How to make life more difficult

Let’s face it: Life is far too easy for most people.

Problems are hard to come by – almost impossible to find. Stress is just beyond our grasp. So elusive. Most of you have more friends than you know what to do with, and much more money than you can manage.

Sunshine. Good times. That is likely all you have ever known. But not knowing where to turn, you try to make do the best you can.

Such is life. The trials of this life.

Many have noticed that the entire human story is, more or less, all about living in a state of perpetual bliss. You have noticed too, haven’t you? Happiness and contentment. Peace and joy. Health and prosperity. Harmony and unity. That is what life is mostly all about in this corner of the Milky Way. Isn’t it? It never seems to end, and it is getting old. Life unrolls before us like a red carpet day after day.

Surely, it is time for a change.

If only somebody, somewhere, could find a way to make things down here more difficult? If only. There must be a way to escape from lottery la-la land. But how?

Now I don’t claim to have all the answers. Who does? And there is, of course, no guarantee that you will be as mournful and miserable as you have always wanted to be if you apply the advice that follows. Nevertheless, life can be more difficult. Yes, you can move beyond a modest amount of stability and contentment towards chaos and all-out anxiety. Think of that. It might take a few years of consistently making poor decisions but your dream can become a reality.

Here are five simple things you can do to get started:

1. Do nothing daily

That’s right. Just shift your life into “C” for coast (or comatose), sit back, and then wait for whatever is going to happen to happen to you. In other words, give up. Stop trying. Wake up each morning, later and later each day, and tell yourself this: “There is absolutely nothing I can do to change anything!” Nada.

Even better, try to convince everyone around you to buy into your way of thinking. Get a grant from the government to promote your philosophy of life. Then get a loan from another government to support your government so you can get another grant. Find a planet where everybody isn’t broke and borrow money from them. Get the message out one way or another for as long as you can.

If your situation is desperate, make sure that you make a point of not doing that seemingly insignificant something that you know you can do.

2. Isolate yourself

Then emotionally, relationally, and physically check out. Protect yourself from any potential encouragement or insight or practical assistance that may come your way. Imagine that you are all alone in the universe. Meditate on the illusion that you are the first and only human being who has ever experienced life on the blue ball. And avoid bonding with other broken people at all costs. That might be dangerous.

All alone, you have a much better chance of floundering indefinitely. Wouldn’t that be nice? Left to yourself, you may find that you are quite capable of digging a very deep hole. To make it even deeper, borrow a line from an old Pink Panther movie and fixate on that: “Every day and in every way I am getting better and better. Every day and in every way I am getting better and better. Every…” That should do to keep you feeling self-reliant. Might also increase your chances of getting checked into the local psych ward. Perhaps “loony bin” is a better choice of words.

This would be wonderful, because there would be even more opportunity for isolation and solitude in there.

3. Escape from reality

Why deal with problems today when you can put it all off until tomorrow? Why even acknowledge your reality when you can pretend that it doesn’t exist?

Yes indeed, now is the time to find a way, any way, to avoid dealing with major roadblocks in your life. Try, rather, to escape your situation. Turn on the TV. Sign up for 423 more channels. Become a texting maniac. Surf the Internet randomly day after day. Become incredibly busy with comparatively insignificant details in your life. Rack up massive VISA bills taking exotic vacations. Construct a designer worldview. Come up with your very own cosmic creed, and join the masses trying to reshape reality.

Enjoy your delusional journey and forget all about the destination.

If you want to really make a mess of your life, one obvious option is to follow the lead of Jimmy Hendrix, and thousands like him, and get into mind-altering drugs.

Let the classic image of the ostrich, standing with his head stuck deep in the sand, be your guide and your inspiration.

4. Neglect personal development

Next, instead of trying to better yourself, by all means, attempt to make yourself worse. Make it a personal goal to have absolutely nothing of value to offer to anyone. Take pride in your pathetic state. Become dependent. Put yourself down as much as possible in the process until you cannot get up. Find creative ways to sabotage your dreams and the positive aspirations of others. Fine-tune the fine art of criticism, condemnation, and contempt.

Self-talk is very powerful and important. So while you are at it, be sure to tell yourself that things will never change. No, you won’t ever amount to anything. There is no hope for you now. God didn’t give you much to work with anyway. Nobody will notice when you are gone. You are too young to take action or too old to change or too_______, etc. Everybody else has something to offer, but not you. It would have been better if you had never been born.

You have heard these voices before, haven’t you? Do you ever wonder where they might be coming from?

One more thing. Make it a habit to constantly compare your weaknesses to the strengths of others. This will keep you feeling discouraged and depressed. This is perfect. Remember the goal is to go downhill, as it were, as fast as possible.

If nothing else, try to stay stuck and stagnant for as long as you can.

5. Dance around decisions

If you make a critical decision today, the one you are thinking about right now, you know that life could very well be much different, and much better, in 5 or 10 years. This is the type of outcome that you want to avoid. So what you really need to do, is to constantly think about decisions, and talk about decisions, and yet never actually make any major decisions.

This is actually quite easy to do once you get used to it. One way to be affirmed for this type of behaviour is to immerse yourself in an academic environment for a long period of time. While many academic settings can be very important for your personal development, occasionally such a setting can have the opposite impact. For this is often the place to be if you like lots of talk and little action.

So there you have it. These five suggestions are admittedly comparable to the tip of an iceberg. You are sure to discover all sorts of other creative ways to make your life more difficult. But, this is a start.

And, as an aside, if for some strange reason you would like to make your life less difficult (I can’t imagine why), may I suggest the following slogan as a guide while at college or in university: “Get in, get out, and then get on with your life.”