How to Live a Miserable, Failure Ridden Life
Posted in Personal Development on July 25th, 2007 by JennyIt’s easy to find instructions on how to live a successful life. Take a peek in any bookstore or surf the web for a few minutes. You will find all types of advice. However, directions on how to live a miserable, failure-ridden life are much harder to come by.
Here are five sure fire, proven methods to launch you down the path to a crappy and unpleasant life. Let’s just keep these tips between you and me though, I do not want a stampede here on our site.
1. Have unrealistic expectations.
This is easy. Take your biggest, worst, most insurmountable problem and commit to fixing it within 7 days. Once you realize it is impossible to fix in 7 days, make a plan to beat it in 30 days instead. Excellent thinking, your failure is nearly guaranteed since virtually no big problem or huge success is realized in 7 days, 30 days or any other completely random number.
2. Believe you need to have high self-esteem to succeed.
Really and truly believe the commonly accepted fact that success is only possible for people with high self-esteem. If you are one of the many people unfortunate enough to suffer from low self-esteem you might as well give up. Heck, I’m surprised you haven’t already! Shhhh, nobody would believe that one gets high self-esteem by doing things they were not sure they could.
3. Do not know exactly what you want.
Want a job? Okay, then go to interviews wearing jeans, chewing gum and without a resume. When asked, tell the person hiring you that “anything” is fine, because you weren’t even sure what the position is, you just heard they had openings. Want a girlfriend? Well, just start asking random women out until someone says yes. Make it clear that it is really not them you are interested in, you would have taken anyone. Make sure they understand you are just biding time until someone hotter comes along. Trust me this will work! It’s hard to be happy or successful in work, love or even life if when asked what you’d like your response is inevitably “anything is okay”. It is an excellent way to ensure you have no direction.
4. Expect others to feel sorry for you.
Want to fail? Want to have a crappy life without any true friends? I’ve got the answer! Find people and talk to them until they feel sorry for you. Make sure they understand how hard your life is, how unfairly you have been treated and how none of it is your fault. Remember to always pepper these statements with how much easier their life is. Oh! Don’t forget to call them every time something bad happens (such as the milk in your refrigerator expiring) and update them. This is sure to win you friends and influence people.
5. Be an expert, very meticulous planner.
Planning is important. All self-help books say so. If you decide to set a goal (which I strongly discourage), rigidily plan exactly how you will get there and be very unwilling to make concessions. If you want to lose weight, decide exactly what you are going to eat every day for the next month and detail how much weight you are going to lose each and every day. When you are unsuccessful at sticking exactly to your plan, make it more rigid and meticulous. This is guaranteed to work. Yep, your life will quickly become miserable and given enough time you will fail. Go team!
Well, what are you waiting for? You have the tools, now get to it! Make me proud. Please feel free to add to the list, as this kind of knowledge is haaaard to find…
July 25th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
You forgot one: Make sure that you complain about everything that isn’t perfect in your life. Complaining about it is the best way to make it go way, and it ensures sympathy from all the people you complain to, so make sure you complain to as many people as possible, as well.
Your article is well timed to coincide with mine for today:
How To Make Your Life Happier In One Simple Change
July 25th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Good one Jason! How about: Trying to work everything out by yourself rather than letting the natural flow of life take care of some things for you.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
If you desire to fail;
1) believe in a world of injustice, distrust and perpetual punishment
2) develop prejudice, selfishness and hard feelings
3) ignore that you create your faults, physical pain, weak mindset
4) convince yourself you’ll never live a real life
5) forbid yourself to empower others
6) decide you’ll never be happy
If you desire to succeed;
1) believe everything happens for good reason, at precisely the right time
2) develop open-mindedness, tolerance and compassion
3) recognize your choices, attitude and mindset create your reality
4) convince yourself that fulfillment is possible & within reach
5) take ever step to empower and encourage others (it reflects back on you)
6) decide to savor every moment, every experience, every relationship
July 25th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Liara,
I really, really like your list of ways to both fail and succeed! Seriously, they are well thought out. I’ve been thinking about #5 - take every step to empower and encourage others a lot in my life lately. It’s funny how the things that are good for us often feel really good when doing them also.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Woohoo! Finally the kind of guide I’ve been searching for! Thanks Jenni!
Liara: I think there’s a balance between the two versions of #1 which is also a recipe for success, which is the belief that regardless of what happens and why, you have the ability to react positively, and you should choose to do so. I think that belief fits in well with the other steps.
July 26th, 2007 at 1:21 am
I agree with Mark. Accept what happens, evaluate it, choose your path forward, and move on. You can pull good out of anything that happens.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:22 am
How about this one:
Make sure that you are doing many different things at once. If you have set goals (still unwise), make sure that they are contradictory, or at least interfere with one another.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Oh, John that’s great! Unfortunately you can’t hear me laughing.
Mark, I aim to please…
July 26th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I’m excellent at that one John! This past spring I took on four new hobbies all at once, not counting the blog. Just ask Jenny, things didn’t go too well.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:38 am
It’s fine to have four new hobbies, as long as you give the one you’re currently doing your focus and awareness, and then move to the next one, giving IT your focus and awareness, etc. As long as you don’t try to have your awareness, your mind, working on them at literally the same actual time, having multiple hobbies or projects is not a problem. You just need to keep your awareness on the one you’re working on right now.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I wish it were that easy for me. The amount of time I spent in class to learn and master my hobbies mixed with the homework and practice associated with it was just a bit much for me. Maybe it takes a little practice (and a little less sleep!). For now I’m sticking to 2 hobbies a season.
December 10th, 2007 at 3:09 am
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