How to be miserable for the rest of your life

Here's a quick tutorial on how to be miserable for the rest of your life.

Step one: Wake up whenever you want to. Don't wake up at a reasonable hour, an hour that makes you feel good about yourself. Make sure you wake up when everyone has had a head start to the day. You really want to make sure you feel like you've missed any chance to start your day off on the right foot. And when you get out of bed, don't make your bed. Don't shower; just wear whatever you wore yesterday and head downstairs. It's important that you start the day off with little to no self-respect, feeling as grimy as possible.

Step 2: Make sure your house is always a complete disaster. Your house is filled with many rooms, each with a specific purpose. You want to make sure that it's extremely difficult to accomplish those purposes. The pigsty will also help subconsciously reinforce the idea that you're a disorganized person whose life is not in order. This is an extremely important belief to have when trying to remain miserable.

Step 3: Procrastinate. When the thought dawns on you to do something productive, like clean your disgusting kitchen, just ignore that feeling. After all, you just woke up and you have so much time later in the day to get that done. You want to get in the habit of delegating all your life's problems to the future version of yourself, who will probably have a lot more motivation and energy than you do right now.

Step 4: Look busy. After you sit down to do some work, open up a word document to help yourself feel like you're being productive. Give your document a nice title and then immediately open up Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, just to check if you missed anything. You see, it doesn't really matter what you do as long as you're sitting at your desk and that word document is open. It'll help trick your conscience into thinking you're doing work, but you won't be getting any further in life.

Step 5: Wait for opportunities. Never be proactive with finding new opportunities to grow your career or meet new people. Wait for all of that to come knocking on your door. After all, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. You'll meet the girl of your dreams one day and things will kind of just work out. You'll probably also land your dream job if you just wait long enough. Anyways, the important thing is to not take action. Don't try to figure out the most effective way to get what you want; just wait until things work out.

Step 6: Be default no. When a friend asks you to go out for a drink, just say no. After all, you're super busy these days and have a lot of work to do. When your boss gives you the opportunity to lead a meeting at work, try to find an excuse to slink out of it. The key here is to give everyone the impression that they should just let you do your own thing. Be so good at saying no that people just stop asking you to do anything.

Step 7: Be suspicious of people. Never give people the benefit of the doubt. Believe that everyone basically just wants to take advantage of you, and because of this, you should be guarded and put up walls to protect yourself emotionally. Assume the smiles people give you are fake and that their motives are malevolent.

Step 8: Never fix the things you dislike about yourself. Continue to engage in activities that make you feel subhuman and weak. Never prove to yourself that you can overcome obstacles or better yourself. Never attempt to transcend your vices or change your lifestyle for the better. Subscribe to the idea that people can't change, so you shouldn't try.

Step 9: Focus on things you can't control as often as possible. Get pissed off at the traffic, the government, the pandemic. You really want to reinforce the idea that the world is messed up and there's nothing you can do about it. Focus on the shortcomings of others, the failings of your country, and the state of the economy. Maintain a constant external locus of control over all the events in your life. This will really help you feel powerless; and if you're trying to be miserable, that's perfect.

Step 10: Use fear as motivation. Make the fear of negative consequence your primary motivator for everything you do. Set up deadlines that frighten you and punish yourself for failing to meet them. Use white-knuckle tactics to force yourself into productivity and remind yourself constantly that your entire life could fall apart if you don't keep your head above water.

Step 11: Only do what is comfortable. Let your comfort zone be the authority on what you do and don't do. If it's not comfortable, don't do it. Avoid discomfort at all costs and participate only in activities that are familiar and effortless. Don't concern yourself with gaining fresh perspectives or novel experiences. Stay in your lane, operating in your wheelhouse.

Step 12: Believe you're special. Behave like you're entitled to things on the basis that you're just different than everyone else. Assume that the people that have what you want in life just don't deserve it as much as you do. Always regard yourself as talented, unique, one-of-a-kind. This will really help you develop an outsider complex, which will make it difficult to open up to other people or see things from their perspective. But since you don't want to do any of that uncomfortable stuff anyways, that's perfect.

Step 13: See life not as it is, but how you wish it to be. Daydream of a day where things are better. Fantasize about a life where all your problems are gone. You want to make sure you mentally escape as much as possible to distract you from the obstacles in front of you. Pour your mental energy not into fixing your problems or improving yourself, but into building up this fantasy to be as detailed as possible. Reflect daily about what you would buy if you won the lottery or became a celebrity. Constantly compare your life to this fiction and become resentful at the juxtaposition.

So if suffering is what you're after and you crave the daily strife, then you're in luck, because if you follow this advice, you'll be miserable for the rest of your life.

This video was sponsored by Audible. The audiobook I'm currently diving into is "Green Lights" by Matthew McConaughey. It's been on Amazon's best seller list for 23 straight weeks now, and I wanted to see what the hype is about. And sure enough, I'm really enjoying it so far. I think the Audible version is especially enjoyable because it's narrated by McConaughey himself, which really helps his lessons and tales resonate with the reader. It really feels like you're getting to know Matthew McConaughey personally, and he just seems like a cool guy to know.

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So to sign up for your free 30-day trial, click the link in the description below, visit audible.com/betterideas, or text better ideas to 500-500. Once again, to sign up for your free 30-day trial, click the link in the description below, visit audible.com/betterideas, or text better ideas to 500-500.

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