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  • 1. Stop being so hopeful.

  • Expect that most things are going to go wrong: marriage, job, holidays, kids.

  • Look at the glass half empty, and then feel grateful whenever things aren't an outright catastrophe.

  • 2. Stop ranting about how awful other people are.

  • Most annoying people aren't evil, they're just anxious or sad.

  • Forgive them.

  • They didn't set out to hurt you, they're just under a lot of pressure.

  • 3. Think of death a lot.

  • Keep a skull on your table.

  • You've probably only got about four hundred thousand hours left.

  • 4. Laugh at yourself.

  • Stop thinking of yourself as a stupid idiot.

  • You're something far nicer: a lovable fool.

  • 5. Make regular appointments to talk with someone you don't spend enough time with... you.

  • Ask yourself what you really want and are anxious about.

  • 6. Stop trying to make yourself happy; it's impossible.

  • Concentrate on cheering up other people.

  • 7. Look at yourself as if from the ISS, 240 miles above the Earth.

  • From this height, lots of things that are bothering you look the size they should always have been.

  • 8. Throw your phone off a cliff, for a bit, so you can finally notice stuff, especially your partner and your mom.

  • 9. Give up on the idea that you should be normal.

  • The only normal people are people you don't know yet.

  • Everyone is weird.

  • And that's totally okay.

1. Stop being so hopeful.

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