How to be Totally Miserable: Avoid Good Company

"Instead of waiting for someone to take you under their wing, you go out there and find a good wing to climb under" 
          - Dave Thomas 

      
While being miserable may seem like the easiest route, making friends is inevitable. For me, whenever I feel like I am alone or even if i am just in need of a good laugh, my friends are always there. "A friend is someone who makes it easier for you to reach your fullest potential" (Bytheway 43).  No matter what anyone says, a good friend will always make you a better person. Even bad friends have an effect on you, teaching you not to choose people like that again. All around, friends are a blessing in your life. 

     John Bytheway puts it simply when he says, " Happy people build, lift, encourage, and motivate, and being and their company always makes you want to be better too. People who are trying to be miserable try to find friends who weigh them down with gloom and doubt" (43). Get rid of the friends in your life that make you feel bad about yourself and make you miserable. 
     
      By cutting out all negative people in your life, you can be able to find pure happiness in our life. through these small and simple acts you can find pure joy in your life. 

"Daily, constantly, we choose by our desires, our thoughts, and our actions whether we want to be blessed or cursed, happy or miserable."  ((And the same goes for picking friends)) 
          -Ezra Taft Benson 


                                                                                   
           


                      ((How has this information helped you re-think your friends?))

Bytheway, John. How to Be Totally Miserable: a Self-Hinder Book. Shadow Mountain, Salt Lake City, Utah. 2007

How to Be Totally Miserable: Relive Your Bad Memories

As humans, through our lives we experience heart ache, sorrow, grief and guilt. As we continue to focus on the bad experiences of our past, the more we will be felt weighed down by the sorrow of those rough times. We will continue to stay in dark place, with what seems like no help and no way to escape that darkness. 

However, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. John Bytheway finds an easy solution to this overarching problem by saying this:

  "There you are, faced with a pile of videos labeled 'memories,' and a VCR called your brain. Hmmm, which tape should you play? It depends on whether you're trying to be happy or miserable [...] As with all other video selections, you have a choice" (17).

        John Bytheway reminds us of our freedom to choose. We get to choose weather we are going to have a flour or corn tortilla at Chipotle so it should make sense that WE get to choose what memories to reminisce. This week, I choose to remember the happy times and not replay my bad memories.  I like to remember my memories from summer which allow me to stay positive much like I do during while I'm out in the summer sun. 

       “Your imagination is yours. You can remember the past you choose, rehearse the future you want, and identify with the real and fictional heroes and events of your selection" 

- John- Roger and Peter McWilliams 

                                       

                             

                  ((What's your go to memory you think of when times get tough?))

these are a few of my favorites to think of:

 Left- Right: This summer when I hiked a mountain, When I met John Bytheway (the author of this book) and lastly, my best friend Cosette Ray :)

Bytheway, John. How to Be Totally Miserable: a Self-Hinder Book. Shadow Mountain, Salt Lake City, Utah. 2007