A beginner's guide to avoiding happiness

A dangerous assumption is made by much of the world. We often think that "everyone wants to be happy." But as we all know what they say about assumptions, I thought it worth producing a short document in order to assist those who have always aspired to lasting misery but lacked proper instruction.

The recommendations in this post have historically been very effective, even though some may seem counterintuitive at first, at producing fuller and more persistent misery than alternative policies have. Thus, without further delay, a beginner's guide to avoiding happiness:

Make happiness your main goal

It is such a common practice that it almost goes without saying, but for the sake of thoroughness, I include it here. As counterintuitive as it seems, focusing your attention on becoming happy (whether by turning your will inward and commanding happiness to appear or by applying your will outward to coerce the world around you into a state that you sincerely believe will make you happy) is one of the most thoroughly vetted means of avoiding happiness.

Somehow, it appears that pursuing things like duty and faithfulness - even when the duty or the faithfulness seems likely to make one unhappy - carries a very grave risk of producing happiness while pursuing happiness itself somehow almost universally produces a situation in which happiness evades capture at the last moment and disappointment is produced in its stead.

There is one caveat to this recommendation. Historical records show this approach to be highly addictive. I am not a pharmacist or a licensed psychologist. Apply this technique at your own risk.

Assume everyone who disagrees with you has a dishonest motive

Assuming anyone who disagrees with you must have some reason other than a sincere belief that the evidence is against you does not reduce any happiness already present in your system, but it does wonders to prevent more building up. If their motives were honest, you would of course have to reckon with the possibility that they are genuinely trying to help you and that their disagreement with you is a mark of their love for you. Best to avoid that if you at all can. The evil motives you give them don't even have to be very believable. As long as a situation is created in which nothing they can say can be taken seriously, the motives can be as fantastic as you like.

It works even better with close friends, because their frustration or pain (don't worry, they'll get over it) at being seen by you as a bigot, a misogynist, a liar, or a fanatic might even end the conversation altogether. If it does not, it will almost certainly put them on the defensive, which in its own turn has the useful tendency to cause harsh words to be said on both sides. The benefits of this are twofold and obvious. First, if they are your friend, they will likely regret their own harsh words (you only used harsh words because they made you, so no need for you to also feel bad) and avoid bringing up the subject again out of fear that a similar situation will occur again. Second, you will have their harsh words to hold onto for a while and can usually squeeze at least a day or two of misery out of them. In some exceptional cases, you might even be able to recycle some of their harsh words for a solid year or more. In those cases, do be careful. It tends to sabotage the relationship, which is a great way to build up a little more misery, but it is possible to sever the relationship entirely. That does give an exquisite misery "high" for a while, but it renders that relationship almost completely useless for long-term misery production.

Ignore progress until perfection is achieved

While it is very difficult to eliminate gratitude altogether, every effort should be made to put it off into the more and more remote future. This is usually done in two steps. First, set perfection rather than progress as the appropriate milestone at which to become grateful. Second, when - as will inevitably happen sometimes - progress is undeniable or perfection is attained, quickly establish the new state as "what should have always been" and invent a new thing that would make it "really worth being grateful for"

There is one exception to the first case. You should give other people credit for effort only when you are comparing your actual outcomes with what they were trying to do. The idea to build up is that it matters that their heart was in the right place even if they failed but that it only matters whether you succeeded or failed. This almost completely neutralizes any possibility of you experiencing the sense of a job well done, which tends to make people very happy indeed. Note: this is an emergency measure and should not be used when it is not needed, because prolonged use can make it more difficult to revert to perfection as the bare minimum expectation from others once the emergency has passed.

In the second case, it is extremely important that you work quickly. Visible progress and completion of goals both tend greatly towards the production of joy. One goal completed and allowed to harden into joy before the goalposts can be moved can ruin weeks of carefully curated agony.

Complain out loud but be grateful only in your mind

If you cannot avoid being grateful altogether, then at least shut up about it. The old idea that one eventually comes to really feel and believe the things one says out loud consistently enough has some teeth to it. In your favor is that the more vocal you are about the things you don't like, the easier it will become not to like things.

The danger on the other side is that if you are fool enough to carry on about something you are genuinely happy about, you will almost certainly find that it is much harder to stay quiet about the next thing you like. Worse, you may even find yourself accidentally liking new things the more you talk about any of your existing likes. Avoid with extreme prejudice.

Avoid spending too much time thinking about the here and now

As much as sorrows that are alive and active in the moment are the most potent, there is a danger in indulging in them. Specifically, a sorrow which is active in the moment is a sorrow which can be acted upon. More than one historical account shows how easily one can slip up and take an action that alleviates the sorrow - maybe completely.

Even more fatal, if your mind wanders onto present duties rather than even present sufferings, and especially if you then begin to perform said duties, you are likely to find yourself a little joyful even if you hate the actual duties themselves. It almost makes it conceivable that humans are built like things that have real purpose.

Much safer to dwell on past hurts or future anxieties when possible. Their chronological distance from you means that there is almost no danger of your accidentally taking a measure that might alleviate them.

Always get the last word

Never accept being the last one wronged in a situation. Maintain constant vigilance to get the last word in or to be the last one to throw a punch. There is some small risk you will enjoy a sense of superiority when the other person gives up the conversation, but that tends to be short-lived, and the pettiness it nurtures will serve you well for decades if you are careful.

You might even be fortunate enough that they are doing the same thing, in which case the argument can be extended almost indefinitely, resulting in plenty of anger and sadness on both sides and, if it is done persistently enough, sabotaging the relationship in such a way that - as long as you don't sever it altogether - it may well become a sort of bitter acquaintanceship. A few of this kind of acquaintanceship have even managed to fester across lifetimes into generational disputes between families.

Never make the first move toward reconciliation

The deliberate choice to give up your own right to be angry, especially while the pain is still fresh, almost always yields joy in the end. It also wastes a perfectly fine opportunity to foster bitterness between yourself and others.

In particular, making real sacrifices for or doing real work to the good of the one who has wronged you while the pain is still fresh tends to make it very hard to hold grudges (which are among the most reliable sources of misery known today) and very easy to begin to see the wrong done to you as less serious than it is.

Of all the things in this guide, a tendency to love and act lovingly toward those who have wronged you is perhaps the second most to be avoided.

Never distinguish between a thing being hard or unpleasant and a thing being unjust

If you would preserve your misery, you must always be careful to resent every difficulty and every suffering as an injustice and, if possible, as a deliberate injustice targeted specifically at you by someone you love. There are few things as exquisitely upsetting as cumulative small injustices done by people who should know better.

At every opportunity, treating minor inconveniences, unpleasant duties, or even bad weather as things being done to you rather than merely realities you must face is a task worth its effort. The collateral from it is fantastic as well. If you're any good, you may very well find that one or two vocal sessions of self-pity along these lines has poisoned, just a little, your relationships with everyone you were in contact with during those sessions. It isn't usually enough to sever relationships and reduce their usefulness for longer-term misery, but it can be enough for a slow-burning, modest spike of unhappiness. This is one of the safest techniques on this list, and it is almost universally a fine place to start if you are feeling timid about the other options.

Always keep score

A score that is anything other than perfectly balanced is a wonderful opportunity for suffering. The internal festering of "I wish they'd hurry and pay me back" or "I did X for them but they won't do Y for me" or even "I can't bear to look at them. I know they're just thinking about how much money I owe them, and I don't have any way to pay it back" is potent and almost infinitely available. Score-keeping also makes grudges much more manageable. Grudges tend to be a little unruly left to themselves and are not especially resilient, but if you can get one attached to an imbalance in the score sheet, then its natural lifespan is dramatically increased.

Furthermore, a habit of forgetting to collect on debts and of gratitude rather than shame when associating with anyone to whom you owe anything is mold in the very door of the fortress of misery. Score-keeping is an ideal treatment, because as long as the score can be perceived as out of balance, simply checking the score frequently will naturally tend to produce a determination to collect the debt and a desire to avoid being around anyone to whom you are indebted even if the debt is not monetary.

Be very suspicious of unexpected pleasantness

By searching every spontaneous joy for a catch or a trap, you can render it innocuous before it ever reaches your heart where it could be a real problem. If you find that you resist expected happiness pretty well but struggle with sudden, unplanned enjoyment of life, this one is for you. Like morphine for a minor headache, unbridled suspicion of joy destroys it with almost blinding efficiency.

The even better news is that there is absolutely no risk associated with this technique. Where one might accidentally slip from thinking about present sufferings to present duties, no amount of suspicion ever produced even the smallest trace of joy. I'd even encourage you to practice this one when no unexpected pleasantness is underway both for fun and to build muscle memory.

Do not pray

Above all, do not pray, or if you cannot avoid praying at least center your prayers on grievances and demands rather than on casting your cares upon Christ in gratitude, faith, and love. Sincere prayer is itself an act - however small - of faith, and acts of faith are universally likely to edge one toward eventual happiness. And prayers which sincerely relinquish burdens into God's hands and leave them there do more than almost anything else in the universe to give the heart and mind space to reach for happiness.

Some of these techniques are easier or more effective than others. This guide is not meant to be exhaustive or to give the impression that application of every principle herein must be applied together. Your ultimate misery will vary depending on how well you apply the techniques which are relevant to your specific situation. Thank you and have a bad day.