The Key To Everlasting Happiness

This is best illustrated with an example. 

You have a house. Your house is dustier than the streets of Delhi. You are super annoyed about it, but just can’t bring yourself to get around to fix it. For reasons; and since I’m chock full of empathy, I’m not going to attack you personally by insinuating that you’re lazy. Instead, I’m going to offer a solution that doesn’t involve giving up on your most cherished ideals.

What if you hunted through your fridge instead for the smelliest carton of milk, took it out, and carefully and liberally spilt it all over the floor? Making sure, of course, that you picked spots that were likely to leave behind the hardest to remove stains, until you eventually found the energy to get up to clean them off. 

What’s this got to do with the dusty house, you wonder? Therein lies the rub. While you were busy worrying about how on Earth you would get rid of that big splotch of milk in the middle of your drawing room, you forgot all about the dusty house.

Even better, the sweet kick of endorphins after you solved the spilt milk problem made the dusty house a little more tolerable, chipping away at your frustration one floor stain at a time, until some day, you won’t care about dusty houses any more. Problem solved.

This is a variation of the Acupuncture Principle™, of course, and can be paraphrased as:

To solve a problem, make yourself a bigger problem.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel like I’ve discovered the key to happiness itself. And like all great sages of yesteryear, I’m willing to share my wisdom for no charge at all. (Here’s my Patreon.)

To start things off, here’s a list of what I have cleverly named The Acupunctuals: a list of fallback solutions that will help you get over any problem in life. Just pick one and off you go.

1.Shoot a neighbour.
2. Set your house on fire.
3. Contract Ebola.
4. Go to work naked.

Unemployed and anxious about it? Go shoot a neighbour! You’ll no longer have to worry about being unemployed and anxious. And so on.

Sometimes though, you might not need car-sized hammers like these for your tiny nails. Fret not, my vast expertise transcends generalities.

If you find yourself anxious about those unfolded post-laundry clothes lying in a terrifying heap on your sofa, start chucking soiled clothes on the floor, one at a time, every day. Before you know it you’ll find yourself no longer fretting. About the unfolded post laundry clothes.

If the idea of writing daily status reports at work is boring you to tears - and if it isn’t, please feel free to check in your homo sapiens card when you leave the building, there’s a long waiting list - go ahead, and break that super important, super critical client facing system. No more status reports, and your manager will thank you in secret. Or openly, if post-work beers are your thing.

If you’re tired, get yourself a cold. 

If you have a cold, get yourself a full blown upper respiratory tract infection.

If you have an upper respiratory tract infection already, break a leg. 

If you have a broken leg, break another leg.

If you have two broken legs - have you considered buying lottery tickets? - cut off a limb. 

If you’re there already, sorry I’m out of ideas. May I point you to the list of Acupunctuals?

If you’re happy, and you’re a masochist, treat yourself to a day of hedonistic decadence involving copious amounts of alcohol. You’ll be happier, and you’ll forget the little joys that caused you such pain the day before.

Sometimes though, the key to successful application of the Acupuncture Principle is tangentiality, not degree. The uninformed might call it procrastination, but I say: tomatoes, tomatoes.

Do you have a homework assignment to do? Pretend to think about beginning work on that novel that’s going to make you rich and famous. 

When you’re ready to actually write down the first line of your novel, you’ll always have the homework assignment to do. 

There. Thank me later for only just dropping the key to everlasting happiness in your lap.