What To Do When Your Life Sucks

Sometimes things happen that compel you to evaluate your life. Maybe you celebrate your 30th birthday, separate from your spouse or have a loved one pass away. Whatever the event, you take a long, hard look at your life situation and either break out a smile or teeter in the verge of tears.

If you smile, great. You’re on a good path.

But what if you don’t? What if you take that long, hard look and hush to yourself, “My life sucks…”

How do you start living when you realize the way you live is not satisfying to you? What do you do? Where do you begin?

First, take inventory of why you decide that your life situation sucks:

• I have no savings
• I have bad habits
• I have nasty addictions
• I work at a job I hate
• I don’t have a fulfilling relationship
• I have herpes
• My loved one just passed away
• Blah Blah Blah

Much of the time, going over your reasons is enough to reveal how shallow they all are and that your life is not as bad as you glanced it a while ago.

Second, get a piece of paper and draw the most retarded cartoon you can imagine. I love ugly people with big mouths and bigger tongues with bloodshot eyes popping out. I also like drawing Snoopy as a retarded, rabid, crazy beast. You can actually skip this step but it usually cheers me up after doing something depressing like thinking about why my life situation sucks so I decided it may help you too.

Third, write the stuff in your jounal. Or a notebook. Or, even better, tell your best friend. Many disappointments are cured by merely expressing them. Most worries gain deeper meaning when you keep them in your head all to yourself.

Fourth, take inventory of what is good with your life situation:

• I make a decent living
• I have no police record
• I have a girlfriend who fucks like a pornstar
• I own a home
• Blah Blah Blah

Fifth, be thankful for those good things. Just say a requisite, “Thanks for my salaried income, it takes care of all my expenses!” Do the same for each one you list down.

Sixth, take the things that make your life situation suck and study them one by one. Write down any activity you can do to change or, at the least, positively affect each. Write down everything, big and small.

Seventh, remove things from the “activity list” that you can’t imagine yourself having fun with. Don’t do stuff because it makes sense. Do stuff because it will give joy. Miserably doing an activity is not the way out of a rut.

Eight, arrange these “change activities” from easiest to most difficult. Then do the easy things. String them together, if you can. The momentum you will gain from the little things is amazing. After doing a few small things, do one of the harder stuff. If you chicken out in the middle or mess up at some point, allow it, and return to doing the little things to regain your momentum.

Ninth, stop taking long, hard looks at your life. They probably don’t serve you.:)

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