Positive visualization means blocking out your
husband's mocking and your childrens' cries for more milk, and
pretending that you're still sexually desirable and that you can
actually make it to lunch before popping open a bottle of Chardonnay.
Just by dreaming of things that will probably
never be true is supposed to be more effective than dragging yourself
to the gym or admitting that you're an alcoholic, just like your Mom,
your Mom's Mom, and Pastor Todd.
Positive visualization is a lot like daydreaming, but with less nudity and fewer revenge fantasies.
If you follow your bliss, you'll probably be poor and absent from the
alumni newsletter, but at least you'll be excited to get out of bed in
the morning. When you follow your bliss, you don't have to wear Brooks
Brothers and punch the clock, instead you can wear your favorite jean
shorts and spend your days stealing pets or stalking Dan Marino.
If you don't know what your bliss is, try taking some magazine quizzes or joining Scientology.
If you come from a good family name, it doesn't matter if you win or
lose because the stadium is named after your grandparents. Old money is a free pass for ganky
teeth, DUI's and starring roles in leaked sex tapes, even if you get into the fetish stuff or co-star with your brother.
If you weren't born a Rockefeller, try marrying in or amassing serious
wealth, because new money is just as good, especially on the west
coast.
Unless you want to be a professor or a manager at Borders, it's more
important to have street smarts than book smarts. Street smarts teach
you how to hustle seniors out of winning scratchers and to make drugs
out of trash, while book smarts are more about numbers and carbon.
The best way to get street smarts is to be crazy or less fortunate.
Being present means paying attention to the here and now instead of
worrying about that time you went to church drunk or wanting the new S-class. Buddhists and people who pray to the "universe" tout being present,
which is why they usually have lousy retirement accounts and often
forget to pick their kids up after soccer practice.
People in the present also don't learn from past mistakes, meaning they make lousy business partners and need more HIV tests.
God makes hangovers worse as you get older because you really should have learned by now. You wouldn't put your hand on a hot stove once a week for about 15 years without learning not to touch it, but for some reason, you just can't learn to stop drinking and God's getting a little impatient.
He's also trying to teach you by letting you have random sex with ugly people, but that's not as effective because you're usually blacked out.
Children are the best excuse for missing cocktail parties and for
leaving work earlier and more frequently than your single or barren
co-workers. It's especially helpful if your children are frequently
ill or have some sort of special need that require a lot of
appointments and coddling.
Children also help justify your obsession with animation and the Jonas Brothers.
If you don't have nice things to say, you shouldn't say anything at
all. But it's really easy to say mean things in a veiled way that
seems nice. For instance, saying she's a "character" is a nice way to
her OCD is crippling or she eats lipstick, saying he's the "life of the
party" means he drinks too much whiskey and hits on his own daughters
and saying someone is a "one of a kind" means you probably wouldn't
hang out with her if your kids weren't in the same juvie.
It also helps if you say these things with air quotes or follow it up with a subtle "if you know what I mean."
The key to a happy marriage is being independently wealthy, having a
competent housekeeper and having a large stash of tasteful
pornography. Spending a lot of time on luxury vacations or apart, just
getting together monthly, is also helpful.
Communication and honesty are also good if you happen agree on everything and have never strayed.
Practice makes perfect, but unless you're Martha Stewart, perfection
doesn't exist. The good news is that you can quit dance class and math
team, but the bad news is that you're probably never going to be good
enough in your mom's eyes, which means you're likely to spend some
years binge drinking and turning your back on God.
On the bright side, when you have kids, you get to sit back with some Chard and be the one who disapproves.
