It’s Spring! Everyone is too busy playing in the sun. Goddamned Spring and sunshine and flowers…people gotta get back inside and online. Be unhappy and pale!

To the cocoon!

So here’s a helpful reminder from the dark angel on your left shoulder: let’s leave that sunshiney Nature-induced, genuine, expansive, interdependent true sort of Happiness behind and focus on our own happiness for the win!

Top 13 Ways we can get truly Miserable & stay that Way!

1. Get out of bed on the wrong side tomorrow. Drink in the morning. Ideally, don’t wake up in the morning. But if we do, drink and smoke in the morning. Inside. Corollary: Avoid sunshine. Keep iPhone on while sleeping, which will help us avoid deep sleep. Do not meditate before going to bed.

2. Fuck the environment! Booooring. Instead, let’s conspicuously consume then dispose (plastic, preferably). Corollary: don’t think about the welfare of all sentient beings, focus solely on yourself. Even better, focus solely on myself.

3. Don’t practice mindfulness meditation: instead, focus on the past, on regrets, and present jealousies and future dreams (choose supposedly-impossible dreams that highlight your own present insecurities).

4. Don’t exercise: exercise causes breath in and out. Corollary: do not laugh, relax in any way; do not practice maitri.

5. Focus on money, sex, nice possessions and perfection: they will make you happy.

6. Drugs. No, lots of drugs. Too much of a good thing can be miserable.

7. When we feel stressed out, let’s take ourselves super-seriously and yell at people (my personal favorite).

8. Text while walking, text while pooping, text while talking to friends, text while watching a movie, text while eating. Don’t stop to smell the roses—rather, fill any and all gaps! Gaps are where inspiration, humor and relaxation blossom—so step on those flowers-to-be.

9. Eat cheap food while standing up and/or texting. This even works with really good food!

10. Read (and develop our own!) conspiracy theories and externalize a sort of casual hatred for politicians as the source of most of our problems instead of doing our own dishes or laundry or paying bills or making peace with friends in our own life. The point is not that there isn’t corruption based on greed and fear–the point is to focus on the external world without taming and uplifting our own lives.

11. Let’s only get our news from sitcoms and reality TV and biased news sources like MSNBC, Fox News, or Huffington “Kardashian Nip Slip” Post. Avoid independent news sources or quality journalism that might cover things we’re not already interested in or, worse, offer us different points of view than our own. Threaten to leave said communities if presented with disagreeable viewpoints.

Extended Corollary: Never listen to anyone else when they are talking, interrupt constantly: focus our attention on our own important thoughts (which we conveniently already agree with!) and what we’re going to say next.

Further Corollary: don’t hang out with people who irritate and/or disagree with us. Always surround oneself with yes-men.

12: Be too cool for school. Get a purportedly meaningful tattoo (doesn’t matter of what), go to a huge gathering with like-minded folks (Tea Party, Burning Man, again doesn’t matter), cover yourself in makeup, wear clothes from another culture, dread your whitey hair or straighten your curly hair—ie, don’t be yourself—reference in-group words with self-satisfaction, have a weird diet (Paleo, vegan, any will do)…but never lean into life when the going gets tough. Instead, dramatically quit and find another clique. Corollary: be super-alternative in your bumper stickers and tats while selling your soul in your business life every day.

13. Read blogs about Top 10 ways to be Happy by hypocritical wannabe yoga or youtube celebrities who have ambition and agents but don’t give a shit about you and aren’t themselves truly happy.

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Assist credit goes to: Rachel Nussbaum, who is no longer my friend because she disagrees with me intelligently and thoughtfully on occasion.

Relephant bonus:

> The Zen of Ego.

> Ten Things that are Bad for Us that can be Good for You if Practiced Mindfully.

> Maitri.

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Relephant bonus: how to get Rich without Selling out:

Bonus: