When life starts to get you down, what pulls you out of it? In a time when it seems like everything is doom and gloom, and the future is uncertain, how do you stand against such a torrent of bad ju-ju? If you haven’t figured it out yet, or if the same old things that used to make you happy are starting to become dull, then here are some simple things you can try. You never know, you might find some hidden truth about human nature that you never would have seen before. Sometimes, you just have to do what Mitch Hedberg once said, and “get your priorities crooked.”
Learn How to Dance and then Don’t
Now, I know this sounds outrageous to suggest, but sometimes you should learn how to do things, not to do them, but to know you can do them and then not do them. Sure, you could learn how to dance, join a dance collective or troupe, tour, gain a lot of prestige, travel to India and be a featured backup dancer in three shots of a Bollywood movie, but what then? Where does it all end?
Truth be told, great power requires great responsibility, and there is more joy in knowing you can do something, but not doing it. Take Spider-man, for instance. Sure, he could have single-handedly caused a hundred traffic accidents a day just for the reward of watching the mayhem safely from above in his net on the 65th floor of the Chrysler building, but he didn’t. And that’s exactly the point.
If you want to learn how to dance, the joy should come in two parts: one – the satisfaction of watching the dancing shows on Fox quietly letting your spouse (who should be unaware of your grueling training you go to each day instead of your job you quit ’cause foo on that crap) know that you’re better than the other dancers on the television. Let them think you’re just being silly, when inside you know – you know. Part two comes in the long con payoff, when at your 50th wedding anniversary, you finally show them you weren’t totally full of malarkey. Your spouse goes up to slow dance, and the DJ who you’ve paid off with food stamps from all those years of not working rolls out some HOT BEATS and you take off, showing everyone just what 38 years of dance training looks like. Imagine their faces. You’ve won the long game, which means you win.
It worked for Christopher Walken, it could work for you.
Do Some Spring Cleaning at a Neighbor’s House
There are few things in this world that can affect you more positively than cleaning your living spaces. But what happens when you’re already done with all your cleaning, and you’ve reached the peak of joy and you really want to keep that high going? Look no further than next door over at Bill Baumgartner’s house!
Honestly, though, there is so much junk in that house. Where did they even get that furniture? Yard sales? On the side of the road on trash day? From that abandoned school building from the late 1800s that little Tommy Richards swears on his mom’s grave is haunted? It’s time for an update, Bill.
When you start your work, you’re going to need to make sure that nobody else is there to pester you with questions like “what are you doing in my house?” or “why are you throwing that away, that’s the last thing I have to remind me of my Grandma?” Honestly, it’s all a distraction for the hard work you need to do. The easiest way to get them out of their house is to hire an Ed McMahon lookalike to show up at their house with a giant check. Once they go off to cash the check, your work can begin. Your joy depends on it.
You want to make sure that you get one of those big-ass dumpsters that show up in the driveway of the houses where the old guy who lived there passed away and was a smoker his whole life so they had to gut everything inside. I recommend using a company that will let you overfill the dumpster. A lot of them don’t, and you’ll really want to make sure to get rid of as much stuff as you can.
When you’ve gone through everything you don’t like and tossed it all out, it’s time to see about removing some walls. It’s important that you capture that open concept living space when dealing with someone else’s house. They may hate you at first, but their resale value will skyrocket after they fix that sagging ceiling, missing beam issue due to the removal of the load-bearing wall you took down.
Finally, when all is said and done, make sure to hire a lawyer who is good at writing cease and desist letters, because your joy should not be interrupted by some threats of litigation. Civil suits look bad on you, Bill, but at least your house looks nice now.
Totally Re-subscribe to World of Warcraft
Sure, you could have gone to parties in college, but instead you played World of Warcraft. You could have met so many people, established connections that would usher you into a head start in your profession, or even go to class every day, but no – you played World of Warcaft because it made you feel good. Who knows, maybe it’s time to go back to your old ways? After all, back then the only global pandemic was inside the World of Warcraft, not in the real world.
Sure, you have a lot of other things in life that you need to do nowadays, but did you know that the Lich King was beaten, his helm of domination shattered and the veil between the living world and the afterlife was torn apart? Are you even aware of the fact that soon, the countless undead scourge will lay siege to Azeroth, threatening all that you once held dear?
Are you prepared to do nothing, or do you want to protect them from their impending doom? Of course, no one but you really knows what brings you joy. It’s just a shot in the dark at this point, but one thing is for certain – if you one day look back at all your old friends in the World of Warcraft and find out they all died because your Tauren Hunter wasn’t there to save them, you will lose any other joy you have.
And if you already lost half your joy when the pandemic hit in the real world, finding out the virtual world was wiped out by a plague of ghouls and skeletons will most likely put you into joy debt. Let’s face it – you don’t really have a choice in the matter. Gear up, noob.
Can I share this to Slack?? It’s hilarious!
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 4:43 PM, Thought Backlog wrote:
> Andrew Michael Miller posted: ” Now this guy gets it. Wearing a sleeping > muskrat on your head, now that’s the purest form of joy there is. When life > starts to get you down, what pulls you out of it? In a time when it seems > like everything is doom and gloom, and the future is uncerta” >
Sure thing