Tag Archives: dminus

Pessimism

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As I said in my next to last post you are probably becoming by now the poster boy or girl for this blog. If you can send a picture of you in your new carefree, and most of all, leisurely lifestyle I might feature it here, anonymously of course (see below for what you should really expect to happen).

I really struggled with the title for this post.  Should I call it pessimism, optimism, hope, or despair because we’re going to hit all of these here?  I decided on the straight forward approach instead of the facetious one, again for reasons that will become evident.

But onward in our journey to nirvana. The subject for this day is Pessimism, pure and simple, and I’m going to show you how to apply this little word to your outlook about everything. It’s so simple: always expect the worst. That’s it, see what I mean? We’re trending towards the Zen of life. Life is so simple really that the truths about it are almost self-evident, but really expect life to be so complicated that you are never going to understand anything. There, we’ve already applied it.  Always expect to be disappointed. This is the only way to never be let down: always expect to be disappointed, then in the rare circumstance that something good does happen, you’ll be ecstatic, however when the more probable opposite occurs you won’t EVER be disappointed.

What a great way to live. If you can apply this along with the Dminus principle (see my earlier post) then life will become unbearable but essentially worry free.

Let’s see if we can find how you can apply this to a more practical situation. At work, always assume, even with a lack of evidence, that your co-workers are sniveling, back stabbing, over-ambitious weasels who are going to take the credit for all your work and get promoted a lot faster although they never deserved it. Now you cannot imagine a day when you are going to be let down in your expectations by the behavior of your co-workers. In the rare event that you are in a meeting and someone says: “Oh no, I didn’t do all this Shirley did some of it,” you are going to be on cloud nine. I would say happy enough to take the rest of the day off, go to a bar, and call in sick the next morning (again, see the Dminus principle). If the opposite happens and they take all the credit for what was mostly your work, well you expected as much and can’t really be disappointed. Either way, you weren’t disappointed. Voilà, life is actually the dreary drudge you thought it would be.  This applies to everything in your pathetic life:  your spouse, your job, your physical fitness plan (again, see earlier posts), your health, your finances, your family, your so-called friends and on and on.  The areas for application are endless.

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However, there are a number of hazards in this lifestyle: optimists and an attitude of hopefulness. Optimists are to be avoided at all costs. Assume they are possessed by a demon that wants to knock you off your currently successful downward slide and take advantage of you at the same time. They are never to be trusted. They will get you to read books by Norman Vincent Peale, Tony Robbins, and their ilk. They will tell you about the failed philosophy of positive thinking and that you are a good person with talents that are yet untapped, and we all know none of this is true as shown by past experience. What you do know is that they are waiting to swindle you and put you on a path that will leave you circling the drain without hope.

Which brings me to my second hazard: hope. Never ever hope for anything to get better. It won’t and you already know this. Hope leads to the ultimate disappointment unless it is hope for the worst to happen. If anything gives you even an inkling that things are going to work out, get as far away from it as possible, mentally and physically.  Again, avoid at all costs.

I apply this principle of unbroken pessimism as often as possible in my own life. If you look at some of my earlier posts, I expected the worst outcome in both the Dunbar and stock market situations. Was I disappointed? No way the worst outcome I had expected happened. I could go along in my already depressed state knowing that only something worse could still happen.  There you have it.

Oh, and have a lousy day.

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In my next to last post I told you I was going to tell you about Chicago Nice. Well I didn’t and you were on the edge of your seat waiting for what I was going to say. Now you’re disappointed. See how it would have been so much better to assume I was lying or forgetful and not have anticipated that I would reveal this other principle of a nirvana-like life.  I promise I’ll get to it in a later post, but you know what?  Don’t be disappointed if I don’t.

D minus

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Having worked for The Man for most of my life and always attempting to get/do the best I can while not working too too hard, I started to think about the positive aspects of underachieving. Since life has a finite span, why not take it easy and get as much leisure time in as possible? Why work so hard for anything except what you like to do? And if someone’s gettin’ paid to do it, it ain’t called a hobby but another four-letter word that starts with a “w”, and I do not want to have to do it. Besides lowered expectations are the key to never getting disappointed and a happier life in the first place. Aren’t they?

Let me tell you a little, absolutely true story. When I was in High School I knew a guy who was our Zen master. He didn’t know it, but we did. His name was Rob A., but that’s not important. We called him The Dead Man. On a certain day and at a certain time that he could tell you, when roll call for the day was being called, the Dead Man decided not to care anymore. He decided the key to a happy life was not caring. Why this time? Just luck sorta. At roll call or attendance the teachers would always get Rob’s last name wrong. He heard Anders, Anderson, Anthony, Andrews, etc. but never the correct last name. He tried to correct whoever was taking attendance each and every time, to no avail. On this particular morning though Rob decided to become the Dead Man. He just said “Okay” when his name was called incorrectly and life was beautiful, if somewhat more planar in elevations.

The Dead Man had all sorts of interesting consequences to his changes in outlook. He only ever had one new pencil and one sheet of blank paper for that day and if either was lost or stolen would not finish anything else for the day, even tests. When asked why he was turning in a blank test he would reply: “I lost my pencil.” The teacher of course asked him why he didn’t ask to borrow a writing instrument and he would reply: “I lost my pencil and I don’t care.” If this useless train went on for too long the Dead Man would inevitably finish it by saying: “Alright, okay,” and that was it. He was done. He would not speak again on it. He had ceased to care about it or answering the useless question again. Once again a happy Dead Man.

But this is not what made him our Zen Master. I remember the day another friend said we were going to be in the class block with The Dead Man. He said it was going to be great. We couldn’t wait for next Fall (actually we hated school so next Fall could be a millennium away even with the Dead Man in our classes and it wouldn’t be far enough off). Well next Fall came of course and during the first week the teachers were sorting out how things were going to work. The teacher told us and showed us clearly what was going to be necessary to get an A, a B, or a C. Normal stuff except the Dead Man raised his hand. Now this in itself signaled an event of earth shattering importance. The Dead Man never raised his hand. He answers if called upon, but he never volunteers. Never. If he gets things wrong it is the usual “alright, okay.” Anyway, the teacher asks the Dead Man, “Do you have a question, Rob?” And the Dead Man replies with the single most important question you could ask in your life: “How much do you have to do to get a D-minus?” This of course brought the house down, but he was clearly serious. And he was right. He had captured the essence of a fulfilled life: not caring and a D-minus effort.

We were the snooty kids; the “gifted” children in our school so we were in all the “advanced” classes. The Dead Man had figured it out. All he had to do to graduate high school and go to college was get a report card peppered with C’s D’s, and D-minuses. They had to graduate him as long as he didn’t fail, get an “F.” Brilliant! He had perfected, in the academic world anyway, the art of getting by with just the minimum. Just squeaking by. He was going to college no matter what since he was smart. His SAT’s were going to be outstanding (as long as he didn’t lose that pencil) so grades were a non-issue. He was going to the big in-state college anyway. He had two full years ahead of not caring rack time sewn up.

It turned out that actually getting a D-minus was one of the hardest things imaginable. Harder than getting an A. You had to beg for it and that required at least C effort. Teachers loved giving out B’s and C’s and D’s and even F’s but a D-minus was almost impossible to get. The Dead Man actually graduated without getting a single D-minus. It was unattainable. This proves how little a D-minus effort takes. The Dead Man was a pretty smart guy really and even though he never took notes or did any homework he did well above average in school. Tests cinched it for him, unless he lost that damn pencil. However, he had clarified for all of us, for the rest of our lives, the philosophy to follow to maximize happiness: do the absolute minimum to get by, get a D-minus.

So, to make my already long story even longer I began thinking recently how you could apply this principle to every part of your life: work, yard maintenance, car repair, and on and on. The amount of free time it opens up is incredible. I’ve even found a way to solve the unemployment problem in the world. If everyone could embrace the concepts of not caring and just getting by, what I call the D-minus Principle, everyone will be happy, or as happy as someone without cares can be. See what I mean? The other beauty of my system is it’s totally dependent on you alone. You are now pretty much your own boss because instead of putting in all the time and effort to do an A+ job, you are now going to do just enough to do a D-minus job, just enough to not get fired. It has no dependence on your coworkers, your spouse, your church, or anyone else. Whatever they do doesn’t reflect on your D-minus performance. The only effort is the little bit it requires to find out how you can get a D-minus instead of an F. The benefit of the doubt is usually all it takes. In fact, it is to your benefit if only a few people take my advice, but once they see the benefits everyone will want to slouch on board.

Now think about it. If everyone embraced this principle then everything in the world will tend toward a D-minus, just good enough not to fail. This means actually more workers will be needed to do even a substandard job just to get by. You’ll need tons of them to get even the smallest complex task accomplished. Voila, no unemployment. Sure things will get crappier in general, kind of like they used to be in those good ol’ days you’ve been pining for anyway, but hey it doesn’t matter. Example: your car breaks down more because now everything is based on just getting by on the minimum. Where’s the problem? You already don’t care right? That was the first part of the principle. But on top of that you’re trying to do a D-minus job at work and that means weaseling out of the maximum number of days at work without getting fired. You call in, late of course, ’cause you’re sleepin’ in today, and say “Hey my car’s broken I won’t be in today.” Benefit of the doubt remember? In addition your boss is doing a D-minus job so that involves not reporting how many workers are laying out each day and firing you to hire anyone else is going to take at least a C-level effort. The system reinforces itself. Full employment – maximum leisure time for everyone. Perfect.

You know what? I’m not going to even proofread this before I post it and I’m not attaching any photos or links or anything. You know what, I’m going to push the “Publish” button right now. Know why? I wanna watch WWE Raw and kill a few brews. Because I’ve got better things, more fun things, to do now and I’ve already put in a D-minus effort.