tl;dr

I also have to second the thing about not drinking. I start drinking until a month or so ago and it's definately a lot easier hanging around with my friends. They used to hassle me a lot about it and they always felt awkward drinking around me when I wouldn't have anything. Now I'll just have a few drinks (still haven't found anything alcoholic I liked yet) and they won't make a deal out of it.

How ya doing, buddy?

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Or just drink Cokes, and tell people you have rum in it, with no one the wiser. Or rightfully claim that you're staying dry because you have to drive. Drinking is the socially acceptable thing to do, but nobody's twisting your arm.

Alternatively, you can also say that you had some bad experiences when you were younger and you don't feel comfortable drinking (or drinking anymore). People hate to be the asshole trying to force someone to drink when they have some sort of supposed emotional issue on the table.

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Or your problems is yourself and the only person that can fix it is you. The worst thing you can do is try to make yourself feel victimized here.

And happiness is completely a state of mind. I know I could be completely miserable about 99% of the time if I hadn't taught myself how to be happy no matter how crappy things are..

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Just read this, dopefish.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by The Dopefish

If you can find a free and online version of that book, I'll read it.

If you're not willing to spend $10 to improve your life, you don't deserve it.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Except everything you've been whining about with your life is exactly what he deals with in his book. There's a reason it's still one of the most popular books on Amazon even though he originally wrote it in 1936.

Not to mention if you're not willing to do something unless it'll help you for sure then you'll never get anywhere anyway.

Hell, maybe taking one of his classes would be a great social situation for you to be in.

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Originally Posted by Sassafrass

Incidentally, it was written in 1936, RR? I think I will have to read this, now. It couldn't help, considering my VERY ANGRY DISPOSITION.

He wrote it as a textbook for the course he originally taught at a local YMCA in New York. He found there were no really good books on the subject, so he took his background as a biographer (I think he claims to have read something like 80 books on Lincoln alone) and used examples from other peoples' lives to show what methods worked for them. He'll point out a trend in how they behave, throw in some good quotes from successful people, and generally makes a pretty convincing argument.

If you're going to buy a book, I recommend the one I linked to at buy.com. It has two of his best books together in hardback for about as much as you'd pay for one of them in paperback.

If I was on my desktop I'd send you the text file I made with my favorite passages from the book. Here's one of the lines that struck me the most while reading the book (I remembered enough of this one to google for it).

Originally Posted by John Wanamaker

I learned 30 years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.

FELIPE NO