Welcome back to the B.I.T.T.E.R. School of Bitterness. Professor Ben is our Bitter Lecturer of the Day.
As the internet’s number 2(because who is more bitter than someone who is only second best) leading expert in Bitterness, I have not once been asked to give a lecture or speech on how it is done. When I figured out that people had absolutely no desire to learn the bitter trade, that is when I knew I had to do it. Because nothing makes people more bitter(other than being number two) than to be told to do something that they don’t want to do. (See any job that you are doing that you aren’t getting paid a million dollars to do, or that makes you work more than a few hours a day.) So back in the early days of this blog I created the B.I.T.T.E.R. School of Bitterness. Since then, no one has signed up or paid me a penny of tuition. But I will keep cramming it down the throats of anyone that reads this.
Today’s lecture is on how to be a successful Bitter Person:
1. Know your enemies weaknesses. This one comes in handy all the time. Some people may not like when you stalk them in order to find out their weaknesses, but that is okay. Because now you know that that person doesn’t like to be stalked and they already have shown you their first weakness. Remember, everyone has a weakness. It may take you all of 5 seconds to find the surface ones, but always go further. Dig so deep that you are pointing out weaknesses that THEY don’t even know they have. The most important part is to exploit them in any way you can. If they like confronting people face to face, be subtle in every way with them. If they are private people that like to fly under the radar, push them out into the public. Whatever you do, push them to the brink without them knowing that it was you. Always have someone else to blame.
Feel free to share your weaknesses with me.
2. Treat everyone as an “associate”. That is the business world’s way of calling you a cow-orkers. Think about the ways that you treat your cow-workers. Contempt, fury, anger, resentment, envy, jealousy, rage. Now, translate that feeling of being trapped with these people at a cubicle or desk, in the field or in the sky to others in your life. Treat you neighbor as you would your co-worker. Treat your co-church members as you would your cow-workers. Treat other party goers, or people you are at the park with or even your family as you would your cow-workers. If you do this, you will be a better bitter person for it.
Always give your cow-workers the runaround.
3. Live Murphy’s Law. I know laws are really boring to read about and not many of them make sense to anyone but scientists or lawyers (maybe cops too), but this one makes perfect sense. Especially in the life of a bitter person. I suggest not so much a mantra, but just a general attitude about this law. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. No matter how good the day might seem, always be seeking for ways that you day will go wrong. And even in the depths of your bitterness, at the worst part of the day, always be imagining something worse happening to you. If you are ever vigilant in your Murphiness, you will find that bitterness will always find you.
This took a lot of training, but I finally came derailed.
4. Go on a vacation to a tropical land. One that you have high hopes for. Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, or the Bermuda Triangle. Imagine only the most peaceful relaxing thoughts that you could ever have about that location. Imagine white, sandy beaches, a light breeze, sitting in a folding chair reading something on a Kindle. Forget all about the horrors of travel. The last minute packing, the forgetting of everything essential, the transportation nightmare of airlines, the sweatiness and crowdedness of the beach, the nightmare of coming back to a house that isn’t clean and a job that hasn’t been covered by any of your associates, the fights you will get into as a family and individuals, the lack of good drinking water, the overpricing of food, lodging, souvenirs, and the overall pressure of cramming all your fun into one week. Don’t forget the pressure to get a just right tan and false “happy” memories so you can be the envy of your cow-workers, that will just get their revenge by making you do more work when you get back. Going on a nice peaceful vacation will do wonders for your bitterness.
Man, my vacation was a nightmare.
5. Start things that you have no intention of finishing. Some people begin with the end in mind. That is just plain foolish, because no one ever really “finishes” something right? Sure, you might temporarily finish something, but really are you ever finished? Give me any example of a thing you finished and I will tell you that you haven’t. Finished with school? Are you? Go to college. Get a master’s. Get a doctorate. Get another doctorate. Tell me you have finished things at work. That’s a good one. Finished your novel? Now started editing it. Wait, there are still errors. Plot holes. Grammar errors. Things that just weren’t true. Stuff that doesn’t quite add up. Whenever you think of trying to accomplish goals and how you just want to put a check mark after it, just remember, you will just have another thing that doesn’t have a checkmark. For those that are completionists, you will always be bitter.
What kind of genius uses death as an excuse for not finishing something? He could have just said he was too tired.
6. Miscommunicate. The key to any bitter relationship is miscommunication. Make sure that any time you are talking with an associate, you are always clearly miscommunicate. The easiest way to do that is to speak another language. I’m not talking about English and Spanish(though that would help), I’m talking Male and Female, or Adult and Kid, or Sarcastic and Serious, or Technical and Plain or Sports and Non-Sports. Whatever language someone else is speaking, make sure you are speaking another. It is vital that whenever you communicate, no matter how you do that you throw something in that can be taken another way. The more hostile the better. Becoming a strong miscommunicator is the key to becoming a strongly bitter person.
I have a lot more to teach you of course, but you stopped listening after the first paragraph and I have a job to ignore and cow-workers to annoy right now, so we will continue this lecture later. (Yeah, like I’ve ever finished anything.)
ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHH
Bitter Bitter
Ben's Bitter Blog 
Perhaps you could create a diploma for your school and never award it.
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That sounds like a devilishly bitter idea. I will work on that right away.
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Pingback: In case you missed it, because I missed doing it | Ben's Bitter Blog
If I do most of these already, does that mean I am mostly bitter already? This is what I learned from your lecture.
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Yes that means you mostly bitter. But you need to take many more classes that cost many more dollars to qualify as full on bitter.
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Seriously, the runaround table… I want it. Looks like so much fun to swirl
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It would be the best tool at work. I could be constantly avoiding people.
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Genius.
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At being bitter? Yes.
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I need to up my bitter game!
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We all do. It is a constant learning curve.
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Lol and lol. Don’t even get me stared with that damn Murphy character. He knows my address only to well and I think he even has a damn bitter brother.
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He destroys me on a regular basis, like this week, while preparing to go on vacation, I got a flat tire right before we went.
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I’m thinking there are too many damn clones of him. And that guy is the essence of bitterness! 🙂
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Not quite as much as me. He wants to be as bitter as me, but he is jealous of my bitter prowess.
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You are friggin hilarious! 🙂
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So friggin bitter yes.
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“(because who is more bitter than someone who is only second best) ” Holy crap. Snorking coffee.
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Did the coffee burn your face? That would make a nice bitter post.
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Bitter is reading bitter and burning face. Hmmm…Perhaps more of a bitter haiku is in order. ;oP
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No haiku’s please. I would rather get a burning face.
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we never finish..because we start again 🙂 each time we complete.
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And that means that you didn’t complete your though there because it never ends. My head feels very bitter right now.
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Which is good:-)
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I have never been good at anything. Only bitter.
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I have a small issue with #3.
If things go the want you want them to (bad things happening all day, just like Murphy’s law) why would that make you bitter…shouldn’t it be more of “I told you so”, thereby implying satisfaction?
This line of reasoning might imply satisfaction would therefore EQUAL bitterness. Seems like DISsatisfaction would>>>bitterness.
Maybe I’m overthinking it.
And that’s one of my weaknesses. 🙂
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This is what I refer to as the bitterness cycle. Just know that in the end, it will always make you bitter. Overthinking will make you bitter and so will realizing that it is a weakness.
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But if you realize and admit you have a weakness, doesn’t that MAGICALLY turn into a strength?? (Kind of 12-step thing there) 🙂
Ha!! Aha!! Maybe?!?!?!????
And by the way…let me grovel and ask “have you read any of my diatribes?” LOL
Surely hate and bitter are kin to each other. 🙂
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But if you have a strength, then you think you are awesome and then you are arrogant and then someone needs to knock you down to size, then you are bitter. And magically? No. And yes, I have read some of your diatribes.
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Ummm, I’m feeling a get all serious and philosophical here feeling…can one have a strength and NOT think one is awesome?? I say yes. And arrogance is just about top of my list of disgusting character traits, and I am dead serious on that!! And I would knock even my family down to size if they’re arrogant, which thankfully they’re not!! Exclamation points run wild!!
And a humble 🙂 thanks for reading some of my exquisite, polished, and charming posts. 🙂
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That is where I get off the train. When my head starts hurting from philosphy and serious discussion.
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My thoughts exactly.This horse done been beat.
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Wow! Thanks for this very bitter advice. I think I’ve included many of these attitudes already in my life, but one cannot have too much bitterness. I bitterly look forward to the next installment.
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That is what I am here for. Always helping to make others increase their bitterness in whatever aspects of life they can.
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That is why Murphy’s Law is a law, and not a theorem, because it’s been proven. The law of gravity has also caused much bitterness, from avalanches, to jumping off highrise buildings, to perky bosoms hanging loose like tube socks. I feel like I have communicated this effectively, but you just taught me that it could never truly be complete, so I will quote Def Leppard’s gibberish: “Gunter glieben glauchen globen.”
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I’ve spoken extensively about the bitterness I have toward gravity and how I never seem to be able to beat it.
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I didn’t think it was possible but clearly I can be more bitter in my every day life. Good thing I just finished my first novel, except I still need to edit it, oh and also I have like twenty things I’m behind at at work and woops I haven’t finished that post from last week and it’s okay if I didn’t get my fiance anything for our five year anniversary, right?
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I also finished my first novel in only 3 years and am now in year 3 of rewriting the whole thing. And as far as forgetting something for a 5 year anniversary, that is perfectly acceptable for a bitter person because clearly he will forget something for you.
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Um…I am already bitter. I had no idea but here it is in black and white! 😉
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Wow you followed all those things? Now you just need to take my next seven courses for $1200 a class to realize that you are in fact bitter just like you just said.
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Really? Truly bitter people would NEVER fall for that. Come on, we can see bs coming a mile away. Mostly because we always anticipate bad things even when they aren’t on the horizon.
You just got bitter-schooled, bro. 😉
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What? You didn’t fall for it? And you bitter-schooled me? Now I am even more bitter. Arrrrrgghhh!
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…so not enjoying my incomplete education. Gee, thanks. I’m perfectly bitter now.
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Time to go back to bitter school.
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I would, but a.) I hate cafeteria food, bitter or otherwise, b.
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Geez I hate this tablet… b.) letter jackets make me super bitter, and c.) that science teacher with egg in his beard, coffee/smoker breath and an eye for budding future chicken farmers. *shudder* eww.
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I also hate your tablet. And B) The only letters we have on our jackets are BITTER and c) we don’t have science teachers because we don’t know anything about it. Or math.
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A) We feed you farm fresh bitter food in the Bitter Cafeteria, and the lunch people are full on bitter (so the same as they always are). and B)
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I think we should start arresting people for violating Murphy’s Law. People shouldn’t be rewarded for things going well for them! How will they build character?!
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The only people that ever have things go well for them are those super positive people that are just in denial about things going terribly around them.
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