Here you are, a bright eyed, young, high school graduate; your future is wide open. As so many of us do, you think to yourself, I want my life to be utterly useless and wasted. If a man wants to know how to ruin his life, he needs to understand the road to hell has many paths. Sure, there is the quick way, you can pick up a drug habit or two. Maybe rob a bank wearing a bright red jump suit and forget to hire a getaway driver. Still too easy, jail will certainly ruin a man’s life, but this path is not painful enough. I think it will be more fulfilling if we drag it out over years.
If you really want to know how to ruin your life it must be torturously long. What you need is a slow death, where you hardly feel it coming. A life that is full of pointless frustrations and unrealized dreams. The good news is society is giving you a blueprint on how to ruin your life. All one must do is blindly follow this plan and he (or she) will be successful in their task.
A Slow Burn …
It is obvious when ruining one’s life entails a quick action like an accident or a crime. The slow burn of poor choices through the years will not be as clear. What is the blueprint for a ruined life? Many poor decisions through the years, which you are told are the “right” way. Think of it more like the frog in the pot that does not feel the water getting hotter. I will touch on all the things that, by themselves can devastate your future, but combined will have you waking up one day and realizing the pot is boiling.
The good news is you will not be alone. So many men today are already destroying (or have destroyed) their future, while lying to themselves that they are on the right path. Misery loves company, in this day and age there is a lot of company to be found! Without further ado, let me state the plan on how to ruin your life.
Step one To Ruining Your Life: College
The first step for a man to ruin his life is getting an “education.” After all an education is the path to success, that is what everyone says. Where else can one get educated than in school? Everyone should go to college, that is the politicians talk about. How else will you waste away in corporate life if you do not go to college first?
When picking a university, it is of the utmost importance that you choose one that is ungodly expensive. This is a vital step. No community college for the first two years… it would not feel right unless it was at least 25K a year financed with student loans. Your mother is not going to brag to the ladies at the salon about you entering community college to save money. Right off the bat you are going to want to be in the hole. Digging out of debt is so much better than not having an anchor around your neck for twenty years. If you are really talented at ruining your life, drag your parents down with you, make them go into their (lack of) retirement to give you an education.
We all know that loans for school itself are not nearly enough to pay for the college experience. Whenever possible take extra out for spending money, you will pay it back later. While you are at it why not talk to that guy who will give you a candy bar if you sign up for a credit card at 25% interest? Your goal is to start ruining your life early by digging a financial hole at 19 or 20.
Major
There is no accounting or engineering for you, you are trying to ruin your life, not gain marketable skills! Sociology or minority studies is the path you should take. Why rack up all this debt if you are just going to give yourself the ability to pay it back? Not to mention if you major in a science or engineering you may help the world and find purpose in your work. That would be counterproductive to your goals. We will hear none of that. Pick a field that ensures your working years are wasted.
Indoctrination
Another important aspect of college and the negative consequences is to buy into all the information they are peddling. First and foremost, you are a man (hence the title of this article), so you are the cause of all the world’s problems. Accept your privilege and realize anything you earned has nothing to do with your abilities or work ethic. Now you have learned the truth, anything you accomplished or will accomplish is not by your own talents and you have no rights to the fruits of your labor. Apologize for your testicles!
Secondly, buy into the socialist’s dream. Try not to think too hard about the fact that the college is teaching you no marketable skills yet making a killing off you. These rich, elitist professors who never produced anything are right, capitalism is terrible. It is important you develop the theory that your problems are not the result of poor planning and decision making. Your problems stem from the wealthy and powerful keeping you down. Developing this victim mentality is crucial as the foundation for your life.
Off to a Good Start
You wanted to know how to ruin your life, if you paid attention so far you are doing well! Before 25 your finances will be in shambles, you will have no marketable skills and you will have developed a nice victimhood mentality. Hold tight there are many more ways to add to your misery while in school, maybe rent an expensive house off campus, adding the payments to your loans. You can also turn a 4-year degree in basket weaving into a 6-year degree, adding to the financial burden. Another great way for a man to ruin his life is to meet and marry a girl from college, which brings me to my next step…
Marriage and Family
You started your life on the wrong foot…. kudos to you, but you are far from done in destroying your future. Finding an unbearable wife is the next step. Who needs all that freedom and self-esteem when you can have someone nagging you for the next 40-years, or, more likely, until she inevitably dumps you and takes most of your assets (read my post about divorce for men here).
It is of vital importance you pick the wrong woman. Luckily, she is already a feminist, because you met in college, so that will help. We also know she will be carrying a large amount of student loan debt (women have about 70% of student loan debt). Hopefully, she will not cook, clean, or let you lead in the marriage. She should be an independent woman; except she controls your time, finances, and money.
To sprinkle some more qualities you are looking for, make sure she is carrying a few extra pounds now. This way by the time she hits 35 she will be sporting a short haircut and be morbidly obese. Add to that a long sexual history and the possibility for her to get knocked up by someone else and claim you are the father, and you have yourself a winner.
Children
An added criteria when trying to figure out how to ruin your life is to have children with the vile woman mentioned above, especially if you are struggling with money. Whatever life and dreams you have had say goodbye to them as soon as the kids come. As mentioned, the children may not even be yours, but you are to take care of them just the same. Any free money you have should go to some useless sport or activity they will inevitably give up as soon as it becomes challenging.
Whatever you do don’t discipline these kids. Go to Walmart, buy bubble tape, and use it to shield them from all of life’s challenges. They should have such a sense of entitlement that you get screamed at because you bought your daughter the wrong color Mercedes for her 15th birthday. Raise little brats, just to make your daily life a living hell. Now that we have your family life planned out, time to move onto your “career”.
Career
Sure, by this point you are getting sick of this sarcastic tone, but you knew the title before you started reading, so I will continue. Even though you acquired so many skills from your advanced women’s studies classes you may be surprised to find your job options are not as plentiful as you would have thought. Do not worry, there are plenty of mindless, menial, corporate jobs out there and you are going to snag yourself one.
To really strive for a terrible life, it is important you care nothing about your job and it produces nothing of value. The good news is most corporate positions will be extremely unfulfilling and pointless. This is the kind of place misery will thrive. Add to this you will not be able to get ahead financially. Most “promotions” will be in name only not giving you any real monetary benefit (you may get some sort of corporate award, in form of a $5 plastic trophy).
Get Comfortable…
Stay at any company because it is comfortable and easy. Do not take the risk of leaving for a better paying position, it would serve your purpose better to just complain about your job. The good news is you most likely will not have to stay on this career path for life anyway. It is probable that at forty-five or so you will be laid off due to restructuring. Forced to go to another mindless company and work on different menial, unsatisfying tasks.
If you really want to know how to ruin your life, it is important to understand you should not take risks in your career. Never learn a new skill and stay with a company that underpays you until you are pushed out. Above everything else make sure the job has no purpose or meaning. That at the end of the day you feel like you produced no value for yourself or society. This career path will give you the best chance at a terrible existence. If you can get a job so stressful that it affects your health this is a bonus. There is not much more to say about your career other than you do not really have one. More like you are just trying to eke out a living to pay off those wonderful student loans and feed your plump wife.
Finances
After college and a low paying job, you are most of the way there in ruining your finances, so let us keep up the good work. You are going to look to start off in an apartment that is right in the center of a major metropolitan area. You want to be near the cool kids, don’t you? This is until you move into a bigger place to “own.”
When you hit 30 and have a kid or two, time to start building equity. Listen to your boomer parents, a house is an investment so go big or go home! At least 50% – 60% of your income needs to be eaten by home payments. Do not take the time to learn about the various payment plans, just pick the lowest payment right now. Much of the rest of your income should be swallowed up by large car payments, you need to look good in that overpriced neighborhood.
Do not worry about retirement nor savings. You could die tomorrow! Why save anyway, if you need to buy something whip out the credit card, you started in college, why stop now? If you end up broke it is clearly the fault of capitalism/corporations/the “rich.” Not to worry, the people you vote in will save you from those demons.
Health
Your family is terrible and your job mind-numbing, but it is still important that you look and feel your worst. To accomplish this, make sure you ignore your diet for years. Every time Karen from human resources brings in donuts have at least three. Get fast food for lunch and eat frozen dinners (you nor your wife learned to cook after all). Snack as often as possible, food is comfort and you only live once!
If you do “diet” listen to your wife, she will get a lot of good advice from her vegetarian Facebook group. Make sure you eat 5-6 meals a day, eating more somehow leads to weight loss, and avoid meat. Good thing Kit Kats have no meat in them! This will help you feel even more sluggish and tired. Soon you will give up and have a couple of cheeseburgers from McDonalds anyway.
As for exercise… does Street Fighter on PlayStation count? Avoid the gym, too much toxic masculinity. Anyway, you need to rest you “worked hard” after all. Sit down and watch T.V. while sucking down Fritos, the gym can wait. Maybe you can take the stairs instead of the elevator or get in 1000 steps, that seems to help a lot of people. At least they recommend it.
Avoid the doctor, what does he know, no need to get tests or bloodwork done. If you close your eyes and ignore those pains in your chest they will go away. Secondly, if you had not started smoking already, time to get on that. You may want to develop a drinking habit as well; you should go for the trifecta! Being overweight, smoking, and drinking too much are essential for someone wanting to know how to ruin their life!
Other Things
I gave you a good base for how to ruin your life, but misery has no floor and things can always get worse! Do not be a slacker, if you want to screw things up…really screw things up. First, you can live in filth, do not clean your home or car. Do not make your kids pick things up either, that would be oppressive.
Secondly, we all have too much time, so it is essential you waste yours. Do you play video games? Of course you do! Play more! How about sports, are you watching and obsessing about children playing a game for millions of dollars. Great, make sure that you talk about these games constantly with your friends.
Let us not forget social media, you can burn through hours a day yelling about Trump (or for him, it makes no difference). Do not make yourself better spending your time learning and growing, that might pull you up. Television is another great way to kill time and you should be devoting 6-hours a day to it, this way you have something to talk to Karen about when she brings in the donuts mentioned earlier.
Lastly, do not take chances. Do not travel or see the world, except to Disney land or the Grand Canyon, just waste your time and money on things to make you look good in front of the neighbors. History other cultures and experiences are a waste of time.
I think if you follow the above advice by 35 you will be wishing you committed a crime and spent your years in jail. To close out go ahead and add the icing to the cake; pick up that drug habit we discussed earlier.
Conclusion: How to Ruin Your Life
You get the point; I assume no man wants to know how to ruin their life. Yet, look around. How many people do you know living some or all of what I mentioned? You might be guilty of many of these actions yourself. Ruining your life is not hard, it entails ignoring the important and blaming others for your problems. Add to that doing what feels right in the moment while ignoring the future consequences and you have a recipe for a terrible existence.
Take care of the basics, there will be challenges and problems, but in order to have a shot at long terms success you need to take action. Do the hard things that breed positive results. If you are young, be careful how much debt you take on and major in useful things. Pick your wife carefully, if at all… the pool of good women is shrinking. There is no better way to destroy your future than to get a bad wife.
For god’s sake take care of your career. I know so many people who sit in the same company for decades and do nothing to improve their situation. There is no climbing the corporate ladder, jump from one ladder to the next. Take chances in your life, you only get one.
Clearly take care of your finances and health. These are simple, but not always easy things to do. You will mess up, skip the gym, or overspend. Be hard on yourself and do more. You have two choices, you can work toward a better future, or drift toward a terrible one. Men today need to improve and stop making it harder on themselves. Above all demand excellence from yourself and family, it may be contrary to all this self-esteem building advice out there, but you will be better off for it.