Creative Ways to Avoid Hating Yourself

We've all been there. One minute, you're skipping merrily along the street on a sunshiny day thinking about what a beautiful, creative, fascinating, charming, open, and downright amazing person you are, when suddenly, for no inexplicable reason, BAM! it hits you--you realize that you're actually a self-centred, horrifically spoiled, idiotic, sniveling brat*.

Who knows what triggered it: maybe someone traps you in an argument that proves you're not as smart as you think you are, maybe you missed out on your daily dose of caffeine and every ounce of joy it embodies for you, maybe there was a pileup of the Self-Loathing chemical** in your brain, and you haven't managed to work through it all yet.



Whatever the reason,  we've all come up against that crippling wall of self-loathing in our lives. When it hits you, it's pretty easy to curl up in a little ball of self-hatred and hibernate in your shame in the hopes that you will disintegrate into a pile of unrecognizable powdery waste matter before anyone realizes what a horrible person you are. However, it is widely accepted that this sort of action is inadvisable, which is why I'm here to suggest some Creative Ways to Avoid Hating Yourself:

1) Adopt a new persona that you hate even more

If you hate yourself now, just wait until you start speaking in an irritating nasal twang and wearing your hair stiffly gelled into one flat sheet covering your eyes in a style you like to call The Shower Curtain.

Even though your new persona is a hairstyle pioneer, chances are, after a few hours (or days or weeks) in character you'll really start to miss yourself. When you start waxing poetic about the person you used to be ("wow. the old me used to wash her hair and she at least TRIED not to pick her nose in public. I wish I could go back to that..."), you know it's time. Ease back into your real personality slowly, so as to avoid shock.

2) Distract yourself with a futile craft project you'll never be able to complete

Have you ever wanted to build an igloo out of old copies of Readers Digest? Tile your brother's bedroom walls entirely out of no-name-brand Woven Wheat Squares? Enlist strangers to assist you with a real-life reenactment of Mario World? Now is the time. You're trying to save yourself from disaster.

After visiting every thrift store in the city to load up on Readers Digests, after buying your 153rd box of Woven Wheat Squares, after spending 35 minutes convincing the guy who mans the hotdog stand downtown to put on that Princess Peach dress, chances are, you will have forgotten that you hate yourself. Even if you remember, that memory will most likely be overpowered by your own bemusement regarding the task at hand. Well done, you! Even if you don't love yourself yet, you'll at least be too confused to hate yourself.

3) Start sending postcards to strangers; chances are, they're as pathetic as you are.

You know the old saying, misery loves company? So do strangers. Actually, that's a lie; most strangers would prefer if you would stop jamming their mailboxes with creepy postcards, but that's not important right now. What's important is, there's nothing more therapeutic than writing a fantastic postcard to someone you don't know. Find an address in the phone book, or from your latest batch of junkmail.

If you're the creative type, design the postcard yourself. If you're not, go to a gift shop and find the strangest one you can, then get crackin' (Hallmark cards work great for this too--just avoid the Condolensces section. It tends to send the wrong message).

Fill up that postcard. Describe the scenery:
Dear Suzie. Having fun sitting under the kitchen table. I can see the spiderwebs on my oven from here. Bet you've never had a view like this!
Tell them what you've been up to:
I woke up filled with a mixture of hatred and self-doubt. I took an amusing little jaunt to the kitchen where I ate some cardboard and spent an hour and a half staring at the clock. Then I went on a fascinating journey to my Scrap Paper Cabinet and fashioned this postcard! I hope you like the glitter!
Sign it with a flourish
(Flourish not shown. It was too flourish-y for this blog)

Mail that thing. Then sit back and let yourself be filled with the warm glow of knowing that you reached out and made a bizarre connection with a stranger.

If that doesn't work, try puppies.

*or, you know, insert other appropriate adjectives here.
**yeah pretty sure that exists