How To Be The Greatest Antagonist To Your Own Happiness

Sophia Sinclair
Sophia Sinclair

Spend your time being fine with things just as they are. Don’t worry about pushing yourself or working towards something better. Instead, just imagine that some distant day in the future, everything will be perfect. You’ll have everything you want, you’ll have achieved everything you want, you’ll have moved into the career path you’ve always secretly yearned for. Bask in this day and allow it to make you feel superior to the other people standing next to you right now. Feel unconcerned about your lackluster job or your repetitive days or the fact that you’re not trying in any way whatsoever; feel unconcerned because you’re convinced that somehow it will all change one day, even though you’re currently doing nothing to get yourself on that track or to inch closer to these dreams and these aspirations right now. Or better yet, feel complete concern about these things and do nothing to fix it, because change is overwhelming.

Live in the idea of what the tomorrows of the future might look like, instead of figuring out how to actually change your life right now. Blame your failures and your stagnation on others, because you would have gotten that job if that other candidate hadn’t gone to the same school as one of the HR employees. You would have gone after the career you really wanted if only someone had told you what internships you should have applied for back in college. You would have a better apartment if your roommate wasn’t so messy. You would have a better group of friends if you lived in a different city.

When you’re unhappy, search for solutions outside yourself. Blow hundreds of dollars on an impulsive shopping spree without really looking at the clothes to closely. Start a Netflix marathon, not because you want to spend time with a friend or relax for a few hours, but because you literally want to forget about your life for a long period of time. Think about how much happier you would be if you had gotten a better job right out of college, and how you’re stuck now and might as well get over it. Get on Instagram and figure out who’s doing better than you and who’s doing worse than you, based on their most recent uploads.

Respond to the person who just texted you at 3:02 a.m. – the one you haven’t heard from since that bar crawl a couple months ago. Let them come over, or just keep them company via text message until they pass out and never contact you again, at least not until the next time it’s 3:02 in the morning. Find a brief and fleeting solace from this experience, or from drinking, or from sex, or from online shopping, or from mindless internet browsing, or from eating, or from whatever else you consume at an unhealthy level because it distracts you just for a moment. Continue doing this thing, even though it makes you feel like crap after the high is over. At least it brings you temporary pleasure, and it gives you a reason to avoid trying to figure out why there’s a hole in your stomach.

Forget the fact that you’re not in this alone, or just ignore it altogether. Forget that there are a lot of people who would understand what you’re going through, that we all get it, because we’re humans, and this is what we do to ourselves. Ignore the fact that I’m writing this because I’ve lived this, and still sometimes do, just as you have lived it, or still are.

Just keep sleeping. It’s easier than looking internally, than letting your mind get quiet enough to hear itself, to hear what it truly wants. Because what if what you truly want is impossible? Or, even more terrifying, what if it is possible, and you’ve run out of excuses as to why you shouldn’t go after it? Thought Catalog Logo Mark

I’m a staff writer for Thought Catalog. I like comedy and improv. I live in Chicago. My Uber rating is just okay.

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