How to quickly ruin your life

1.) Don’t admit what you want to others

Shroud yourself in darkness. Envelop your desires and keep them hidden from the world and yourself.

Let them fester in your unconscious as you continue to ignore them.

Oh, you want to become healthier? Ignore that ambition, you’ve always been weak, you’ll never change. You tell yourself.

You want to live abroad? No, not for you. You’re not courageous, you’ll never be able to pull that off.

Frantically stash your desires deep below so no one knows them, least of all, yourself. And when others ask what you want, create confusion, annoyance, vagueness. Stumble, stutter, shiver. It’s not mystery you’re creating, it’s inconsistency.

And then one day, explode and break down. Your tipping point has come fifteen years after you stifled your ambition and instead of being a creative force which beckons you toward action, it festers inside you like a worm, brewing resentment inside you because of your un-actualised desires. So then you can inflict this resentment onto anyone else with even the slightest courage to make what they want a reality.

Why act towards getting what you want when not getting it is a possibility?

Good question, you decide.

2.) Mindlessly consume other people’s lives online

Because your life is lacklustre, dull and mundane, outlet your passion through others.

Gasping with their every joy, grimacing at their every sorrow, mould yourself into another, dismiss your judgement, reason and uniqueness.

You don’t have the courage to act so sit back comfortably and watch others enact the role of the hero.

You don’t have the patience to think so lean into your guru’s thought patterns, absorbing his every word.

And in twenty years, in your heart-wrenching despair, reflect on your life and realise you spent three quarters of it in a screen, absorbing, delaying, mind-numbingly watching people who couldn’t have cared less about you.

Realise you weren’t supportive either. Whenever you see someone ascend to greater heights on social media, be the first anonymous troll to wish for their undoing. Allow your personality to morph into an online persona, fuelled by fear, cowardice and trickery.

3.) Watch porn

Conclude that Intimate relationships are taxing. Nasty, laborious, a waste of time.

Choose a different bond. A toxic relationship that keeps you warm. A soothing fire to take the edge off when you’re stressed. A passionate impulse that convinces you you’re ok, no need to expend effort. It can offer you everything, it whispers, all the while you have nothing.

So amongst your cowardice to face the world, retreat into the bosom of pleasure. Daily. Not an hour goes by when you don’t think of it. Of them.

The sirens call to you against your will, and you willingly give in. Every time.

It’s necessary, conclude, everyone does it.

And then wake up at 35, alone, tranquillised, despairing.

What is love but sexual release? You reason.

Why bother bonding in real life when I have this right here?

4.) Don’t workout

Allow weakness to encompass your being and hatred to fuel your mind whenever you see those dreaded fitness moguls.

Despise them because you measure your progress on the gap between you and them.

They do inspire you, but it’s too much. Anyway, who are you trying to impress?

So retreat into your stiffness, rigidity and lethargy. There’s no mirrors in your house anyway, so you never have to worry about self-accountability.

“No one cares about muscles.” You reason.

5.) Complain and gossip about other people

On the odd occasion you do speak to people, stab them in the back at every chance. Loyalty is for fools, and a frugal tongue never helped anyone.

So when away from them, discuss the qualities you hate about them with others who feel the same. Revel in your misery, because now you finally have company.

Besides, there’s nothing interesting to say about yourself, so you might as well revolve your conversations around the lives of others.

6.) Delay decision making

“I want to make a change.” You realise.

I no longer want to live like this. I need something big. I want revolution.

So who do you turn to? Your online guru. He says to take action on something small. Clean your room, tidy your desk, wash the dishes.

“Ridiculous. I don’t know why I pay this man money. How will that help?” So you scoff at the advice and continue to think.

Think. Think. Think.

I’ll do this, then I’ll do that, then I’ll do this, you promise everyone.

But nothing gets done.

Keep your decisions in the horizon, for tomorrow’s self to decide, for next month’s self to decide.

Until suddenly, at 40 years old, again you reflect. The open loops of decisions in your mind are running rampant. There’s still things you haven’t done from 20 years ago.

But there is one thing, despite all this that you’ve managed to do.

It’s that you’ve quickly ruined your entire life.