The thing about giving up 15 things...

A lot of people have been sharing this post on Facebook, about 15 things one should give up to be happy. I wanted to see how true this was. 15 things is a little excessive, don't you think? Wouldn't you then be obsessing about giving up things, and obsessing is supposed to make you happy? The answer to that is probably, well giving up these things will work, because there is so much greed and hatred and blapity blapity bla in this world. Okay. Sure. Let's see what these 15 things are, before I obliterate your path to nirvana with my fiery, scathing remarks.

1. GIVE UP YOUR NEED TO ALWAYS BE RIGHT
First of all, tell that to my bf. If he has to give up on being right, he will be the exact opposite of happy. Being right is all he (and other fundamentalists) ever strive for. Is he unhappy? Are fundamentalists unhappy? He is surely a happier being than I am. I don't feel like I always need to be right, I'm always all oh there is more than one point of view to an issue oh blapity blapity bla postmodernism there is no truth lalalalala hipster. I dunno...

2. GIVE UP YOUR NEED FOR CONTROL
Not something you want to practice when you're in a shop. I usually feel happier knowing I can exercise self-control somewhere, and I didn't buy that hideous dress that I would regret 15 seconds after the purchase. Next.

3. GIVE UP ON BLAME
Not true. If I can't blame men for patriarchy, I will be very unhappy.

4. GIVE UP YOUR SELF-DEFEATING SELF-TALK

As a narcissistic, I completely agree. Not that I do this very well, but I agree.

5. GIVE UP YOUR LIMITING BELIEFS 

Agree, and what I keep telling people, but you know what I end up sounding like? A privileged asshole who was born with more than enough money to sustain my "dreams" because I never had to worry about student loans or paying rent. Yeah.

6. GIVE UP COMPLAINING
Hahahahahahahah next.

7. GIVE UP THE LUXURY OF CRITICISM
But they make great debate arguments and A+ papers!

8. GIVE UP YOUR NEED TO IMPRESS OTHERS
Ditto.

9. GIVE UP YOUR RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Sigh.

10. GIVE UP LABELS
If everyone does it, maybe. But that could be catastrophic if we aren't able to categorize things to some extent. It's bad when categories are used to exclude, which kind of seems inevitable when we create categories, but it also depends on the mindset of people who exist within categories. *postmodernisthipsterblapityblapitybla*

11. GIVE UP ON YOUR FEARS
If you're like Robo-God or something. Or this. I don't wanna be that. I'm starting to think maybe we should embrace our fears instead of running away from it. Says the person who has gerontophobia (fear of getting old), phasmophobia (fear of ghosts) and nyctophobia (fear of dark). From that analysis it is clear that I am five years old.

12. GIVE UP YOUR EXCUSES
The site ends their little description about this point with "...excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real." I'll leave you to be the judge of that.

13. GIVE UP THE PAST
Double sigh. I should, but I know it has the potential to make me a great writer if I hang on to nostalgia and live out the crippling effects. It's kind of hard to explain the concept of happiness to a masochist, I know.

14. GIVE UP ATTACHMENT
I am ten thousand miles away from home but the umbilical cord is still intact.

15. GIVE UP LIVING YOUR LIFE TO OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS
Why don't you just name the post One thing you should give up to blapity blapity bla and make it just this. This seems like the best possible way anyone can achieve satisfaction nowadays. Not happiness, but just contentment. It sort of covers all the aforementioned points, just not in the extreme way that "GIVE UP ON FEARS" yells out at you. It's okay to be afraid of things that came along in life, but it's sad if your fear is "what people might think about you".

If I could write my own tips to offer people contentment (ie the nonexistent happiness that everyone searches for), it would be the following:

1. Do what you love
2. Keep an open mind
3. Be honest
4. Get a dog
5. Look, I have been "researching" Mark Zuckerberg for a while because for some reason looking up billionaires relieves my anxieties about packing and moving, and apparently his company (Facebook, for those who live under a rock - or if you're my father) might be valued at $100 billion. Zuckerberg is 28, and he is worth $18.7 billion. And he wears hoodies, and no one can tell him otherwise. Zuckerberg may be an asshole or a really awkward person, or even really sexist with his beginnings of Facebook, but if there's one thing to take away from his success, it is that times are changing. The world is changing. What you learned as a kid, or what people over 30 used to tell you (or are telling you now) is likely to be wrong.

Be willing to give up what you know about the world, and stop holding on to things so dearly. (Right, says me.) Read up on current events, learn about ideas (Nietzsche is interesting) and people (I read up on Carl Sagan last night - what a great man), try new food, go new places. And I'm going to stop my privileged blapity chatter now.