You always had your life in pretty good order. But in the highly unlikely and therefore highly calamitous circumstance in which you might find yourself ostracised by your family, and/or not getting on with your friends, and/or maybe even suffering relationship issues - and/or in fact any of the rich and seemingly inexhaustive tapestry of crises which the metropolitan existence so systematically delivers with such horrifyingly ruthless efficiency - all you need to find your way back to exactly the point you started from is my simple five step programme. I would say it's patented, but apparently you can't say that unless it actually is. And sadly it isn't.
As follows:
Stage One: Contemplation. Draw the curtains, switch off the phone, stop poking and posting on that grim internet. Get on your sofa and watch a lot of deep, serious, very long and very moving films designed with one purpose in mind: to get life into perspective. Lists available on request, but Scent Of A Woman is a good place to start. Al Pacino won an Oscar for it. The point is to step away from yourself and realise that there are bigger forces at play every day, creating far worse problems for people far worse off than you to begin with. So get over yourself.
Stage Two: Three words here....martinis, martinis, martinis. Three measures gin, one of vodka, half a measure of kina lillet. Shake with crushed ice until cold and serve over a thin slice of lemon peel. Repeat. Over, and over, and over.
Stage Three: Make a change. A big one. And not necessarily relating directly to your life problem (or what used to be a life problem, now that you're 40% of the way to forgetting it). Get a new job, start or end a relationship, move house etc. Upset the rhythm. Routine can become so habitual that you end up thinking you can't break out of it. So break out of it. The change can be terrifying, sure.... when I stopped getting my same seat on my same District Line tube every morning I literally lost the ability to urinate. For about three days. But that's what's so exciting! (The change, not the inability to wee. That was awful. It finally ended in a meeting with Facebook and I had to do that waddling, legs-a-bit-crossed-but-still-trying-to-run style run. It was only because Catfish ran ahead and held open all the swipecard doors for me that I made it.)
Stage Four: Write letters to the people involved in your life problem, explaining how you feel. It's good catharsis. However, DO NOT SEND THEM. I've never known anyone who's actually done this, but I can't imagine the results are / were / would be satisfactory. No-one wants to hear your shit, really. In fact, destroy any 'faux' correspondence as soon as they are written. Security in this programme is priority number one.
Stage Five: Deny it ever happened. To everyone. Anyone mentions it, it didn't happen. Simple in principle, tricky in practice. So get practising. But you do it enough times and it becomes true. Even for you.
Net result: Total memory erasure.
All in all, a pretty robust methodology for dealing with blunt head-trauma, if I do say so myself. I could be an American-style life coach, like Tom Cruise in Magnolia, or Greg Kinnear in Little Miss Sunshine.
As you can probably tell I'm mighty pleased with myself.
Maybe it's because I've had a martini.
Your loving friend,
Action Squid
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