4 Easy Things You Can Do To Fuck Up Your Life
1. Give away your personal power like it was welfare cheese. Let people inflict their myopic opinions on you. Stuff things when you should be saying them out loud. To people. Say yes when you mean no, and watch your power dwindle because of your aversion to disapproval or conflict. Grow accustomed to not being heard. Slowly lose your self-respect from the continual leg-humping.
2. Constipate yourself when it comes to expressing positive, genuine sentiments. Shield your heart from all hurts as well as from anything resembling passion, abject adoration, surprise, ecstasy. Learn to live without brio, elan, eclát and a bunch of other foreign words that signify you’re a mighty, kick-ass existential mofo.
Don’t give heartfelt compliments or praise to others unless there’s something to be gained in so doing. Lose the ability to distinguish your sarcastic responses from your authentic feelings. Don’t reach out to attempt to connect with others or to a greater sense of meaning, purpose, identity. Look cool and aloof but also spiritually empty and blunted around the edges, sorta like a 1950s beatnik who never, ever takes off the trenchcoat/beret combo.
3. Always play it safe. Don’t date or socialize outside your religion/income bracket/education level/ethnicity/Web 2.0 cronies et cetera. Defer your dreams due to fear of ridicule. Don’t risk. Miss out on countless time-suspending moments because you’d rather worry about some undefined point in the future where something bad, somehow, might possibly happen, maybe. Because you’re like all psychic and shit.
Spend a lot of time wondering what might have been but take no action in the present. Save string. Catalogue your underwear. Get your panties in a bunch regardless. Fall asleep at inopportune moments from the benumbed tediousness of it all, and end up with children drawing outlandish Sharpie moustaches on your face.
4. Doubt yourself. Always assume that at any moment you shall be revealed as an impostor, a fraud, someone who is Less Than. Decide that no one is going to take your ideas and plans seriously, and act accordingly. Create interesting diversions from your lack of self-confidence by engaging in self-sabotage: draining relationships, unplanned pregnancies/fertilizations, deadend jobs, 3-martini lunches, frantic socializing/golfing/shopping/video gaming.
Don’t challenge yourself by following your true purpose because you just might fail, or worse yet, actually succeed and then not know what to do with yourself. Allow others to dictate what your limits are. Surround yourself with people who don’t believe in you, either, so that you feel more comfortable. Wear a big ole ass groove into the Couch of Life.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Hey! I’ve done all those then stopped doing all of those things! It was a bitch, though.
Personal growth is scary shit but can be so rewarding.
I hear you, sista: change can be a real biotch. And I couldn’t agree more w/the sentiment of “personal growth is scary shit but can be so rewarding” — I should put that on my bidness card! >:)
!!!! That is AWESOME! I love it.
Yeah, me too Ali!
Although I was all the way in my 30s when I finally stopped doing those things, I’ve always said that I’m at least glad I figured it out sometime prior to death.
I’m sure I’ll be sending people here to read this. Cool.
I don’t know, Dr.; I think this mustache brings out the color in my eyes….
Excellent list; I’ll admit it is interesting to think about where some items seem kinda sorta familiar-if not in my current life, in past seasons of it.
UGH #1 and #4 …I AM SO THERE!!!! And I know when I’m doing it and I can’t stand it!!! And at the same time I can’t figure out how to NOT do it - especially #4 when you *are* being treated as less than. It’s a vicious cycle…treated like crap and then feel like you’re an imposter/fraud and going to be “found out” FUCK THAT!!!
I’m going to print this out.
Hey, hey! What’s this disparagement of the ancient custom of String Saving?
Seriously. I used to be tentative about failing (and sinning), afraid to fail, worried that I’d fail, afraid that people would laugh at me if I failed, sarcastic about failing and scared that if I took a chance I’d fail.
Then, you know what happened? Well, two things. One, I got completely irritated with myself for being such a pussy that I bitch-slapped my inner child and said, we are done with the goddamn whining. Then, two, I FAILED (and sinned) and IT WAS GREAAATTTTTT! Liberating to get scuffed up a little.
That’s how I got fearless and foul-mouthed and full-figured and fabulously fucked (and I mean that literally and the mariwanna-ly, not the expression that connotes “ruined”).
The end.
I’m 4 for 4. What do I win? Nothing? Oh, typical. (see, there’s a rule popping up again). Happy Easter, OWD.
drding
you have outdone yourself this time. that was just the smack upside the head I needed. Jeebus bless you.
Wow-what great comments! I will respond more later. Wow. Thanks, everyone!
To those of you who’ve done and then done stopped doing these things: kudos.
To those of you who still do a few of them but are aware of it: give yourself some credit, because “insight is ammunition” when it comes to dealing with self-imposed obstacles. Just being aware that it’s ok to risk, fail, and try again is progress.
I’m pleasantly surpised that this post resonated with so many of you, my dear readers. And I’m even more delighted that I have obtained the blessings of Jeebus Hisself!