This Is How

1. Forget Fake Smiles, Embrace Reality

Sometimes things feel that bad.

Reject forced positivity. The world pushes a relentless "superpositive" agenda, demanding we always feel "Great!" or "Terrific, thanks!" This societal zero-tolerance for negativity forces us to wear masks and lie about our true feelings, even in casual greetings. This dishonesty is not only inaccurate but can actually make you feel worse, preventing you from identifying and addressing the real issues.

Truth is accuracy. To truly improve your life or survive hardship, you must strip away inaccuracies and untruths. This isn't about "your truth" or a flexible definition, but the rock-bottom, factual truth residing at the core of your issues. This truth is often humbling and terrifying, but it's the only way to gain the accuracy needed to manifest real change.

Start with your mouth. The search for solutions begins with the lies you tell, especially the little ones you tell yourself and others daily. Recognizing these small lies is the first step to uncovering larger inaccuracies that surround you, allowing you to see your life with the accuracy needed to overcome anything.

2. It's Okay to Feel Like Shit

Sometimes just giving yourself permission to feel any emotion without judgment or censorship can lessen the intensity of those negative emotions.

Embrace the negative. Instead of trying to "be positive" when you feel awful, lean into the negative feelings. Stand before the mirror and name the actual emotions you feel, no matter how ugly they sound. This establishes a real baseline and helps you get in touch with how you actually feel.

Investigate your feelings. Observe your feelings without judgment or censorship. Ask yourself why you feel a certain way and try to trace it back to its origin. Learning about your feelings is potentially useful because it helps you recognize what needs to change at the source to actually start feeling better, rather than just pretending.

Feelings are fluid. Feelings are something you have, not something you are. Admitting to feeling rage, pain, or regret doesn't mean these are part of your identity. They are signals that you may need to change your thinking or stop dwelling on old wounds. Allowing true feelings to surface, though frightening, is less dangerous than denying them.

3. Find Love by Being Your Real Self

Be exactly the person you would be if you were alone or with somebody it was safe to fart around.

Stop waiting, start doing. Believing in a "soul mate" you'll meet "when you're supposed to" is often passive entitlement, not relaxed patience. Your cell phone data likely shows you stick to a small geographic radius. Finding love requires proactive effort:

• Get out of your routine.
• Go to new places, order new things.
• Alter your daily commute.

Challenge your blueprint. Many people have a mental image of their ideal partner, which can act as a filter, causing them to overlook compatible people who don't fit the mold. Don't believe in just one soul mate; out of seven billion people, there are likely many. Be open to meeting people anywhere, including online.

Be your authentic self. When dating, resist the urge to present a "best version" of yourself. This is lying. Be the person you are when you're alone or with close friends. Never try to impress someone; let them be impressed by the real you. If they love you when you are your true, flawed self, and you feel calm and love them back despite their flaws, you've found it.

4. Be Fat, Be Thin: Just Be

You are exactly attractive enough and thin enough (even if you weigh four hundred pounds) and smart enough and funny enough, even if you cannot tell a knock-knock joke without fucking it up?

Dieting often fails. If you've spent years trying to lose weight through dieting and failing, perhaps the solution is to stop dieting. Give yourself full permission to eat what you want; the forbidden element disappears, and food's value decreases. This isn't a quick fix but a long-term shift in your relationship with food.

Willpower isn't enough. True, lasting change comes from deep need, not willpower. Willpower is like holding your breath; you can only do it for so long. If you need willpower to lose weight, you don't want it deeply enough. Something within you is resisting, perhaps an old fear or a dependency on food for comfort. Explore this resistance to reach the core truth.

Accept yourself now. You don't need to be thin to be happy, satisfied, or content. These are sold separately. A more resilient plan is to find "thin happy" at your current weight. Decide if you truly want to spend your energy on weight or if you'd rather focus on other things. There is no shame in deciding to just be fat if you are happy and confident as you are.

5. Shatter Shame: Identify the Inner Critic

Shame is the landfill emotion.

Shame is unfashionable but pervasive. Unlike vulnerability, shame is an emotion we rarely admit to struggling with. It's often associated with public scandals or religious guilt, making it seem terminally uncool. However, shame is a core reason many people struggle with self-esteem and confidence.

Shame is external disappointment. Shame isn't organic like joy; it's dumped on you by others. It's heavy, dense disappointment, often implying you are "less than," "inferior," or "defective." Adults use shame to edit children ("Boys your age don't do that") and subtly manipulate other adults through dismissals ("Whatever," with an eye roll) or disguised criticism.

Identify the voice. Shame also lives inside your head as an unnamed voice: "God, you are such a slob," "Look at that fat ass," "That girl is totally out of my league." This voice often masquerades as common sense, repeating criticisms you may have heard since childhood. Learn to recognize this off-key melody; if it's not your kind voice, it's extra crap someone else packed in your baggage.

6. Look for the Truth Behind the Truth

Blocking your view of what is true is what you think is true—your assumptions, ingrained beliefs, fears, and needs.

Truth is layered. Sometimes, the rock-bottom truth about your circumstances is hidden behind what you assume is true. You must examine your feelings and facts carefully to find the deeper door. This isn't easy because your assumptions, beliefs, fears, and needs block the view, and uncovering the truth might mean accepting consequences you're not ready for.

Question your certainties. You have a small bundle of core certainties in life (people, place, abilities) that you never question because you depend on them. To see the truth, you must examine these certainties to ensure they are still intact. It's like checking for forgery or deep scratches that indicate something is being forced into place.

Hopelessness is an illusion. If you feel trapped and hopeless, believing you've looked at your situation and found no options, you are wrong. There is always an option, possibly several. You just need to move something out of the way to get a clearer view. This process can be dangerous, like childbirth or heating something to eleven thousand degrees, but facing dangerous things is sometimes necessary.

7. End Your Life (By Starting a New One)

What I really wanted was to end my life.

Suicide's design flaw. Suicide promises peace and release, but you'd have to be alive to experience these benefits. The act itself intensifies misery with horror, fear, and regret. The stillness of a dead body is often mistaken for peace by the living, reflecting their own longing, not the state of the deceased. Mentally exploring the physical steps of suicide reveals no peace is possible.

The option you don't see. When life feels like an emergency and suicide seems the only exit, there's another choice: break it. Walk out the door and keep going. This is destructive to the life you leave behind, but it's a choice and better than suicide. It's like breaking the glass on a fire extinguisher in an emergency.

You hate your life, not life. If you hate your life, it's because it's too small and doesn't fit you. Life is too huge to hate; you just haven't seen enough of it. Leaving allows you to start a new life, one you build yourself from scratch. This choice is always available, even if it seems impossible due to obligations. It requires stripping away rules and assumptions to see the truth of your options.

8. You Don't Always Heal, That's Fine

there are some things in life from which you do not heal.

Healing isn't always restoration. We often expect healing to mean being restored to a previous state, with no trace of the wound. But some losses, like the death of a child, create holes that never close. Waiting for this kind of healing is futile and causes enduring damage.

Live with the holes. You can live just fine with many holes of various sizes. Pleasure, love, and fulfillment don't leak out of them. Deep sorrow and deep joy can coexist within you, side by side, without conflict. Loss isn't subtraction; it's an addition that expands you, making you larger than you were before.

Don't wait to heal. You don't need to "work through" your past to heal; you need to move forward. This is how you become as healed as you're likely to be. While some traumas are too large to fit into the past and may require continuous retelling to help others, for most, dwelling on the past in the name of healing is stagnation. You are whole even with missing pieces; you are made of what you have and what you lost.

9. Addiction: Stop Doing It, Want More

To stop drinking, all you have to do is sit.

AA's mixed messages. While AA provides comfort and community, some core concepts like "powerlessness" and "relapse is part of recovery" can undermine sobriety. Admitting powerlessness isn't true; drinking is always a choice. Relapse as "part of recovery" can feel like an instruction, making drinking seem ordinary or expected. Scorekeeping in AA also introduces a potentially dangerous currency into sobriety.

Sobriety is power. True sobriety comes from assuming power, not admitting powerlessness. It's deciding not to drink and then sitting with the discomfort until it passes. AA can feel like the next best thing to drinking, a place to bide time until you relapse. Freedom comes from not thinking about alcohol, not constantly being in its company.

Find something you want more. The way to stop drinking is to want sobriety more than you want to drink. This is a discovery, not just a decision. You need to occupy the space drinking once filled with something more rewarding, like a passion or a relationship. Most alcoholics won't get sober because they don't want it enough. Stopping drinking is simple: you just don't do it.

10. Dreams: Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em

If you can let go of the dream, you probably should.

Not all dreams come true. The advice to "never give up your dream" is often cruel. Many people waste their lives pursuing dreams for which they lack the talent or ability. Wanting something with all your heart doesn't guarantee you're good enough at it. Letting go of a dream that cannot be yours isn't failing; it's recognizing reality.

Know yourself. You are the only person who can truly judge whether you have the talent or ability to make your dream come true. What others see is only what you show them; you may hold something extra in reserve. If your certainty about your dream doesn't waver despite lacking obvious talent, and you can't imagine another life, you must pursue it. This self-possession is rare and valuable.

Examine the "why." Grab your dream like a kite and trace the string back to the spool. Ask yourself why you want this dream. If the answer is external validation or wealth, you're pursuing the wrong thing. Dreams often have a misty resolution; you must bring them into focus to understand what they truly represent. It's not true that you can do anything you set your mind to; kindergarten lied.

11. Love Isn't What You Think It Is

Love doesn’t use a fist.

Identify love by its absence. True love is defined by what it doesn't do: it doesn't use violence, put you down, laugh at you cruelly, or intentionally lower your self-esteem. Love is helium-based, taking the high road. It doesn't make you beg, control your finances, or involve children in conflict. Love doesn't demand you change but supports you if you do.

Abuse is covert. Emotional abuse isn't always obvious verbal attacks; it can be subtle, cunning manipulations delivered over time. An abusive partner is controlling and manipulative, often disguising abuse as helpfulness or using silence as a weapon. They may appear supportive to others while subtly undermining you, especially if you have talent they resent.

Recognize the signs. Domestic violence is hard to detect when it's happening to you because it feels like something that only happens to "other people." It's a spectrum, from controlling behavior to full-strength abuse. Look closely at everyday interactions:

• Do they embarrass you with put-downs?
• Control who you see or where you go?
• Make all decisions?
• Prevent you from working or going to school?
• Destroy your property or threaten pets?
• Intimidate with weapons?
• Shove, slap, choke, or hit you?
• Threaten suicide or kill you?
  If you recognize these signs, even if they seem unlikely for your life, pay attention.

12. Unhappily Ever After is Still Living

I just want to be happy,” I can’t think of another phrase capable of causing more misery and permanent unhappiness.

Happiness is a trap. Saying "I just want to be happy" implies you are not, setting up a pursuit for something undefined. This can lead to frantically chasing external things (relationships, possessions, achievements) that never fill the perceived void. Until you define "happy" in concrete, specific, and possible terms, you will never feel it.

Define your happy. If you can blueprint what happiness means to you (e.g., starting a business you love), you can align your life with that vision. However, this recipe doesn't work for everyone. Some people, like the author, are not happy by nature. They may experience joy or contentment fleetingly but primarily feel other emotions like interest, melancholy, or annoyance.

Accept non-happiness. Being an unhappy person doesn't mean being sad or dark. It means accepting that your default emotional state isn't "happy." This isn't terrible. You can be interested, fascinated, or busy instead of happy. Happiness is a treadmill goal for those not genetically inclined towards it. Accepting that you may live "unhappily ever after" frees you from the relentless, often miserable, pursuit of a state that may not be your natural inclination.

Last updated: May 4, 2025