My New Joy

I am Saved. I am finally happy. What was once a secret is now Known to me.
I have accepted the Truth into my heart, and allowed Joy into my soul.
I have learned how to love others and love myself; to find peace and happiness in all things that I do, be they great or small.

In order to do this, I've had to lower my standards a great deal. To help accomplish this,
I've found that it helps to apply a "grading curve" to all human beings and their activities, myself included.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a "grading curve" is basically an academic trick that's useful for coaxing passing grades out of large groups of lazy, stupid, stoned, unmotivated or otherwise poorly-performing students. (If you score '100' on a test that uses a curve, you earn the hatred of everyone else in your class. This teaches intelligent kids an important lesson: nobody likes them).
Instead of using an arbitrary numerical value as ( I believe the example in the link was 0.80) as an average score, I will assign a somewhat subjective term drawn from the One Truth, the New Paradigm of Mediocrity:

Most Things Suck

If most things suck (and they do), then it follows that being in a state of suckiness is a 'normal' mode; therefore ,what could be more normal than suckiness? A cursory examination of popular culture bears out this premise:
How often is the best band/book/politician/movie/TV/food/whatever, also the most popular? Roughly never is how often.

Consider that only one of these statements is always true:
a) normal=good
b) good = popular
c) popular=sucky
d) sucky = average
Which one? Hint: it's (d).

I wish I could explain this better, but my knowledge of logic sucks, which makes me average by my new, diminished standards. Logical ,no?

If further help with lower standards is needed, one need look no further than our nation's leaders, from whom I stole the following pearl of wisdom:

Embrace failure by calling it something else

My remarkable new path to self-improvement is really just an old form of self-deception, and, like most lies, can eventually become true if repeated often enough. For example:

-Instead of saying "I hate my job", I say, " my lifetime dream is to do mind-numbingly repetitive data entry for just enough money to avoid homelessness" -
Or-
"Even though my half-assed efforts are unappreciated by those I do them for and I am unrewarded in any tangible sense; I can find true happiness in a 'job well-done' , because even when my work sucks, it is average or better".
I offer this reasoning to my creditors in lieu of currency.

A good slogan never hurts when trying to "pull the wool" over one's own eyes. Try these:

-Work Will Make You Free!
- Have a Nice Day!
-Mission Accomplished!

Everything on the 'Dollar Menu' is delicious

Face it- you'll always have to settle for less, so you may as well start rationalizing your disappointment today- you'll be happier for doing so.

Some lies I tell to make myself feel better (comforting falsehoods are in italics):

- I drive a 1987 Accord because Honda makes such good cars.
- I have a shitty job because money isn't important to me.
- I am celibate by choice.
- Artistic success isn't measurable by money .
-Sardines are a meal.

I'm sure you have some of your own. Please share. I need all the help I can get in my new pursuit of enlightened happiness.