Positive Psychology Column for 7-13-03 By Tom Muha, Ph.D. How To Be Unhappy It’s come to my attention that not all of you have been using my suggestions for achieving happiness. So for those of you who insist on remaining stuck in your old patterns we’re going to explore the finer points of how to make yourself miserable. You’re going to develop a deep understanding of how to be unhappy. As a bonus you’ll discover just how to keep yourself feeling badly throughout the new year. Now many of you are probably thinking that you can create unhappiness just fine without my advice.  But I’ve been counseling folks since 1969 and during that time people have taught me a lot about how to screw your life up. Take for instance the man who came in to my office for his first appointment with me. He sat down and proceeded to tell me that he was unhappy because he was going through his fifth divorce. “You know, doc,” he said, “I’m beginning to think it’s not all the women’s fault.” I agreed with him wholeheartedly, believing he was on the brink of a breakthrough. It was the last time I ever saw this individual. This guy gives us a wonderful illustration of the first principle for perpetuating unhappiness: always blame someone else for your problems. And if anyone should try to help you see how you may be contributing to the problems, take great offense and eliminate them from your life immediately. This technique will help you avoid the discomfort of looking at your mistakes while allowing you to continue to make them over and over again. And since it’s never your fault, you can accumulate a large amount of righteous indignation. That way you can be contemptuous toward the people in your life while remaining secure in your belief that you deserve much better. If the strategy of avoiding unpleasant emotions within yourself doesn’t work to you, try the opposite tack: blame your self for everything that goes wrong. Some of the most wonderful people I’ve counseled have come in to tell me  about how it’s all their fault that someone they care about is treating them horribly.  They want to know what’s wrong with them that their “loved” one has been lying, cheating, ignoring and betraying them for years and years. They’re convinced that if they could just be better somehow then their spouse would stop drinking, drugging, spending, or cheating. Choosing to stay involved with someone who repeatedly hurts you is a guaranteed method for making yourself miserable. As you get good at using the blaming yourself approach, you can move up to the level of trying to be responsible for everything that could potentially go wrong. So not only do you get to feel guilty about what’s happened in the past, in your spare time you can also be racked by anxiety as you anticipate all the possible problems that might arise in the future. Now to stay unhappy it’s important that you not do anything to change the negative feelings that you’re experiencing. Remind yourself that it’s what someone else is doing that’s making you feel bad.  Remain steadfast in your belief that you’re powerless to stop your negative emotions from overwhelming you. Cite your ineffective reactions to problems in the past as evidence that you can’t do any better in the present. In spite of your best efforts to feel badly, you may find a pesky part of your psyche that doesn’t like you to suffer. Not to worry, this part of you can easily be defeated by distracting yourself with external sources of immediate gratification. Most people find that food, booze, cigarettes, and/or shopping will placate this insidious part of you that wants you to be genuinely happy. So be sure to give in to your impulses to give yourself a plethora of short-term pleasures. Buying things to give yourself a boost has many benefits when it comes to bringing unhappiness into your life. Aside from the obvious downer that you get every month when your credit card bills arrive, you’ll be able to build up a really bad feeling that you’re not good enough unless you’re acquiring lots of material possessions. But the best way to truly assure yourself disastrous outcome in life is to treat your body badly. Being overweight, for example, is a wonderful way to destroy your health, and putting toxic chemicals into your body can be a great method to accelerate the process. Now that you know that you have the power to make yourself unhappy, it becomes an option.   Tom Muha is a psychologist in Annapolis. He welcomes your comments and questions. To contact him call (443) 454-7274 or email him at tom@achievinghappiness.com.