There is a rumor that was started by some self-hating fool, stating that losers are never happy. Why? Because nothing ever goes right for them.
Well, I’m here to negate this statement. In fact, I’m about to throw you one better by not only challenging it, but proving how you can live a happier life, regardless of your current alpha ranking.
You’re Only as Happy as You Are Miserable
This one comes straight from the research books, and I’m not just saying this to make you feel better about your miserable existence. If you were living an absolutely perfect life, you would never know the true meaning of happiness. Why? Because it is your sadness that creates the comparison of what happiness is. Let’s say that you lived as a billionaire football star, and had a supermodel girlfriend. One day you found a dirty $100 bill on the street on the way to your Bugatti Veyron. You’d probably just kick it out of your way, and think nothing more about it. Now let’s look at that same day from the perspective of a loser.
You live with mom, work as a telemarketer, and spend your days getting hung up on and told to do unsavory things with your bodily orifices. The last time you had a date, was a playdate in your crib when you were two years old, and you can’t remember a meal that didn’t involve some form of prune. You find that dirty dollar on the street. Suddenly, a whole world of possibilities open up. You can rent that Ford Gremlin you always wanted, proposition a fancy girl on the street, and you have no idea how many happy meals you can pickup with that kind of cash. In other words, all that culminated misery, collectively creates a incredible happiness out of something that would have seemed small in a perfect world.
Can’t Buy You Happy
After I just finished telling you that $100 bucks can make you happy, I should probably remind you that buying stuff won’t make you happy forever. Medicated spending is a wonderful high that comes from that whiff of carcinogenic chemicals that went into whatever new stuff you just bought. However, after strutting around town with your new inflatable comic book buying buddy, she’ll quickly lose her luster, and you’ll find yourself on the Internet looking for the next greatest thing. According to research, while stuff won’t make you happy, a good memory will. In other words, if you have $100 to spend, the happiest way to use it, is to buy yourself a happy memory, such as taking a day trip, leaping from a bridge (preferably with some rubber-band thing attached to you), or taking mom out to dinner.
You Can Make Happiness Out of Anything
A wise man once said that some people are simply unhappy because they are chasing after the wrong things. In other words, happiness comes from finding your purpose, and then pursuing it relentlessly. What’s your purpose, you may wonder? Now, how the hell should I know; that’s for you to figure out.
Is Your Turnip Truck Empty or Only Half Eaten?
This title probably confuses you as much as it did me while I was writing it, so I will try to explain this tip from a different angle. The people who are much smarter than me have stated time and again that optimism is not a born trait, but rather a learned technique. In other words, how you choose to see your current position in life will designate how happy you can be. The trick seems to be to associate life as one big learning experience. There are no winners or losers, but rather a series of moments where you are laughed at, teased, shoved around by a bigger guy, and slapped by a prettier girl. If you imagine these as moments of successful learning, rather then embarrassing examples of failure, suddenly the thought of eating a turnip might sound pretty good, err, something like that.
Add Life to Your Years; Not Just Years to Your Life
Everybody is so focused on eating bean curds (tofu), while stretching their head back so far that it nestles inside their own butt crack (a.k.a. yoga), they’ve forgotten what it means to have a good time. If I had to eat curds to live forever, I’d rather live 50 years slurping bacon grease through a straw. Yes, your health is important, but so is having a good time!
Confuse the Hell Out of Yourself With Philosophy
This tip is going to blow your mind, so I would ask that you read this twice to make sure that it sinks all the way into your brain tissue. The cardinal rule for anyone to be happy is not to think less of yourself, but to think of yourself less. What the hell am I talking about? Pull up a log young grasshopper, and I will explain in greater detail. When you focus on your own happiness, it is basically a form of drive reduction. In other words, you might think, if I could stuff one hundred hot dogs down my gullet, and win some hot dog eating championship, no one could ever say that I was a loser again. Well, you have just ruined the possibility of ever deriving pleasure from eating a hotdog again. This is because when you associate the simple pleasures in life with a “reward,” it no longer becomes fun. It is now work.
In the end, you will be much happier if you don’t try to follow some harebrained scheme to be happy. Just enjoy the novelty of waking up to a new day full of countless possibilities.
About Max Green