Hello, and welcome to May! It’s finally spring. Everywhere you look, the butterflies are blooming, and the daffodils are coming out of hibernation and looking for salmon in the mountain streams. Ants everywhere are gearing up to kill other ants, and bees are researching new and improved ways to administer anaphylactic shock. Maybe we’ll get infested with locusts this spring, or perhaps mosquitos will finally get tired of going after arms and legs and will start to kamikaze our eyeballs. Your allergies will probably render you incapable of any constructive activity, and by the end of this month I wouldn’t be surprised if a tree falls on your house. Spring is a horrible season. And don’t even get me started on summer.
Notice how I took a generally happy time and turned it into something terrible? It’s easy to do. Here’s how!
Look for the Negative in Every Positive!
Newton’s third law of thermal dynastics states that “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Which means that for every good thing that happens to you, you should assume something crappy is just around the corner. The best of you won’t even wait for the good thing to happen before you start to lament the inevitability of your depressing future. So when someone says, “It’s a great day, isn’t it?”, you should look contemptuously at them and say, “Is it? Is it really?” Doing so will make sure nobody tries to dissuade you from your completely unreasonable belief that bad things are on their way. Self-fulfilling prophecy time!
Accumulate as Many Negative Things as Possible!
Healthy people deal with each problem as it comes in order to avoid being overwhelmed by a mountain of bad news. But healthy people are notoriously boring at parties, and I think we can all agree that healthy food tastes like soap. So instead, keep a careful record of every bad thing that has ever happened to you or near you. Cut out news clippings of tragedies and post them around your office; mark the anniversary of every illness you’ve ever suffered; and definitely downplay any good news as a brief and ultimately transient interruption to an otherwise consistently downward trend. Now who’ll be the life of all those parties you used to get invited to!
Don’t Change Any of Your Habits!
Generally, if you are a happy person, it’s in part because you do things that make you happy. Conversely, if you are an unhappy person, it’s partially because you do things that make you unhappy. So keep doing so! If your commute to work makes you miserable before you start your day, then don’t look into alternate routes, getting up earlier, or moving to a happier location. If you have a sales job but your soul belongs to marketing, don’t make any effort to find some openings in the marketing department. After all, if you make changes to improve your life, what will you have to complain about?
So there you go. There’s no reason to be happy about anything. Even puppies can’t make me smile anymore, but I know they’ll all grow up to be dogs, and dogs aren’t as cute as puppies. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go barricade myself in my home. Although I just read another story about a house-swallowing sinkhole, so maybe that isn’t the best idea. There’s no safe place, people. Remember that.
