Dick Wulf's Tongue-in-Cheek Newsletter to Improve Relationships
slightly off-the-wall BUT better than graffiti

The How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot Issue
© March 2001, Dick Wulf, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Be your own worst enemy! Don't let somebody else shoot you down, when you can fire at the mirror. Enjoy your misery!

NOTE: This is supposed to be humorous so we can look at ourselves and have fun. We are all of us a bit off the mark. We can cry about it or have fun and laugh at ourselves. Laughing at ourselves and not taking ourselves too seriouosly allows us to view ourselves just seriously enough to change, but not so seriously as to inhibit our improvement by condemnation or defensiveness.

HOW TO NOT LIKE YOURSELF AND MAKE DOGGONE SURE THAT NOBODY ELSE LIKES YOU AS WELL

Hey, why settle for who you are when you can dream of all the things you can't be and make yourself absolutely miserable. If you work at it real hard, you might even be able to work up a good depression.

Misery loves company. So why not find a friend and tell each other how you each fall short of the mark.

Alone or with a friend, here are some suggestions on how to make sure you don't run out of poor feelings about yourself.

[1] The cardinal rule for having a miserable self-image is to never [note, I say never] accept yourself as you are and work with what you've got. In other words, act differently than you are and make sure that others don't have a chance to appreciate who you really are. Besides, when you try to be something you aren't, you get to look absolutely ridiculous.

[2] It is imperative that you believe all the bad stuff your parents said about you. Don't consider that your parents had no Ph.D.'s in child raising and only did the best they knew how to do. Forget that they had personal needs that got in the way of their parenting and made them say many things that they really did not mean.

[3] Forget the good things your family said about you. Everything bad has to be correct and everything good has to be wrong.

[4] Never give up unreasonable goals. Trying to do something improbable just a few times, just to see if you can do it, is just not okay. You must continue to try over and over again to prove to yourself often that you are inferior.

[5] Don't settle for your own abilities. Instead, place your value on something unattainable so that you can spend your life trying to be able to do what is the most difficult for you. There may be more than one way to skin a cat, but you want to take the course of action most impossible for you.

[6] Judge yourself by vanity measures. Compare yourself with the beautiful people, or the agile people, or the vocal people, or the monied people. But, by no means should you ever just pursue the basic things that will make your life happy. If you limit your efforts to those things that are attainable, you might find personal satisfaction and miss that wonderful, personal misery that comes from emulating the sublimely superficial.

[7] Don't do what you can, and then complain that you haven't. Don't try anything new. Then you can complain that your life stinks - because you're a loser.

[8] Believe what your enemies say about you. This is smart because they will even go out of their way to make up ugly lies about you, and you can swallow them whole.

[9] Take all the blame. This works really well when you weren't all that involved in whatever it was. Suffer nobly!

[10] Or, give in to others and then blame them for whatever goes wrong. Bring others down with you.

[11] Hide from others; don't look at people; don't think you have anything good to give them.

[12] Demean yourself and force others to make you feel good about yourself. Don't forget to apologize for everything, thus manipulating others to convince you that you are okay. This will definitely wear them out, and others will hate to be around you.

[13] Take your kids and spouse down with you. Blame them for your mistakes. That way you can know you really made the mistake, and still got to betray your loved ones, assuring that they will talk of you forever with the greatest of contempt. What a legacy! (One to make Bill Clinton proud.)

[14] Always talk about what you cannot do very well. This will drive your friends away. Who needs friends, anyway?

[15] Always talk about what you can do very well. Become absolutely boring. Be left out of ski trips and uninvited to parities.

[16] You know a lot of other ways, don't you? There are many great ways to screw up your life.

So, you can see that there are very many ways to accommodate your stupid need to feel bad about yourself. Enjoy!

For 18 years Hortence G. got attention from her friends by always having something physically wrong with her. Her specialty was stomach ailments. Wore those friends clean out! All moved over 250 miles away. Too bad she never realized she had a nice smile and could help other people feel good.

Alfonso P. attracted lots of friends to himself by sounding important and successful. Actually, A.P. was a nice guy and really loved other people. But, alas, his friends finally realized that a lot of his alleged accomplishments were just that - alleged but not actual. And they got tired of his horn, the one he tooted so often. All they really wanted from him was his warmth and concern. But Alfonso wasn't satisfied with who he was. Too bad. So sad. Cryin' shame.

Tuan C. had enough friends who enjoyed his wise and friendly advice. Not content to live a quiet life full of loving interactions and peaceful moments, T.C. wanted to be popular. It would make him feel better about himself, he thought, and it would be good for business and money-making if he had as many friends as possible. So, T.C. networked. Boy, did he network! Eventually, T.C. stopped being dazzled by popularity and activity and became razzled and frazzled from networking. By the time he longed for the lost quiet times with his inner circle of close friends, they had all gone on to be with more stable friends who had settled for relationship over popularity.

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN WAYNE

TIC: Did you ever shoot yourself in the foot?

WAYNE: Certainly not if I could help it. But every famous movie cowboy is tempted to try to be something he isn't. Secretly, I wanted to be a telegraph operator. It was stupid. But I always envied how fast an operator's fingers could go. I could only get my trigger finger to go that fast.

CLASSIFIEDS

www.imaLOSER.com  Send yourself degrading cyber-mail. "Stick your tongue out at yourself" e-mail postcards available. Also available as a screen saver. Please gargle first.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PEOPLE BETTER THAN YOU for those days when you are feeling too good about yourself.

PSYCHE-SCOPE  $2,000  Discover what you get out of putting yourself down (other than losing two grand).

LOSER FOR HIRE  I am such a loser, I can lose whatever you want lost. [What have you got to lose? (HA?)]

FUN HOUSE MIRRORS to wreck even the best view of yourself.

POOR ME NECKTIES  Drab colors only.  $38 each.

Automatically tightens around your neck the worse you feel about yourself.

SPITTING MIRROR  Spit at yourself and you'll spit back at yourself. This is real self-contempt you just can't find everywhere. These mirrors are not cheap, but much better than fountains or waterfalls that make you feel good (gasp!). Cheap mucous refills easily pour into top of mirror.

IN THE NEWS

LOCAL COUPLE ENTERS NATIONAL DEAD CELEBRITIES CONTESTS

CONTRARY, MISSOURI

In a desperate move to get more community respect, Mr. and Mrs. Elmo Zottlebanger entered the National Presley & Monroe Contests. This small community was horrified that the applications were accepted.

Mr. Zottlebanger, aged 49, has been seen around town dressed in an all-white leather suit, guitar slung over his shoulder, carrying a karoke mike and singing "You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog" loudly and off-tune.

War is breaking out among downtown merchants because those on the south side of Main Street hired Zottlebanger to walk only on the north side. And the Police have been kept quite busy ticketing jaywalkers who scurry to cross the street to avoid Elmo. They are being forced to shop only the south-side stores.

In an effort to fight back, northside merchants have hired Elmo's wife, Alberta Zottlebanger, also 49, to walk the south side of Main Street. With hair dyed super-blond and wearing a flimsy white dress, she has been flirting with everyone on the sidewalk. To avoid her, many have been stranded on the double line down the middle of Main Street.

Mrs. Zottlebanger seems to have the repulsive power of extremely hairy legs -- not died blonde! (It's not a sight for timid eyes or the faint of heart.) Even the cigar-stud who drives the fertilizer delivery truck wasn't interested. And that's bad - believe me.

Problem is that the Zottlebangers have been raking in big bucks driving customers back and forth in a frothy scramble.

Shopping in the center of town is down 62%. Last week the mayor declared a state of emergency for all residents of Contrary.

Our reporter, Max Noseworthy cornered the couple at the dog pound (where else could the police take them?) and asked why they were making such a spectacle of them-selves. Seems that they never really got to liking themselves and figured if they were going to go to all the trouble of trying to be somebody else, Elvis and Marilyn were as good as any.

Later, Elmo and Alberta traveled to Nashville for the contests. Unfor-tunately, Mrs. Z did not make the first cuts. Asked about this, all she would comment was, "Bad genes. It's my mother's fault. #%*$@# hairy-leg genes!"

Elmo disappeared at the contest, abducted by unknowing aliens or killed for aesthetic reasons.

The town has scheduled a celebration of Elmo's disappearance for this Thursday at the cemetery.

This is the ongoing saga of the misfit Zottlebanger Family. It is used to illustrate the topic being discussed.
CLICK HERE to go to the VERY FIRST episode	CLICK HERE to go to the NEXT episode

No, of course, I don't want you to think poorly of or feel badly about yourself! But, if you insist on doing so, I want to show you how very ridiculous it is.

Dick Wulf

NEXT ISSUE: The IS IT OKAY TO BE ME? Issue