The 8 Ways to Be Miserable
And how to avoid them
The most practical way to live a happy life is to avoid being miserable.
We get sucked into this fantasy that, if only we accomplished all our dreams, our lives would be worry-free. Many people make good money off this idea. They depend on you being stuck in it. Of course, it’s not true. There is no such thing as a life without problems.
Happiness is a byproduct of living a calm, stress-free life. Contentment hides in the boring days. This is one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my 20s.
It’s not about making a million dollars, becoming world-famous, or flooding your brain with dopamine. It’s about enjoying the little things. This is a skill you can learn — to find the good in normality.
If you live to be 82 years old, you’ll have about 30,000 days on this planet. No matter how you spin it, of those 30,000 days, some 28,000 will be boring.
You’ll go to work, feed the cat, meet a friend, and watch TV at night. That’s fine. This is everyday life. You just have to look for the good in it. The free cookie you get with your coffee. The rain setting in after you get home.
To me, every day when I’m not sick, stressed, or the victim of some drama I don’t control is a good day. The more days like that I can rack up, the better. I’ll find plenty of happiness along the way.
I suspect for you, a good life will look similar. Unfortunately, you can’t see it if you’re stuck in some marketer’s pipe dream. It’s a commonality all miserable people share: They miss the good in the present because they’re all-consumed by some invisible problem.
The truth is there are a million ways to be happy — most of them small to the point of being imperceptible — but only a handful of those giant, man-made problems.
Here are eight of them and how to not let them derail your every day.
1. Taking life personally
Life is not fair. It’s not easy, nothing’s free, and, generally, the world at large doesn’t care about you. Miserable people take this as an insult, but it’s just the reality of our universe. To them, however, every time it rains is a personal affront.
