see
you. As this happens, you’ll feel lonely and even more bored and miserable.
Exercise: Force
yourself to watch hours of mindless reality TV programs every day, and read
only nonstimulating tabloids that leave you feeling soulless. Avoid literature,
art, and keeping up with current affairs.
3. Give yourself a
negative identity. Allow a perceived emotional problem to
absorb all other aspects of your self-identification. If you feel depressed,
become a Depressed Person; if you suffer from social anxiety or a phobia,
assume the identity of a Phobic Person or a Person with Anxiety Disorder. Make
your condition the focus of your life. Talk about it to everybody, and make
sure to read up on the symptoms so you can speak about them knowledgeably and
endlessly. Practice the behaviors most associated with that condition,
particularly when it’ll interfere with regular activities and relationships.
Focus on how depressed you are and become weepy, if that’s your identity of
choice. Refuse to go places or try new things because they make you too
anxious. Work yourself into panic attacks in places it’ll cause the most
commotion. It’s important to show that you don’t enjoy these states or
behaviors, but that there’s nothing you can do to prevent them.
Practice putting yourself in the
physiological state that represents your negative identity. For example, if
your negative identity is Depressed Person, hunch your shoulders, look at the
floor, breathe shallowly. It’s important to condition your body to help you
reach your negative peak as quickly as possible.
Exercise: Write down
10 situations that make you anxious, depressed, or distracted. Once a week,
pick a single anxiety-provoking situation, and use it to work yourself into a
panic for at least 15 minutes.
4. Pick fights. This
is an excellent way of ruining a relationship with a romantic partner. Once in
a while, unpredictably, pick a fight or have a crying spell over something
trivial and make unwarranted accusations. The interaction should last for at
least 15 minutes and ideally occur in public. During the tantrum, expect your
partner to be kind and sympathetic, but should he or she mention it later,
insist that you never did such a thing and that he or she must have
misunderstood what you were trying to say. Act injured and hurt that your
partner somehow implied you weren’t behaving well.
Another way of doing this is to
say unexpectedly, “We need to talk,” and then to barrage your partner with
statements about how disappointed you are with the relationship. Make sure to
begin this barrage just as your partner is about to leave for some engagement
or activity, and refuse to end it for at least an hour. Another variation is to
text or phone your partner at work to express your issues and disappointments.
Do the same if your partner is out with friends.
Exercise: Write down
20 annoying text messages you could send to a romantic partner. Keep a grudge
list going, and add to it daily.
5. Attribute bad
intentions. Whenever you can, attribute the worst possible intentions to
your partner, friends, and coworkers. Take any innocent remark and turn it into
an insult or attempt to humiliate you. For example, if someone asks, “How did
you like such and such movie?” you should immediately think, He’s trying
to humiliate me by proving that I didn’t understand the movie, or He’s
preparing to tell me that I have poor taste in movies. The idea is to
always expect the worst from people. If someone is late to meet you for dinner,
while you wait for them, remind yourself of all the other times the person was
late, and tell yourself that he or she is doing this deliberately to slight
you. Make sure that by the time the person arrives, you’re either seething or
so despondent that the evening is ruined. If the person asks what’s wrong,
don’t say a word: let him or her suffer.
Exercise: List the
names of five relatives or friends. For each, write down something they did or
said in the recent past that proves they’re as invested in adding to your
misery as you are.
6. Whatever you do, do it
only for personal gain. Sometimes you’ll be tempted
to help someone, contribute to a charity, or participate in a community
activity. Don’t do it, unless there’s something in it for you, like the
opportunity to seem like a good person or to get to know somebody you
can borrow money from some day. Never fall into the trap of doing something
purely because you want to help people. Remember that your primary goal is to
take care of Numero Uno, even though you hate yourself.
Exercise: Think of
all the things you’ve done for others in the past that haven’t been
reciprocated. Think about how everyone around you is trying to take from you.
Now list three things you could do that would make you appear altruistic while
bringing you personal, social, or professional gain.
7. Avoid gratitude. Research
shows that people who express gratitude are happier than those who don’t, so
never express gratitude. Counting your blessings is for idiots. What blessings?
Life is suffering, and then you die. What’s there to be thankful for?
Well-meaning friends and
relatives will try to sabotage your efforts to be thankless. For example, while
you’re in the middle of complaining about the project you procrastinated on at
work to your spouse during an unhealthy dinner, he or she might try to remind
you of how grateful you should be to have a job or food at all. Such attempts
to encourage gratitude and cheerfulness are common and easily deflected. Simply
point out that the things you should be grateful for aren’t perfect—which frees
you to find as much fault with them as you like.
Exercise: Make a list
of all the things you could be grateful for. Next to each item, write down why
you aren’t. Imagine the worst. When you think of the future, imagine the
worst possible scenario. It’s important to be prepared for and preemptively
miserable about any possible disaster or tragedy. Think of the possibilities:
terrorist attacks, natural disasters, fatal disease, horrible accidents,
massive crop failures, your child not getting picked for the varsity softball
team.
8. Always be alert and in a state of anxiety. Optimism about the future leads only to
disappointment. Therefore, you have to do your best to believe that your
marriage will flounder, your children won’t love you, your business will fail,
and nothing good will ever work out for you.
Exercise: Do some research on what natural or manmade
disasters could occur in your area, such as earthquakes, floods, nuclear plant
leaks, rabies outbreaks. Focus on these things for at least an hour a day.
9. Blame your parents. Blaming your parents for your defects, shortcomings, and
failures is among the most important steps you can take. After all, your
parents made you who you are today; you had nothing to do with it. If you
happen to have any good qualities or successes, don’t give your parents credit.
Those are flukes.
Extend
the blame to other people from your past: the second-grade teacher who yelled
at you in the cafeteria, the boy who bullied you when you were 9, the college
professor who gave you a D on your paper, your first boyfriend, even the hick
town you grew up in—the possibilities are limitless. Blame is essential in the
art of being miserable.
Exercise: Call one of your parents and tell her or him that
you just remembered something horrible they did when you were a child, and make
sure he or she understands how terrible it made you feel and that you’re still
suffering from it.
10. Don’t enjoy life’s pleasures. Taking pleasure in things like food, wine,
music, and beauty is for flighty, shallow people. Tell yourself that. If you
inadvertently find yourself enjoying some flavor, song, or work of art, remind
yourself immediately that these are transitory pleasures, which can’t
compensate for the miserable state of the world. The same applies to nature. If
you accidentally find yourself enjoying a beautiful view, a walk on the beach,
or a stroll through a forest, stop! Remind yourself that the world is full of
poverty, illness, and devastation. The beauty of nature is a deception.
Exercise: Once a week, engage in an activity that’s supposed
to be enjoyable, but do so while thinking about how pointless it is. In other
words, concentrate on removing all sense of pleasure from the pleasurable
activity.
11. Ruminate. Spend
a great deal of time focused on yourself. Worry constantly about the causes of
your behavior, analyze your defects, and chew on your problems. This will help
you foster a pessimistic view of your life. Don’t allow yourself to become
distracted by any positive experience or influence. The point is to ensure that
even minor upsets and difficulties appear huge and portentous.
You
can ruminate on the problems of others or the world, but make them about you.
Your child is sick? Ruminate on what a burden it is for you to take time off
from work to care for her. Your spouse is hurt by your behavior? Focus on how
terrible it makes you feel when he points out how you make him feel. By
ruminating not only on your own problems but also those of others, you’ll come
across as a deep, sensitive thinker who holds the weight of the world on your
shoulders.
Exercise: Sit in a comfortable chair and seek out negative
feelings, like anger, depression, anxiety, boredom, whatever. Concentrate on
these feelings for 15 minutes. During the rest of the day, keep them in the
back of your mind, no matter what you’re doing.
12. Glorify or vilify the past. Glorifying the past is telling yourself how
good, happy, fortunate, and worthwhile life was when you were a child, a young
person, or a newly married person—and regretting how it’s all been downhill
ever since. When you were young, for example, you were glamorous and danced the
samba with handsome men on the beach at twilight; and now you’re in a so-so
marriage to an insurance adjuster in Topeka. You should’ve married tall, dark
Antonio. You should’ve invested in Microsoft when you had the chance. In short,
focus on what you could’ve and should’ve done, instead of what you did. This
will surely make you miserable.
Vilifying
the past is easy, too. You were born in the wrong place at the wrong time, you
never got what you needed, you felt you were discriminated against, you never
got to go to summer camp. How can you possibly be happy when you had such a
lousy background? It’s important to think that bad memories, serious mistakes,
and traumatic events were much more influential in forming you and your future
than good memories, successes, and happy events. Focus on bad times. Obsess
about them. Treasure them. This will ensure that, no matter what’s happening in
the present, you won’t be happy.
Exercise: Make a list of your most important bad memories and
keep it where you can review it frequently. Once a week, tell someone about
your horrible childhood or how much better your life was 20 years ago.
13. Find a romantic partner to reform. Make sure that you fall in love with someone
with a major defect (cat hoarder, gambler, alcoholic, womanizer, sociopath),
and set out to reform him or her, regardless of whether he or she wants to be
reformed. Believe firmly that you can reform this person, and ignore all
evidence to the contrary.
Exercise: Go to online dating sites and see how many bad
choices you can find in one afternoon. Make efforts to meet these people. It’s
good if the dating site charges a lot of money, since this means you’ll be
emotionally starved and poor.
14. Be critical. Make sure to have an endless list of dislikes and voice them
often, whether or not your opinion is solicited. For example, don’t hesitate to
say, “That’s what you chose to wear this morning?” or “Why is your voice so
shrill?” If someone is eating eggs, tell them you don’t like eggs. Your
negativity can be applied to almost anything.
It
helps if the things you criticize are well liked by most people so that your
dislike of them sets you apart. Disliking traffic and mosquitos isn’t creative
enough: everyone knows what it’s like to find these things annoying, and they
won’t pay much attention if you find them annoying, too. But disliking the new
movie that all your friends are praising? You’ll find plenty of opportunities
to counter your friends’ glowing reviews with your contrarian opinion.
Exercise: Make a list of 20 things you dislike and see how
many times you can insert them into a conversation over the course of the day.
For best results, dislike things you’ve never given yourself a chance to like.
-----
I’ve
just listed 14 ways to make yourself miserable. You don’t have to nail every
one of them, but even if you succeed with just four or five, make sure to
berate yourself regularly for not enacting the entire list. If you find
yourself in a therapist’s office—because someone who’s still clinging to their
love for you has tricked you into going—make sure your misery seems organic. If
the therapist enlightens you in any way or teaches you mind-body techniques to
quiet your anxious mind, make sure to co-opt the conversation and talk about
your misery-filled dreams from the night before. If the therapist is skilled in
dream analysis, quickly start complaining about the cost of therapy itself. If
the therapist uses your complaints as a launching pad to discuss transference
issues, accuse him or her of having countertransference issues. Ultimately, the
therapist is your enemy when trying to cultivate misery in your life. So get
out as soon as possible. And if you happen upon a therapist who’ll sit quietly
while you bring all 14 items on this list to life each week, call me. I’ll want
to make an appointment, too.
