How to Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use

by Randy J. Paterson

One of the most potent strategies thus far studied is also an arrestingly simple one. Lying in bed, before going to sleep, you would call to mind three things about the day that you enjoyed or appreciated. These events can be worldly—perhaps, for example, a peace treaty appeared in the news or a friend received a promotion. But most of the events should be personal: a tasty bagel eaten at breakfast, a compliment received from a friend, a bookshelf newly dusted, a drive through morning rush hour that was easier than usual. Even on an otherwise terrible day, there are usually at least some positive elements: The admitting clerk at the root canal clinic smiled nicely at me. To get people to remain focused a bit longer on the exercise, Seligman advises them to write the events down in a bedside notebook and to contemplate how they came about—in effect, to make attributions for the events. They might credit the bagel to the skill of the baker, the compliment to a friend’s kindness, the clean bookshelf to their own efforts, the light traffic to people taking a long weekend. Some of these attributions might be internal, others external. The point is to occupy the mind with these positive events for at least a few minutes. The challenge that clinicians have in recommending this exercise is that it seems far too simple. People want to believe that changing how they feel is a complex, obstacle-strewn path filled with thorns and leg-hold traps. It turns out, however, that altering th...