Dealing With Bad Clients - Part 1 - Scammers or 8 Tips To Become A Better Online Scammer

Attention: this is one of those personal entries, please ignore it and I promise I will soon write about more important matters. It’s a rant and probably a semi-amusing story to help those who have or will find themselves in the same situation.

Being a freelance copywriter can be really interesting and quite an adrenaline rush sometimes. You learn from experience and you can get scammed a few times even by the biggest companies. After all, the whole trying to do justice thing can take a while and will probably cost you more than the amount they owe you. But some of my clients have been really interesting, some were friendly scammers, others were polite and very professional looking scammers, but lately I’ve been dealing with another type of scammer. Good thing that I’ve had experience in the past and hadn't work that much for him before realizing I was scammed. Well, perhaps I trust people too much and I am too naive, but this experience doesn’t bother me, it was nice and I gained a lot in terms of personal development. So let me tell you my latest scamming story and then I shall paste a few of my emails with the client so that you can learn how to treat such people.

It first started about 6 years ago on one of those freelance websites that I won’t mention here. I used to work a lot on those until I managed to create a client base, but lately I was invited to a project and I accepted it. Then we went off-site and that’s where the fun started. At first they were very condescending and impolite but I just thought that maybe they were unable to communicate properly so I let that go, because I’ve been trying not to take things personally in order to reach that ascetic state of mind numbness. It was when I asked for a proof of payment in my bank account that things got out of control. My amazing client sent me this furious mail:

What kind of question is this? If I need to go, I would have gone by now. so from next when you write an email, make sure you know what you are writing. it will help you working with big guys for long time

Well, what can I say....the big guys usually send you that proof of payment without you having to ask, it’s common knowledge, routine, etc. , but I guess he’s not a big guy after all....but he wishes, he will reach that point if he really, really wants that. He will be that shining star on the new media sky. Please observe the great grasp of English knowledge my client had. It is quite remarkable for somebody who works in copywriting.

I sent him a polite mail, perhaps too polite, trying to make myself clear.

I'm sorry if my question has offended you but I feel it is natural to ask that since I had problems with many clients in the past. If this would have been a secured work environment it wouldn't have been any problem but since we haven't managed yet to build a trusting relationship, I feel it is my right to be reluctant when it comes to such matters. Previous experience has also made me more careful. I believe that it was a normal question considering the circumstances of our interaction.

He then answered:

It can be normal to you, but to ask proof of something is not normal to us anyway

I think that this flawed view upon the world is what makes us terrible human beings. Philosophically speaking, we are nothing without proof and this man asks me to blindly believe in him like a true follower. Anyway, he then asked me the following day for some part of the work I was doing for him but it was well before the deadline and I still hadn't received the money in my bank account. So, I told him that and the fact that I wouldn’t continue working without being paid for the last project. I think he has some anger management issues because he replied terribly. I literally felt his forehead veins bursting with anger when reading the email. Here it is:

Delayed 2 times means? your paying date is Sunday and according to that it has been processed. And we told everything clearly in our project details also.

And last time also you sent us some freaking email  which we did not take personally. But now it is up to the limit. We don’t wish to work with you anymore. You can use all your work or can sale them or can do anything you wish. Cause we will not like to work with anyone who doesn’t know how to talk with the buyer

Hope you will find good client to work with though it is looing impossible for me

Good luck

Note: We will not be replying you anymore as you already humiliated us t wice whih is more than enough

  Thanks alot

  Bye

This is when I got really sad as I don’t have a lot of interaction and I kind of liked sending useless emails back and forth. So I replied, from the bottom of my heart, with all the friendship there ever was in this world, I replied to help him search his own path and probably become a better man. I usually do that to people...it’s quite fun sending this type of messages and even more fun reading the answers. I recommend it, it has greatly improved my ability to express. Surely, most of the time people have no idea what you are talking about or they get really aggressive and personal, but it’s fun nonetheless. Here is my response: 

Well this was expected. When one creates all the conditions to reach destruction, one should not be surprised with the outcome. It was pretty obvious that you are a scammer as you had about 5 accounts created on ****** and I feel extremely sorry that people like you exist and are cheating hard working people.

I think this is a situation well known to you and I am probably one of the many that were scammed. You showed a great lack of respect towards me as a writer and as a person; that says a lot about you.

"Delayed 2 times" = you just mentioned that payment was on Sunday, when the first Sunday came, you mentioned a threshold (you seem to forget to mention a great deal of vital information when talking to another party, may I recommend a memo application for your smartphone?), on the second Sunday, you mentioned out of the blue that there is a problem with your PayPal (again, lack of information). Now, you are avoiding any sort of payment, which I was expecting.
Thanks alot  Bye – hey, meet Alot http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

 you already humiliated us t wice whih is more than enough – I feel like I’m in a Japanese movie and I have failed to gain the respect my family deserves. I am sorry, I am beyond ashamed.  However, I find this victimizing behavior quite interesting.  I mean, in my internet writing journeys I met a wide array of scammers, but you are special Sir. Victimizing but also condescending, that’s a unique combination. I never thought of this approach when it came to online scamming, you have taught me new meanings when it comes to deal with people like you.
Talking about the many accounts you created, I guess you get reported a lot, so that’s why you are probably quite confused about the information you send, it has to be dreadful to deal with all those fake email addresses.

I am not expecting you to read all the text above as I seriously doubt your ability to understand complex patterns but considering the fact that I like writing and giving advice, please read the following section that might greatly improve your scamming results in the future, as I believe it is the right career choice for you.

Then I wrote a short article about how to be a good online scammer and attached it to the email. I will also paste it here, perhaps it can help some of those other assholes out there.  

8 Tips To Become A Better Online Scammer

1 – Be polite. Politeness goes a long way. My first scamming client was this beautiful lady who was always polite. You couldn’t believe that she was scamming you because she was really nice like a colorful butterfly. People will like you more if you are nice and polite  and they will also work as slaves without payment for a longer time if you don’t show a lack of proper upbringing.

2 – Send some money. This is crucial as it may create a trusting environment and you will be able to get more jobs done for free in the long run. This is a new level of scamming, sending a bit of money, while you justify with various reasons. It is quite confusing for those who work for you and they will always ask themselves why would you send them money if you are trying to scam them. They won’t believe it at first and you will be able to get more work done.

3 – Learn to write. For proper communication and manipulating your victims, you should learn to write better. Flexibility and clarity are essential for a building a good and long term scammer-victim relationship.

4 – Create an email account that doesn’t look like you sat on your keyboard during the registration process.

5 – Don’t be condescending – it kind of reveals the fact that you are prone to scam. It also doesn’t help in life in general as people tend to avoid you and you end up not having many friends. This makes me sad, everybody should deserve friends.

6 – Give feedback, answer the first emails properly – it makes you seem nicer and people will trust you. We’re going for trust as a scammer, remember?

7 – Be Friendly – for those who want to reach a new level in the art of scamming, being friendly goes a long way. Create bonds and friendship, this way they will become dependent and will work more for free, which is always good. Perhaps you can gain a friend for life.

8 – Have a good memory – vitamins are great to improve memory. Lecithin can do wonders so don’t be afraid to take the daily recommended amount. You will be able to remember all those people you scammed and if you have nightmares, sleeping pills can counteract these effects.

In the end, it really matters to be true to yourself and others. Don’t be that false, make sure that your wonderful personality is coming out and let people discover you, and who knows, maybe you’ll make some friends in the scamming process. Good Luck Sir!

This is my latest scamming story people. Perhaps one day I will tell you about my other scamming story, it’s quite funny as my other client created many accounts and talked to me as she was different people. She was her secretary, herself, and the PR person. Very interesting psychological case study and I also kept the emails for my amusement. I may not get paid sometimes but the fun is definitely worth it. 

Post apocalyptic novels, logical fallacies, and eating disorders

I haven't done one of these in a while. There are so many links I wanted to show you, I probably forgot most of them. Let's start with this blog. This is so great, it's actually an online post-apocalyptic novel. Check it out, I know I loved it.

This is obviously hilarious because is from Cracked. Another interesting article from Cracked is this one about logical fallacies and how we are wrong most of the time.  Also,check out this link with a new study about autism and this one about a new therapy that might help children with autism say their first words.  This other one is about new evidence about earliest humans in Europe. If you are not sure of your path in life, read this article about signs that you might be giving up your dreams.

This article about the role of family in the treatment of eating disorders is fascinating. Here's John Carlton's website, he's only the BEST COPYWRITER IN THE WORLD.

Today I learned about Impostor Syndrome:


Impostor syndrome describes a situation where someone feels like an imposter or fraud because they think that their accomplishments are nowhere near as good as those of the people around them. Usually, their accomplishments are just as good, and the person is being needlessly insecure. 

I'll leave you guys with this nice song:

Sexual Innovations, Protesters, Social Media, and Lots of Free Books

There are very few things I discovered this week. It was a crazy week and I wanted to put creepy things in my discoveries since it's Halloween Month, but I don't have enough horror discoveries.

This week we have 5 Sexual Innovations From People In Your History Text Books  and Three Types of Protesters Hurting Their Own Cause  from Cracked.com
This article about social media is really cool, especially for those of us who want to know more about its role in marketing. Another article is this one about writing  which definitely helps us bloggers. If you want free books you can get some from Project Gutenberg, I found a lot of philosophy books there and most classics can be found too. It's an amazing database. Here's another great article from Big Think on how the brain appreciates art.
I also found this blog, a great resource for copywriters who need to improve their work. For those of you who know the case of Sybil, apparently it was a big fraud. We don't know it for sure but it was a little bit too  unbelievable. I will make a future post about this case, since I find it fascinating. Anyway, I will leave you guys with my newest song obsession:

Awards, German architecture, neuron control and how to annoy your teacher

Hello everybody, I'm sorry I was so slow this week but I've been a bit sick lately. This was good but I also slept for about 24 hours I think, which is never productive. Unfortunately, my google reader has 375 unread items, so I have a lot of reading and commenting to do.

First of all I would like to thank Sie for her award. You can check out her other websites: this and this. She is a really special person. Sorry for not being able to thank you sooner dear :(

Let's see what interesting internet places I can recommend you this week. The first one is this  and it's about German architecture. I'm obsessed by everything German so if you are like me, you will love it too. Also, if you are an over-thinking freak like me,  read this.

Another cool article I read a while ago was Neuron Control written by Sarang Mangi. A great article about  activating specific neurons.

If you want to read something funny here are 45 ways to annoy your teacher. Now I'm seriously thinking of riding a horse to uni. :D

Now, let's see some studies: people learn while they sleep, drinking a lot of coffee and depression , low B12 vitamin levels shrink your brain, if you were planning on taking some hallucinogenic drugs you will need to rethink that because a single dose leads to lasting personality changes, and don't forget to drink red wine to lower your breast cancer risk. 

Don't forget to check out this mind blowing article about people with schizophrenia. Apparently living in a developed country lowers your chances to recover.

Stones in your drink, calling a man 65 000 times, and the dangers of watching Sponge Bob

My busy days are over, at least for one week. I've discovered interesting things lately, especially studies. I found an alternative for ice cubes , those are actually stones that you  keep them in the freezer and then put them in your drink. Cool huh? This article is hilarious. It's about things that are useful but people are embarrassed to use them :D Nava K posted an interesting article about a woman who called a man 65 000 times in an year. I've also read a really good article called My Meddling Mind: The right way or wrong way to mourn. Another interesting article is this one and it refers to quitting and resisting the urge to quit while you are trying to accomplish something.

I've also received an award from Cooking Varieties, she was nice and gave me the 100 hearts award. Thanks a lot Wan!
Now the studies articles I found, which were extremely interesting. I've learned from this study that women who eat high fat before pregnancy will program their children to be overweight. Two very good articles about how the brain makes decisions can be found here and here. I also found out that there is a link between breast cancer and alcohol metabolism so be careful girls with your alcohol consumption. Alcohol metabolism also causes DNA damage. If you want to protect yourself from strokes all you need is to eat an apple or a pear per day. It seems that Sponge Bob makes your children have difficulties in learning and may affect their behavior.

These are all the interesting things I've read this week. Here's a cool song:

Becoming a tree, expensive food, ideas and the button that makes everything ok

I haven't posted much recently because I'm so incredibly busy with work and school. However, I still have a few links I want to share with you guys. So, I found a cool way for people to keep me after I die. It's this.  Apparently that thing turns you into a tree after you die. Your remains are placed in that urn and a tree seed is put inside so your family can plant a tree with your remains after you die. Isn't that the best idea? I know it's gloomy, but I think it's wonderful. Another article about very expensive food around the world. And here's one that teaches you how to come with new ideas for your blog. 

Psychology related articles include this one, about people with schizophrenia, their distinctive smell and the research done on this topic. Another interesting article is this and it refers to memory and birth control pills.

I'm going to go now and press the button that makes everything ok. 
I can't wait for winter to come.

I'll leave you with this smart guy:

Explosions in the sky, Milgram experiment, psychopathic traits and real life RPG

I have been pretty busy this week but I managed to read a few interesting articles. The first interesting article is about the Milgram Experiment arguing that the participants were not blindly obeying orders but identifying with a leader and a cause.If you don't know what the Milgram Experiment is you can read about it here.  I wanted to write an article about it but I guess there are too many articles on the internet on this subject. Another interesting article is from Cracked  although I don't agree with the 3rd fact. Actually, older people are not better at solving problems, unless they have been solving those types of problems their entire life. The point I'm trying to make here is that fluid intelligence is not better than in young people, however crystalized intelligence (the one accessed from long term memory) might work better. But anyway, this is a good article and it's definitely worth reading.

I also read this article which argues that psychopathic traits are linked to the brain's reward system and I also found out that suicide methods depend on the person's sex.
Another cool website I found helps you calculate when you should go to sleep in order to wake up without feeling tired.  I also found a real life RPG that motivates you to do things in real life. You get points and coins for the things you do. Pretty cool!

If you want to vent or listen to somebody you can check out this site. Also, a very fun site is What The Fuck Should I Make For Dinner for those of you who don't know what you should make for dinner (of course).

I'll leave you guys with this great song from Explosions in the sky...and have a nice weekend!

Irrationality, boredom, bananas and awakening

What happened this week? I read this interesting article. Yes, Dan Ariely I am completely obsessed with you! I found an interesting research that shows how feelings of boredom can both strengthen solidarity within your in-group and heighten hostility toward outsiders.  I found this gorgeous lady and read about bananas. I also had some awakening and watched a random funny video. 

I'll leave you guys with this video of a chocolate bunny being melted. 

Chocolate Bunny from Lernert & Sander on Vimeo.

This was a sad and unproductive week. 

10 Reasons Why I Feel Old At 24...

Source

I don’t know if it’s just me but I really feel old. However, I don’t find my age being the problem I don’t believe somebody is old at my age, but everything around me makes me feel constantly old. I felt slightly old at 23 but 24 is really making me feel depressed.

1 – The media portrays a lot of young people - The first reason why I feel old is the fact that all the ads in the magazines seem to portray these beautiful 19-20 year old women with the skin of a 9 year old. I’m never going to be 19, 20 or 9 year old anytime soon so I feel kind of ancient.Apparently nowadays being 10 is the new 17 which makes it really hard for me to cope with the reality of my age. 

2- People are getting married around me - A lot of people my age are starting to get married which again makes me think that I am pretty old. A lot of my ex school/high school/college acquaintances are already married, some of them even have kids so that makes it a little hard for me to actually believe that I am still young and fresh and I can do whatever I want….which brings me to my next point.

3 – I can’t do whatever I want – I’ve been hearing myself a lot lately saying “Oh, I’m too old to do this”, “This is not appropriate for my age” which again makes the life at 24 even more miserable.

4 – Everybody is younger – more than 60% of the people I meet are younger than me and I really hate that. I hate you young people!!!! Just kidding, but seriously, am I in the wrong circles? Even if I hang out with older people I feel old, because, you know, I hang out with older people! People my age are too busy getting married so….I’m doomed. 

5- Critical – I often find myself criticizing the young generation which makes me sound like grandparents trying to cope with the idea of gay marriage. The young generation is annoying, they have so much time to waste I really hate them.

6 – I don’t have time to play videogames - I remember staying in my room for days and just play videogames until I felt like my eyes were bleeding. Now, I have deadlines, I have to sleep, I can’t just play videogames all day.

7 – I don’t live with my parents anymore – This is both positive and negative but whenever I go home I remember how good it is to have absolutely no responsibilities. I love to not care about my rent, my bills, whoever rings at the door, shopping, etc.

8 – I have a lot of old people type of conversations – if you are like me you know what I’m talking about. The type of conversations with a friend that start with “Have you seen the gas prices lately?” and end up with “I don’t know what’s happening to this country, it used to be much better in the past”. Same applies for other topics like: today’s young people, today’s music, today’s movies, etc. I often find myself and my friend discussing about stuff like this and how things are not how they used to.

9 – I don’t enjoy being crazy anymore – I don’t really want to go wild, drink all night, get male strippers and have fun with my girlfriends until we pass out near the bed. I’d rather watch a movie and drink some wine or read a book. I’m even starting to hate loud music. I always get hysterical when my flat mate listens to loud music and what’s sad about it is the fact that I use the same words as my grandma “Turn that music down, what are the neighbors going to think??? Listening to music at 3 am in the morning is not appropriate!!!” and then I walk away feeling him giving me that “u crazy woman!” look. Hmm, apparently I am crazy but not young and fun crazy, old crazy woman crazy.

10 – I can’t be myself. This works both ways, I can’t have the old woman habits that I mentioned earlier but I can’t be crazy either. Society has this thing and it makes you feel bad for being anything. There are a few exceptions, like being a famous star or the CEO of a major company. Well, I can’t be a famous star because I’m too old and I’m also too young to be a CEO. Anyway, it’s this demand to be something when you reach a certain age that makes me furious. How people start judging you because you are not like they want you to be. Some will judge you for being to immature while others will be annoyed by the fact that you seem too mature for your age. And I get both these reactions, which makes me confused.

I guess the society wants me to feel old, this way I’ll settle. I am not allowed to be crazy at this age, I can’t be wild, everything I am allowed to do is focus on my job; also, I have to buy new things all the time to keep the economy smooth. Society wants you to be old, but you have to look young so that you can inspire other young people to be old.  

PS: When I will be 34 I will look at this post, smile and say "Oh 24 year old me, how silly you were!"

Oatmeal, marketing, headaches, depression, cheese, etc.

So, I decided I'll do a post each week about everything I liked and discovered during that week, just to share with you guys (the...3 readers of my blog) some of the stuff I find cool. Anyway, so this week I discovered http://theoatmeal.com. I learned why dating a unicorn is cool, stuff about minor differences, and how to use a semicolon. It's a very funny website, check it out!

I've also read about the 5 biggest disasters in the history of marketing ideas and a very interesting article on Dan Ariely's blog about what makes us seek justice. Other great reads were about this guy's parents (loved it), but I also learned how to cure a headache without medication, how to make grog, and how to eat cheese like an expert (with green apple, strawberries, and pears)

I discovered this great lady who inspires me, this amazing dude that manages to make my imagination flow like I'm on LSD with his beautiful writings, this great talented guy who creates stunning portraits, and this guy who writes beautifully about books and depression. I also want to mention the life thinker, he has a lot of interesting stuff.

PS: yeah I almost forgot that I discovered this beautiful lady on YouTube with an amazing voice

An Essay On Happiness

How to be rich/How to happy/How to be a better person/How to live forever/How to be everything etc. 

Every company promises happiness nowadays: you will be happy if you buy this perfume, you will attract women and be happy if you buy this car, etc. It all resumes to being happy by doing what society and advertisers want you to do. This also applies in psychology and we can see how self help book writers make millions and people still remain unhappy. 

As a disclaimer I would like to add that I am not against positive thinking, I believe it really helps people remain sane and find life bearable. However, there’s something about the superficial positive thinking that really gets to me; another problem of mine is everybody’s concern with everybody’s state of mind. In our society not being positive all the time is seen as abnormal; I guess it’s safe to say that being negative or having a slightly negative view upon life is the absolute sin nowadays. There’s no wonder with all the self help books out there and everybody constantly trying to reach happiness all the time. This idea of happiness is almost forced on us by mass media. I’m starting to hate this whole happiness thing because it has been reduced to materialism and you can see this direction in all those books that promise you will become a millionaire. It seems that everybody with enough will power can become rich and successful. What about personality? What about opportunity? What about ability? What about intelligence? What about the fact that sometimes in life things can go wrong? What about PROBABILITY for a change? Apparently those are not factors that need to be taken into consideration; it all comes down to the fact that you don’t have enough will to become successful and rich. And this is what bothers me, this oversimplification of life, the fact that human beings are reduced to having will power or not, the fact that you are in that situation because you want to be. Of course,
I don’t deny the fact that some people make bad choices, but saying that everybody deserves what they have is not a correct statement from my point of view. Some people really have a disastrous life and it might not be their fault. But most of those gurus have no idea what they are talking about or they just write books for extremely simple human beings. Life is not a 4 step plan for success, people are not robots.

How choices are made

Many factors influence our ability to make choices. Of course, we like the idea that we contribute the most in deciding on certain things. But do we really? How about the pressure of society when making choices? How about the fact that many of us simply choose something that puts us in a positive light? Of course, one would argue that being seen as a better person through our choices makes us happy. The simple fact that we are approved by society makes us happy. But does it when our internal mechanism is different than what is generally preached? I believe that it is what makes most of us fall into depression when we look back at our lives and see that despite making good choices we are now unhappy.

People like power and control. We constantly try to use our power of choice even when there is no choice. An example would be death. People have so many coping mechanisms when it comes to death, it’s fascinating. We want to control death as we want to control everything in our lives. In Yalom’s book “Existential Psychotherapy” there are a few examples of how we try to control our lives. For example, there’s a case of a patient who refuses chemotherapy because he has extreme anxiety regarding the process which implies him being powerless. So he puts his life in danger just to have this illusion of control. And I agree with Nietzsche when he says that will is not known absolutely and it cannot be known. If we take into consideration the millions of factors that influence our decision we start understanding what Nietzsche wanted to point out. Of course, this doesn’t mean that people don’t make mistakes and even if our decision making is limited, you can still make decisions that will affect you. My interest is not to limit the responsibility of a person’s decision making but enhance the fact that people should be rational when trying to become something that simply isn’t for them.

Choice implies loss because when we make a choice we lose another opportunity and another path in life. Some people go so far as they stop living their life so that they can have some control on the bad choices they would make. But I think you agree with me when I say that is not a good idea also.

Our society constantly tells us that we can make a choice and be happy even if there’s nothing wrong with us.
Even if you are happy, they tell you different, they tell you that being what you are now is not enough and you need more. Of course, I’m not referring to progress, I’m only referring to the unimportant things compared to what life really means like having the newest LCD TV, or the latest Iphone. Don’t plan your life so that you become meaningless, unhappy and unsatisfied just because you pursue the wrong things. Be positive through your actions and achievements, but not in an artificial way. Don’t do things because they will make you successful, do things because you find pleasure in them. If you have a goal and the path to that goal is extremely unpleasant, you risk being unhappy for the most part of your life. So find out what you really like and be successful doing that. Being passionate and the commitment people get from pursuing their passion are overlooked. If we look at successful people we can see that besides a great deal of commitment and effort, they enjoy their work, they are passionate about it. That’s the key to success, not deluding yourself constantly that there is a force in the universe that gets activated whenever you engage in positive thinking. Of course, negative thinking is counterproductive but it can also help you want more.

But is positive thinking mandatory for achieving happiness?

We all want to be happy and it’s a natural thing, but when you focus a lot on positive thinking I guess you become too involved in that and forget to be happy. I believe is tiresome to be extremely aware, constantly preoccupied by your thoughts and trying to make them “happy thoughts”. Actually there is a study which shows that using positive statements can have a different effect than one would expect. 

People with very low self esteem might find them upsetting. Those who say “What harm can positive thinking do?” now know that it can be harmful in some situations.

Again, I’m not talking about people who are positive by nature, but those who force it on themselves and, more annoying, on others. Have you ever been around one of those? They constantly try to make everything so positive it becomes irrational. And that’s what I’m talking about, the harm created by this irrationality of exaggerated positive thinking.

But really now, how can people get happier?

How about loving ourselves for a change? Accepting that we have flaws, accepting that we will never be perfect and we cannot become perfect.

I believe the secret to happiness is not reaching extreme happiness. That will never happen, the secret to happiness is making sure that you are satisfied with your life. You have to be aware and know why you need improvement. So the first step is knowing why you need to change yourself, what harm not changing yourself can do to your life. But most people start pursuing happiness without knowing why their actions are not correct in the first place. This can make us pursue the wrong kind of happiness, a general meaning of happiness when in fact it all comes down to your idea of happiness. I’m going to use a cliché here: our idea of happiness is pretty biased, but looking down inside us is what matters. So reach out into yourself and decide what makes you truly happy.

Another problem is the fact that people want to be happy now and this is why there is a link between materialism and happiness. Of course the media will want you to become happy on their terms, because that is what keeps the money flowing. But intense happiness is just momentary.

Material things give us a sense of happiness now, but that type of happiness is very short and you will soon find yourself unhappy again. I believe that true happiness is when you look back and see (some might have a problem looking back at all) the small or big successes you had. So how about starting to do things that you enjoy and also make you feel better about yourself)?

People also constantly try to run away from things that harm them, from negative things, from depression, from negative events. As I said earlier, trying to avoid failure and harm can lead to avoiding experience of any kind. People are afraid to embrace sadness, forgetting that sadness is what makes happiness recognizable. Perhaps one of the things that make people unhappy is the fact that they constantly try to be happy and avoid any sadness, so when real happiness comes along, they don’t feel it anymore. So, when we numb ourselves to avoid pain, we also numb our ability to feel happiness.

So do you want to be happy?

Start doing things that make you happy and stop worrying about it.