Several ways to make yourself miserable

Elisabeth Elliot's take on being miserable:

1. Count your troubles, name them one by one – at the breakfast table, if anybody will listen, or as soon as possible thereafter.

2. Worry everyday about something. Don't let yourself get out of practice. It won't add a cubit to your stature but it might burn a few calories.

3. Pity yourself. If you do enough of this, nobody else will have to do it for you.

4. Devise clever but decent ways to serve God and mammon. After all, a man’s gotta live.

5. Make it your business to find out what the Joneses are buying this year and where they’re going. Try to do them at least one better even if you have to take out another loan to do it.

6. Stay away from the absolutes. It’s what’s right for you that matters. Be your own person and do not allow yourself to get hung up on what others expect of you.

7. Make sure you get your rights. Never mind other people’s. You have your life to live, they have theirs.

8. Don’t fall into any compassion traps – the sort of situation where people can walk all over you. If you get too involved in other people’s troubles, you may neglect your own.

9. Don’t let the Bible reading and prayer get in the way of what’s really relevant – things like TV and newspapers. Invisible things are eternal. You want to stick with the visible ones – they’re where it’s at now.

pearlie
Source: Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart, 1995.

Picture by Steve Ford Elliot