How to Be Miserable
In a change of pace from the positivity you've come to expect from me, I thought it would be fun to do some paradoxical intention work. The last time we took a trip down this unusual road, 'The Don't List' was a hit! So, this time around, we'll go a step further. Instead of advising on how to foster peace, light, and fulfillment, let's turn things upside-down and delve into what it takes to master the art of misery. Welcome to this paradoxical positivity show!
I want you to think about nurturing misery, like a scientist breeds bacteria in a Petri dish. We're going to dive into the methods that guarantee a miserable existence, and in no particular order.
Embrace Fear: Let fear be your guiding force. Retreat when anxiety emerges, unless it's flagging a toxic individual. In that case, stick around and absorb all their lessons until you're utterly depleted. It's an effective recipe for high-grade misery.
Indulge in Unhealthy Foods: Resist clean eating and retain your palate's preference for delivery pizza and chicken nuggets. Make sure everything you eat is ultra processed and comes from a box. This is sure to serve up physical and spiritual misery.
Workaholism: Derive your identity from workaholism. Chase the corporate pot of gold and postpone joy until retirement. This mindset ensures a balanced life remains elusive, paving the way to misery.
Dismiss Natural Remedies: Scoff at the idea of a healthy diet, supplements and herbals, and rely solely on pharmaceuticals. Overlook side effects and consume as many as your doctor prescribes without question.
Prioritize Litigation over Mental Health: Be prepared to shell out for lawyers during divorce, instead of investing in mental health or relationship healing. Winning legal battles is an excellent way to score misery points.
Repeat Negative Mantras: Chant 'Life is so hard, I just can't do it' relentlessly. This should become your personal anthem of despair.
Start Your Day with Negativity: Wake up resisting life and focus on things you detest, fear, and resist. Immediately check your social media feed while you're still in bed. Don’t ever practice the Emotional Badass Morning Routine.
Avoid Nature and Travel: Replace outdoor exploration with TV shows and movies, and phone scrolling. Enjoy vicarious experiences without engaging with new people, places, or things. Watch sports, but don’t ever play them.
Overthink Everything: Overanalyze everything and avoid action due to emotional paralysis. Concentrate on what you lack, rather than what you have.
Confuse Intuition with Anxiety: Dismiss your intuition and allow anxiety to take the reins. Intuition is just woo woo nonsense. Your feelings shouldn’t be trusted.
Focus on Problems, Not Solutions: Invest energy in problems until exhaustion sets in. Then, and only then, sparingly consider potential solutions.
Replicate Parents' Lives: Despise your parents' lives and choices, yet ironically replicate them, perpetuating a cycle of dysfunction and misery. Your life choices should please your family, not you.
Stick to Unfulfilling Jobs: Stay in a job that drains you, for less than you're worth. This path of least resistance will lead to misery. Never look for a new job. Steady paychecks are the only thing that actually matter.
Always Say Yes: Strive for approval by agreeing to everything, even when it's not reciprocated. This habit will surround you with takers, magnifying your misery. Ignore all healthy Boundaries.
Play the Victim: Revel in self-pity and whip out your tiny violin to compose your life's tragic soundtrack. Organize everyone you meet into ‘oppressors’ and the ‘oppressed’. Make sure you shun all personal responsibility and blame everyone else for your problems.
Suppress Individuality: Shun changes to your appearance. Fear judgment and keep your self-expression subdued. Follow the group at all times, never speak against them, and repeat their slogans without question.
Let the Biggest Asshole in Your Life Infiltrate Your Mind: Allow the words of the worst critic in your life to become your own inner monologue. Repeat their criticisms all day in your head.
Live in Fear of Being Alone: Convince yourself dysfunctional people are the only people that are on the planet for you, that no one else will love you or treat you any better.
Politicize Your Existence: Attach your emotions to politics and consume political news and social media religiously. Believe that politicians and talking heads are personal angels that are here to run your agenda and allow their manipulative words to pull your emotional strings like a puppet.
It's worth remembering that misery can be quite addictive. The human ego craves low vibe misery the way a child's unsophisticated palate craves fast food – foods that hurt the body, impede growth, and lead to an addiction to sugar. Our human egos have a propensity to self-sabotage, to want what feels good in the moment, even if it's harmful to us in the long run. And this ensures a road to misery, if left unchecked and encouraged. It is easier to slide into misery than peace or fulfillment.
And now you're at a fork in the road. So, now that you know what will ensure misery, which path will you choose? When the human ego gets pushy about taking the easily walked misery path, will you follow it? Or will you take the road less traveled – the path that may be more difficult to traverse but is richer with possibility?
Remember, if you want to be the best at being miserable, all you really have to do is give up and follow the crowds that walk the misery path. That's why the path is so clear. That's why it's so easy to stumble down it without even thinking or knowing where you're going. It's kind of like a hike through the woods. It's much easier to find and walk a popular path in the woods because that path becomes more well-defined. The grass is tamped down by each step. It's easier to see, easy to find, and easier to wander down.
But is this the path you truly want to take?
You get one lifetime, one. Every single person's life boils down to the choices that we make every single day. I hope this ridiculous list of ways to be miserable has flipped something in your brain. We must learn how to see what we're doing to ourselves, what we've learned how to do, what misery we've soaked up. And we have to learn how to wring it out and change the way that we process our worlds, our inner lives, our outer lives, to lead a life of lightness, of purpose, of joy, of peace, and of happiness, fulfillment, and spiritual clarity.
So, in this game of life, are you ready to discard the misery playbook and start charting your course towards positivity and fulfillment? Your path awaits, and the choice is yours.
I hope y'all had fun with this episode. Remember, sometimes understanding the worst practices can help us develop the best ones.
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 14
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 8
- Bullying 4
- Childhood 35
- Codependency 6
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 7
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 70
- Existentialism 1
- Faith 1
- Family 24
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 8
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 52
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 16
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 37
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 3
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 6
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 11
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 15
- Self Love 11
- Self-Care 24
- Sex 1
- Shame 4
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 14
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 8
- Bullying 4
- Childhood 35
- Codependency 6
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 7
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 70
- Existentialism 1
- Faith 1
- Family 24
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 8
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 52
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 16
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 37
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 3
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 6
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 11
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 15
- Self Love 11
- Self-Care 24
- Sex 1
- Shame 4
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