How to Be Miserable 40 Strategies You Already Use

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 “Randy J. Paterson has hit a home run with this highly accessible,
engaging book. How to Be Miserable uses tongue-in-cheek humor,
scientifically grounded practical advice, and a healthy dose of what is
colloquially known as ‘reverse psychology’ to help put an end to common
behavioral patterns that contribute to unhappiness. Anyone who wants to be
less miserable should read this book and do the opposite of everything it
recommends!”
—Martin M. Antony, PhD, ABPP, professor of Mpsychology at
Ryerson University in Toronto, ON, Canada, and coauthor of The Shyness
and Social Anxiety Workbook and The Anti-Anxiety Workbook

“Randy J. Paterson’s How to Be Miserable contains practical, witty,

and wise advice, and is based on the premise that we have become our own
worst enemies. Confronting our ‘management’ strategies consciously is the
only way our life actually begins to turn toward better outcomes.”
—James Hollis, PhD, Jungian analyst, and author of The Middle
Passage and Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life

“Randy J. Paterson has failed miserably in his quest to create a recipe

for unhappiness in How to Be Miserable, and instead has written a gem of a
parody on how to cope with the inevitable difficulties we all must face in
order to live a happy and fulfilling life.”
—Simon A. Rego, PsyD, ABPP, associate professor of clinical
psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Albert Einstein College of
Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York, NY

“How to Be Miserable is a different kind of self-help book. By learning

the forty traps that lead to unhappiness, readers will actually discover how
to create the life they’ve always wanted—one filled with lasting happiness.”
—Matt McKay, PhD, coauthor of Thoughts and Feelings
 Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative
information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the
understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological,
financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or
counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be
sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2016 by Randy J. Paterson
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Amy Shoup
Acquired by Melissa Kirk
Edited by Jennifer Eastman
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
For Benjamin
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky
 Contents
INTRODUCTION: THE DREAMS OF ANOTHER AGE
The Ten-Million-Dollar Question
Column A and Column B
What’s the Problem?
Let’s All Embrace the Dark Side
Four Points, Forty Lessons
A Note to the Uncommitted

PART ONE: ADOPTING A MISERABLE LIFESTYLE

LESSON 1: AVOID ALL EXERCISE

LESSON 2: EAT WHAT YOU’RE TOLD
LESSON 3: DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE IN BED
LESSON 4: LIVE BETTER THROUGH CHEMISTRY
LESSON 5: MAXIMIZE YOUR SCREEN TIME
LESSON 6: IF YOU WANT IT, BUY IT
LESSON 7: CAN’T AFFORD IT? GET IT ANYWAY!
LESSON 8: GIVE 100 PERCENT TO YOUR WORK
LESSON 9: BE WELL INFORMED
LESSON 10: SET VAPID GOALS

PART TWO: HOW TO THINK LIKE AN UNHAPPY PERSON

LESSON 11: REHEARSE THE REGRETTABLE PAST

LESSON 12: BLAME INWARD, GIVE CREDIT OUTWARD
LESSON 13: PRACTICE THE “THREE BAD THINGS” EXERCISE
LESSON 14: CONSTRUCT FUTURE HELLS
LESSON 15: VALUE HOPE OVER ACTION
LESSON 16: BECOME A TOXIC OPTIMIST
LESSON 17: FILTER FOR THE NEGATIVE
LESSON 18: CULTIVATE YOUR PRESENCE—ELSEWHERE
LESSON 19: INSIST ON PERFECTION
LESSON 20: WORK ENDLESSLY ON YOUR SELF-ESTEEM

PART THREE: HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE

LESSON 21: BECOME AN ISLAND UNTO YOURSELF

LESSON 22: GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT
LESSON 23: MEASURE UP AND MEASURE DOWN
LESSON 24: PLAY TO WIN
LESSON 25: HOLD HIGH EXPECTATIONS OF OTHERS
LESSON 26: DROP YOUR BOUNDARIES
LESSON 27: BOND WITH PEOPLE’S POTENTIAL, NOT THEIR
REALITY
LESSON 28: DEMAND LOYALTY
LESSON 29: REACT TO THEIR MOTIVES, NOT THEIR
MESSAGES
LESSON 30: CULTIVATE AND TREASURE TOXIC
RELATIONSHIPS

PART FOUR: LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT MEANING

LESSON 31: KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE SMALL PICTURE

LESSON 32: LET YOUR IMPULSES BE YOUR GUIDE
LESSON 33: LOOK OUT FOR NUMBER ONE
LESSON 34: DUTY FIRST, LIFE LATER
LESSON 35: LIVE THE UNLIVED LIVES OF OTHERS
LESSON 36: STAY IN YOUR ZONE OF COMFORT
LESSON 37: AVOID SOLITUDE
LESSON 38: CHOOSE FASHION OVER STYLE
LESSON 39: PURSUE HAPPINESS RELENTLESSLY
LESSON 40: IMPROVE YOURSELF
CONCLUSION: ENDING THE MISERY PROJECT: LIFE ON THE
TOP FLOOR
The Causes of Misery
And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Remove Your Masks
Short Term, Long Term
Pain-based Impulses
An Unreliable Crystal Ball
A Culture with an Agenda
Some Advice, At Last
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL READING
 Introduction

The Dreams of Another Age

Hundreds of self-help books are published every year. Each one, directly
or indirectly, has the same purpose: how to make you happy. How to get
rich so you’ll be happy. How to be thin so you’ll be happy. How to
overcome depression so you’ll be happy. How to find a relationship so
you’ll be happy. How to have high-colonic enemas so you’ll be happy.
There is an irony in these extensive, groaning shelves. The very fact that
there are so many of these books suggests that the target is extremely
elusive—that happiness isn’t easy.
Conjure in your mind the image of a caveman.
In your vision, he probably looks rather stupid. But he is us. Our
species, Homo sapiens sapiens, has been around in pretty much the same
form for over a hundred thousand years. And, stupid or not, our caveman
has dreams. He longs for a world in which good-tasting food is readily
available and starvation is unlikely. He wants freedom from the predators
that occasionally make off with members of the tribe. He wants his children
to stop dying from diseases he does not understand. When he is himself ill,
he wishes that someone would help him get well.
Then he shakes his head, frowns at himself for wasting time, and returns
to the business of survival. Pointless to wish for a world that could never
exist.
But it can—and does.
In the developed world, we live a life of luxury unparalleled in the
history of the species. There’s food in the fridge, there’s a roof over our
heads, there’s hot water in the faucet, there’s hot air in our furnaces and
leaders, and every product we can think of is within reach. We have a
longer life span than ever. We’re healthier for longer. The neighbors are not,
for the most part, trying to kill us. The infant mortality rate is low, and the
lifespan is long.
 It is a world that our caveman, and the kings of not so very long ago,
would quite happily have killed for (and one which the present-day citizens
of many less privileged nations dream about). If we could reach back in
time and bring our ancestors to the present world, their eyes would widen in
amazement. We would show them our cars, our aircraft, our hospitals, our
grocery stores, and the climate-controlled rooms where we sit in
comfortable chairs to do our “work.”
They would stare at us with a sudden realization. “I’ve died. This is the
promised realm our priests talked about. Your days are spent in comfort and
bliss. Can I stay?”
Then you tell them that there is a blight in this paradise. Most people are
not filled with joy. Many spend much of their time in a state of
dissatisfaction. Some are hospitalized in deepest misery. Millions are given
medication to lift their moods to a tolerable level. Publishers bring out
hundreds of books on how to find the happiness that microwave ovens and
stable societies and Zumba classes have somehow failed to provide. Bus
shelters advertise distant destinations to which the inhabitants of this world
can escape.
Escape? Our caveman can think of nothing more wonderful than to be
imprisoned here. He doesn’t understand. He cannot.
Something has gone wrong.

The Ten-Million-Dollar Question

Misery sneaks up on you.
Many years ago, I was midway through my predoctoral internship in
psychology when misery popped by for what turned out to be a yearlong
visit.
At first I had no idea what was happening. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t
eat, I could barely read a sentence, and a flight of stairs might just as well
have been the Annapurna Circuit. Nothing appealed. At times, it seemed I
could barely talk. Once, in a depressive fog, I greeted a new patient with the
pronouncement, “This is Randy Paterson,” causing the poor woman to peer
around to see if I might be introducing her to someone more promising than
I was.
 A flippant list of a few symptoms does not serve to illuminate the sheer
wretchedness of much of this period. I could go on, but let’s leave that for
another day.
I was treating depression, for goodness’ sake, and still failed to notice it
overtaking me. When I finally twigged, I was tempted to dismiss it. Young,
healthy, pursuing a career I’d chosen at the age of eight—what did I have to
be so unhappy about?
The answers, rolling their eyes, eventually tapped me on the shoulder,
annoyed that I hadn’t noticed them standing there.
Some were outside my control. The internship demanded long hours on
multiple wards, seeing patients with both psychiatric and physical illnesses,
many of the latter being terminal cases. One of my best friends at the time
was dying. My internship was far from the friends I’d developed in
graduate school, in a bedroom community known chiefly for the cheerful
ease with which the residents had evacuated some years before, when a
train carrying toxic chemicals derailed. (The miracle, so the local joke went,
was not that everyone got out but that they ever returned.)
Some of the factors, however, were the result of my own choices. I
didn’t need to work quite as much as I did, and I was pushing myself in the
evenings and on weekends to write my dissertation. I was drinking far too
much coffee and eating too much gelatinous hospital food. I wasn’t staying
in contact with friends, seldom left my slum apartment (in a neighborhood
that was red-circled by the social workers at the hospital), and got almost no
exercise.
I scraped through, largely by fantasizing that I was my own patient and
(mostly) following the standard recommendations. I exercised more, cut the
coffee, took weekends off, ate better, made a point of seeing friends, and so
on. Still, it took almost a year before I was back to what I usually
considered my normal state.
After graduation, I specialized in the treatment of anxiety disorders,
coyly shying away from seeing too much in the way of depression. A bit too
close to home for comfort.
Homesick for mountains, I applied for every possible job on the West
Coast and (fate having a delicious sense of humor) was offered a position as
coordinator of a hospital-based mood disorder program. I accepted and,
contrary to my own predictions, stayed there for nine years before opening
a private clinic with a focus on—you can guess—mood problems. Our
hospital team ran groups for people in the grip of more than just garden-
variety misery. All had been hospitalized; most of them, several times. Their
struggle easily dwarfed anything I had gone though. In my own cushioned
life, I had visited the edge of the valley, but clearly had not dropped to its
very bottom.
Early on, we began conducting a discussion exercise as part of the first
session of the program. Our clients had been struggling to feel better for
months—in some cases, for decades. They were understandably skeptical
that anything we might do in our little group would be helpful. So we
turned it around.
“Imagine that you could earn $10 million for just half an hour’s work—
let’s say tomorrow morning between 11:00 and 11:30. All you would have
to do is make yourself feel worse than you do now. Worse, in fact, than
you’ve felt in the past week. How would you do it?”
Sometimes people would object, saying that it still wouldn’t be worth
the money or that they feared getting stuck there. One woman gazed
balefully across the table at me. “So far, I have been doing this for free. Ten
million? Fine.”
What ensued, invariably, was a free-for-all of ideas that came haltingly
at first and then in a flood. After one session, a hospital cleaner stopped in
the hall as I was locking up and asked what had been going on in there.
“Depression group,” I said. “But they were laughing,” she said, frowning.
“You don’t hear a lot of laughter in this building.”
Each time we did the exercise, however, the humor would subside when
I asked, “When you wake up in the morning, and you’re already miserable,
what do you feel like doing?” They would begin listing many of the same
things that they had just nominated as strategies to feel worse.
“Why do you think that is?”
Some worried that perhaps they just liked being depressed. But this
didn’t fit. Of all the experiences they’d had, depression was almost always
the most wretched. They didn’t like it at all.
Misery changes everything. It affects how we feel, how we think, what
we do—and it alters our impulses. When we are miserable, we are usually
tempted to do precisely what, at other times, we know will make it worse.
The result can be that we appear to be bringing on our own discomfort.
“In this group,” I and the other leaders would say, “we’re going to try to
become aware of these impulses—and often we’re going to try to do the
opposite. Most of what we talk about won’t seem tempting or promising or
even logical. The strategies may feel wrong. But what feels right when
you’re miserable is what feeds the misery, not what feeds you.”
Clinical depression, as should be obvious, is an extreme form of human
misery. But there is no clear border dividing it from its milder cousins.
Many of my present-day clients are less than happy about their lives, but
not clinically depressed. Some arrive at my office doing just fine—but
having heard about the new field of positive psychology, they wonder if
they can go from tolerable or middling life satisfaction to better than
average. Some of the strategies are unique to where a person starts out.
Most are not.
We can learn from the answers given by the truly depressed to the Ten-
Million-Dollar Question. Indeed, most of the strategies in this book first
arose in those groups. You can ask the question of yourself. If you wanted
to feel worse rather than better, what would you do?
This book, it must be noted, is not intended for those in the deepest
valley of depression. At such a time, people often need other strategies and
another voice. They may be put off by any chirpiness of tone. Instead, this
book is for the larger population—those who have not fully explored the
canyons of human emotion. Misery is a normal human experience. We all
encounter it to varying degrees, and often we are surprised by its knock. So
rather than waiting, let’s open the door and set out to find it.
A misery safari. Pith helmets are optional.

Column A and Column B

What causes a person’s mood to rise or fall? Apart from mysterious
fluctuations in the internal soup in which our brains simmer, what factors
launch a person upward to the pinnacles of happiness or propel them to the
valley floor?
We can divide the answers into two categories.
 The first—let’s call it Column A—comprises the inventory of
catastrophe that can overtake us. Despite our privileged society, tragedy and
disappointment still exist. Cars collide. Cells metastasize. Industries fail.
Bodies age. Partners leave. Friends move. Roofs leak. Poverty and disease
still thrive. We are not in full control of the circumstances of our lives. We
can imagine that we have arranged our lives so carefully, with such
foresight, that we have assured our happiness—and yet we know that
circumstance can sweep it all away.
So there are limits to our personal influence. We can do all the right
things and still get hit by a bus. If we are five feet tall, we can practice and
perfect our basketball skills all we like, but we will still never play in the
NBA. We can eat right, give up smoking, and take our vitamins, and we are
still guaranteed to slip off the dish before our 120th birthday.
Life can impose a dizzying array of circumstances upon us that may
limit our happiness or create misery: war, poverty, refugee status, personal
misfortune of any stripe. You may be born with any of a variety of
constraints—sensory, intellectual, social, familial. We can be fired, dumped,
duped, flooded, infected, bombed, bullied, struck, abandoned, bankrupted,
blind-sided, T-boned, or poisoned by an undercooked hamburger.
Some events, in retrospect, seem to have been so unlikely that it never
occurred to you to worry about them. Just when my own life was going
pretty well, I was shot off my bicycle by a deer that had been struck and air-
launched by a passing vehicle. Sometimes it appears that fate has it in for
you. I took my deer impact as a message from the fates to make some
much-needed changes in my career. “Look what we can do! Get on with
your life, or next time it’ll be a moose.”
In addition to these capricious whims of fate, however, there are many
influences on our moods that lie within our own control. Let’s put these in
Column B.
We can choose what to eat, how to spend our time, how much exercise
to get, and what to make priorities in our lives. All of these will influence—
within the limits fate imposes upon us—how happy or miserable we
become. We may not be able to live to be a thousand years old no matter
what we do, but we can increase the likelihood of reaching a relatively
healthy ninety. Whatever our lifespan, we can choose to spend our years