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Because people aren’t supposed to be happy, they’re only supposed to want to be happy, because how otherwise are you supposed to be able to sell things to them?
He’s just happy. It wasn’t even particularly difficult. All he did was to remove the one thing that makes almost all people unhappy: other people.
He works well in groups as long as it’s groups of fewer than two people.
ergonomic
Being smart is the worst thing one can be in modern society. All it ever means is more work.
Lucas is making the mistake of thinking that the board wants to solve the problem. But people actually almost never want to do that.
Pad thai without peanuts is like buying a balloon and just getting the air.
this trauma,
That’s like saying it’s theft if I take a little bit of cheese out of a bag of groceries that’s outside of your door. How is it theft if we’ve never even met?” Lucas scratches his hair. “Hold on . . . Have you been taking
cheese out of my grocery bags?”
The woman nods in a way that looks encouraging but feels condescending, like she’s watching a Tyrannosaurus rex trying to learn to play the piano.
“Yes . . . well, that’s what the doctor said too. So she offered for me to be in a coma for a few days. Or, you know, not that I’d be in a coma, but pretend to be. So every time my husband calls the hospital now, the doctor says, ‘Oh no, sorry, she hasn’t woken up yet.’ But actually she’s lent me this apartment. Apparently this doctor does this sometimes when she feels that mothers need . . . a break.”
Because a funny thing about rule-loving people is that to them it seems more important to impose punishment than it is to actually solve problems, and a funny thing
about rule-breaking people is that they seem to find breaking rules a lot easier to do if someone else has broken them first.
“responsibility” and “commitment” are actually two of the easiest ways of ruining any perfectly good day.
everyone is too busy arguing about whose fault it is in the first place.
the people who complain the most are people who don’t even live in the area,
“I usually keep my peanuts next to a jar of peanut butter, so they understand what I’m capable of!”
This is when Lucas does something very, very stupid: he tries to be constructive and solve the problem.
the truth about problems is that the problem itself is never actually the problem. It’s always the people involved who are the problem.
That’s how badly people want to be something, anything at all,
But I think most people who want to be happy try to add things to their lives. But really what maybe they should be doing is taking something away.”
I’m actually starting to think that maybe I’ve just forgotten what I actually like and don’t like for myself.”
“But it was very nice to find that out for myself. What I don’t like.”
“I miss making up.
I miss . . . making up. It’s like we’re choosing each other all over again when that happens.”
Then they stand in silence, the three people, a breath away but with whole lives between them.
Maybe he’s coming down with a cold? But then he realizes it’s something much, much worse. It’s empathy.
we could appear to have been consistent in our principles,”
Being consistent is the opposite of being wrong.”
before the board shouts very, very happily:
“Oh no! Now we’re . . . powerless.”
People on the internet love happiness!”
Do not collect junk in your hearts.
Love is not to never fight. Love is always making up.
they will drive each other crazy every day for the rest of their lives. Such is love.
“Maybe love is not enough,”
Love isn’t powerful enough. But spite? Spite can change the world.
It’s hard because it’s so easy to get in your head that if you are to be happy, you have to be happy exactly all of the time.
Happiness can be exhausting.
One day you’re a happy, whole person, and the next day you’re forced into the most horrible thing on earth: making decisions.
