How to Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use

by Randy J. Paterson

Today, the majority of the messages we receive about how to live a good life come not from Granny’s long experience of the world, but from advertising executives hoping to sell us products. If we are satisfied with our lives, we will not a feel a burning desire to purchase anything, and then the economy may collapse. But if we are unsatisfied, and any of the products we buy actually delivers the promised lasting fulfillment, subsequent sales figures may likewise drop.

Something worth pondering. The basic aim of the business executives to keep us unsatisfied so that they can sell us more products. Is there any merit in listening to them at all?

“Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are.” Style, on the other hand, is the art of bringing your defining individual features to the fore, regardless of what others might expect or find acceptable: If you are tall, he felt you should let yourself be tall. Do not stoop, do not shrink yourself, do not try to fit in with a smaller world. If you are short, be short—never wear heels. If you have an opinion, express it; an interest, follow it. In brief, be who you are. Make no attempt to fit in.