How to Be Miserable

There are plenty of blog posts that tell you how to be more joyful, or how to have a happier life, but there aren’t many that discuss the opposite—how to be more miserable.

Fear not! I have decided to remedy that lapse by compiling the list below. Read on for an inspiring variety of suggestions to achieve a truly miserable life.

21 Simple but Powerful Ways to Be Miserable

1. View everything in life as win or lose. If you don’t win, consider yourself a loser.
2. Set vague, unrealistic goals that are impossible to measure.
3. Wait until you feel like it to begin working on goals or new habits. Always let your emotions dictate your actions.
4. Binge watch when anything tragic hits the news. The more depressing and decisive, the better.
5. Replay your most embarrassing moments over and over in your head.
6. Hold onto grudges.
7. Keep a precise balance sheet on who owes you for what favors.
8. Hoard your time, attention, and talents. Don’t waste your valuable time volunteering for idealistic social organizations.
9. When happy memories pop into your head, remind yourself those events are in the past, and you’ll never feel that joy again.
10. Compare yourself to others as often as possible.
11. Every night, before going to sleep, bring to mind three moments when you felt angry, ashamed, frustrated, or fearful.
12. Alternately, every night come up with three terrible things that could come true tomorrow.
13. Pay careful attention to those things that upset you while ignoring the fleeting and inconsequential moments of happiness.
14. Spend more time hanging out with the most critical, insensitive, difficult-to-please people you can find.
15. Take everything they say personally.
16. Always look for the selfish, critical, or antisocial motives behind every kind thing everyone does. There must be strings attached somewhere.
17. Become convinced the whole world is part of a conspiracy to ruin your life, so never trust anyone.
18. Avoid feeling compassion at all costs. Look on others with indifference and deny all twinges of self-compassion.
19. Remind yourself that happiness must be earned. Never celebrate the joys of the moment. You can only be happy when you’ve finished certain lofty goals, or achieved top success in your career.
20. Stay firmly in your rut.
21. Keep your focus firmly on your past mistakes. Do not allow the simple pleasures of the present moment to impinge on your consciousness and ruin your funk.

Forgive me for not providing you with an exhaustive list, but these few suggestions will give you a good start on squelching happiness and frivolity. Meanwhile, I will go kick myself for not being as thorough as I ought to have been.

Unless you don’t want to be miserable?

Obviously, the above list is my tongue-in-cheek way of helping you do just the opposite—guiding you find more joy, hope, and purpose in your life.  

By listing them in this intentionally ridiculous manner, I hope it will open your eyes to areas where these unhelpful mindsets and attitudes may have oozed into your life. Awareness is often the first step toward growth and healing. May this list enable you to pinpoint where misery has gotten a foothold in your life, so you can begin to reprogram your thinking and actions toward healthier responses.

Look for the Joy

You see what you look for. If you look for reasons to feel miserable, angry, or ashamed, you will find them. But you can choose to focus on other things. My challenge for you today is to look for what is good, kind, beautiful, or joyful. Look for those moment. Pay attention to them. Remember them tonight as you prepare for bed.

And expect to see more kindness and beauty in the world tomorrow.