It is a strange, but undeniable fact, that if you appear to be miserable, people will feel sorrow or pity for you. With a little practice, you can use that quirk of human nature to your advantage.
Making others feel guilty about your perceived misery is a form of empowerment and control. Those who love or depend upon you will tread very carefully to ensure that they do nothing to compound your misery.
The other benefit is that if you develop the ability to be highly miserable, you will feel that you have no hopes or expectations that anything good will ever happen to you – so you can’t ever be disappointed.
But, being highly miserable does not come naturally to most people – you have to work at it. If there is truly nothing in your life which justifies a miserable state, then you need a lot of vision, imagination, and ingenuity to create that state.
The art is to pretend that, actually, you really want to be happy, otherwise people won’t take you seriously. As you make yourself miserable, you’ll make those around you miserable also – so they’ll probably give up and leave you. And that will give you another reason to feel miserable – just another one of the benefits.
How can you develop the necessary habits to become highly miserable?
Our Life Daily team has researched the options, and has come up with these surefire tips to help you achieve the most miserable state possible.
The suggestions come with practical proposals for a series of exercises you can practice to hone your skill in achieving each stage of misery:
1. Be frightened of losing all your money
Concentrate on this fear and complain continuously that you could go broke any day now. This has several advantages. Firstly, it’ll keep you working forever at a job you hate. Then, it reflects an attitude of an obsession with money. Finally, it will alienate your friends and family, and make you even more anxious, depressed, and possibly even ill from your money worries.
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 think about living in a homeless shelter.
2. Practice being totally bored.
Develop the feeling that you live a completely tedious and pointless life through no fault of your own. Complain 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.
Another benefit of being bored is that you inevitably become boring. Invitations will cease; nobody will call you, much less actually see you. If you succeed in doing this, 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 non-stimulating tabloids that leave you feeling soulless.
3. Pick fights with someone you love.
An excellent way of ruining a relationship with a romantic partner! Pick a fight over something trivial and make unwarranted accusations: this should last for at least 15 minutes, preferably in public. During the tantrum, expect your partner to be kind and sympathetic. Act hurt if your partner implies you weren’t behaving well.
Another option is to text your partner at work to complain about your issues; better still, do this when your partner is out with friends.
Exercise: Write down 20 annoying text messages you could send to a romantic partner.
4. Do things only for personal gain.
Don’t fall into the trap of doing something simply because you want to help people. Remember that your main goal is to take care of yourself.
Exercise: Think of all the things you’ve done for others in the past that haven’t been reciprocated. List three things you could do that would make you appear altruistic while bringing you personal, social, or professional gain.
5. Avoid showing gratitude.
People who show gratitude are happier than those who don’t, so it’s not for you. Counting your blessings is for idiots. Life is for suffering, and then you die. What’s there to be thankful for?
Point out that the things you should be grateful for aren’t perfect—which enables you to find as much fault with them as you like.
Exercise: Make a list of all the things you should be grateful for. Next to each item, write down why you aren’t. Imagine the worst.
6. Always be in a state of anxiety.
Optimism about the future can only lead to disappointment. Do your best to believe that your marriage will fail, your children won’t love you, your business will collapse, and nothing good will ever work out for you.
Exercise: Do some research on what natural or man made 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.
7. Be sure to blame your parents.
Blaming your parents for your defects, shortcomings, and failures is one of the most important steps you can take. Blame is essential in the art of being miserable.
Exercise: Call your mother or father and say that you just remembered something horrible they did when you were a child and you’re still suffering from it.
8. Never enjoy life’s pleasures.
Enjoying good food, wine, music, and beauty is for shallow people. If you inadvertently find yourself enjoying some flavor, song, or work of art, tell yourself that these are transitory pleasures which don’t compensate for the miserable state of the world. Just remind yourself that the world is full of poverty, illness, and devastation.
Exercise: Once a week, engage in an activity that’s supposed to be enjoyable, but do so while thinking about how pointless it is.
9. Find a romantic partner to reform.
Be sure to find someone with a major defect (gambler, alcoholic, womanizer, sociopath), and set out to reform him or her. Convince yourself 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, and meet these people. If the dating site is expensive, that’s good, because this means you’ll be both emotionally scarred and poor.
10. Always be critical.
Make for yourself an endless list of dislikes and voice them often, whether anyone ask you or not. For example, 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 usually well liked by most people; your dislike of them will set you apart.
Exercise: Make a list of 20 things you dislike and see often you can insert them into a conversation. It’s best if you dislike things you’ve never given yourself a chance to like.
If you follow our suggestions, and carry out the exercises diligently, we guarantee that you will become highly miserable.
On the other hand, you might understand that this entire article was really written “tongue-in-cheek” to emphasize the pitfalls of misery.
Extracted from World Observer. View full version HERE.
Do you consider yourself to be a highly miserable person?
If so, why? If not, why not? Would you like to share your outlook on life with our readers?
You can simply by using the comments feed below.
