From the "Wish I'd Written That" Archive: How to Drive Yourself Crazy

Anyone know the author of this?
Anyone know why we don't all live the opposite of this, all the time? :)


How to Drive Yourself Crazy

These thoughts provide an entertaining twist on the stress management and positive thinking literature encountered so often these days. Looking at suggestions from an opposite angle often gives them new meaning!

* Save your major worries until mid-night, then start in with some heavy thinking. Suggested topics include old age; losing your job; the mistake you made at work last week that they haven't discovered yet; and that serious wart you've had for five years. You can work up to a good panic by 1:00 a.m.

* Keep an inventory of your faults. Ignore all your strengths; focus only on your bad points. Try to select friends who will remind you of them. If you don't have such friends, you probably have some relatives who can point out your weaknesses.

* Set unreasonable goals. No matter how much money you're earning, remember that there are always others doing better. Try to name three of them, preferably younger (and better looking) than you are. Think how others could do a better job than you.

* When your kids screw up, don't accept it as normal. Regard it as the first sign of impending moral decay, delinquency and a wasted life. Imagine them as shiftless bums at age 30, scrounging off of you.

* Put off everything until the last minute. In this way you can create a sense of frenzy and chronic stress, no matter how much time you had in the first place.

* To create enhanced stress, try to sleep as little as possible. Eat junk food, drink a lot of coffee and never, ever exercise.

* Don't let others know how you feel or what you want. You shouldn't have to tell them. They should be able to read your mind. If you can do this, you stand a good chance of feeling really deprived.

* Don't trust anyone. Struggle with problems. If you feel the urge to confide in someone who seems to care, remind yourself that people are basically no good and looking out only for themselves.

* Never take a vacation or rest. It's a luxury you can't afford, especially if you are working up to a fine state of exhaustion.

* Above all, never seek help. No matter how serious the problem, convince yourself that asking for help is a sign of weakness, and that you can always tough it out alone.

* If you follow this program, you have a good chance of feeling really rotten in no time at all. Good luck!


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

I Am A Nutcase

Let it be known to all that I, Carol L. Skolnick, today have been a complete loony-tunes, that I am a few cards short of a deck, and that I am, as the publisher of a website that has an article of mine on it called me, "a nutcase."

Yep. I got officious over what I thought was a copyright infringement without having all the facts (turns out the web guy bought the content, I just never got paid by the content-selling website, and it could be that they tried and failed because I moved, I don't know yet)...made not-so-veiled threats about siccing a writer's watchdog website on him...copied the letter to that website...made assumptions based on past experience with my articles being "borrowed" without my permission...and in short I got it entirely wrong.

I am so wrong and so painfully aware of it that I have admitted as such to the webguy, who it could be said overreacted to my overreaction—and I just justified and defended, so scratch that last part. The guy's right about me, period. I was wrong. End of discussion.

Should I turn in my facilitator's credentials, or what? (Not to scare anyone in the BKI Certification Program; total sanity is not a requirement of any certification, degree, or profession: thank God or we'd have no philosophers, physicians, counselors, teachers, or grocers.)

Well, I'm not going to, because my recovery time was so damn quick...and that's what inquiry is about, my friends. Forget the hyperbole you hear about The Work, including any inadvertently coming from me; this stuff will not make you into a rational, balanced saint if you're not the rational, balanced, saintly type (and I'm not). What it can do is get you back on track so that you don't have to stew endlessly about silly things like the horror of being wrong, or of a ruined reputation. In fact, in our friendly universe, someone totally trashing your good name could be the best thing that ever happened. Who wants their self worth to be based on what the world thinks of you? How stressful is that, to have to live up to some good reputation, or overcome a not-so-good one? (I have lots of experience with this, believe me.)

Here's the best part. The guy wrote me, "Before you get your your bloomers in a bunch and start screeching like a black crow in heat, why don't you perform an inquiry first? Wow, that's an idea!"

There are gurus everywhere. That's a good thing for us nutcases with our knickers in a knot.


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.