Recently by James Altucher: 10 Ways To Forgive The Person You Want To Kill

If you haven’t heard, today is Valentine’s Day, the worst holiday known to mankind except for maybe Father’s Day, which is 100% commercial and has no historical backdrop.

Valentine’s Day has some history although not really. It’s named after a St. Valentine, although we don’t know which one (there were three) and we don’t know anything about them (one or two of them were killed while defending Christianity but that’s it), and we don’t know why there is romantic connotation to them (Chaucer mentioned the Valentines in his infinitely boring poetry we are force-fed by our English teachers who try to read us the poems in the original English, rendering them not only boring but potentially lethal. I was almost martyred on one such day).

Not to mention Chaucer’s rendition is probably referring to some day in May but we’ve already listed enough reasons to ignore this day. Oh, one more, Pope Paul the whatever, (I easily forget numbers and refuse to research while writing) in the 1960s actually did away with this holiday, admitting, once and for all, “we have no clue who St. Valentine is other than where he was buried.”

That said, three emotions do come up, because of history, on this day. Loneliness (if you have no Valentine), Romance (if you do), and Guilt (if you do, but you forgot to do anything about it). I fall under the latter category but I also like to think of every day as Valentine’s Day. Why should only one day per year be relegated as the day you respect, honor, cherish, your loved one?

But, recently, perhaps in anticipation of this sacred holiday named after a holy saint, many people have written me, “my husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend has left me. What do I do to get off the floor? I can’t get myself motivated.”

I can relate to this. I’ve done stupid, stupid things on such occasions. So here’s ways to avoid being stupid whether you are a guy or a girl, whether your ex is a “he” or a “she”:

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A) You need to make a change. TODAY. Keeping yourself busy is no good. Your mind is not where it should be. You are constantly thinking about her so you are probably at about 10% capacity. The key is to treat yourself. Take yourself out on a date. Take a day or two off from work, go to a museum, a movie, go out with friends. Treat yourself and put yourself in a completely different environment. Leave town if you can. Stay in a bed and breakfast where you never stayed before. But you have to totally change your environment for at least a day. For the sake of all people everywhere, please help me out here and list things below, in the comments, you can do to take yourself out on a date.

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B) Sleep at least eight hours. I would say ten hours but many people can’t do that (I’m a professional at sleeping ten hours). If you have trouble sleeping that many hours because you are anxious about the situation then go to your doctor, explain the situation, and get medication. When I’ve been broken up with I was not able to sleep without the help of medication. Kolonopin + Amitriptylin worked for me. But it’s still important to sleep at least eight hours, even if medicated. Then get off the medication as quickly as possible (the above are addictive).

C) Don’t eat after 5pm. Don’t drink. When you eat late you have trouble digesting, making it harder to sleep. When you drink, two things happen: alchohol is a depressant and you are already depressed so it’s common sense not to drink. Plus the sugar from the alcohol will have you waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning. Plus you’ll gain extra mindless calories. You need to be in top shape to meet the next person.

D) Don’t watch TV. Not even Mad Men. Not even the news. How come? Because on every TV show, including the news, people are either killing each other, cheating on each other, or (in the case of the news) trying to ruin your financial life. You have enough troubles, you don’t need Don Draper’s troubles as well. This is not forever. Just until you are better. You might think, “this will keep my mind off of X”. But it won’t. It will just remind you of the most painful parts of your relationship wth X. When I was getting separated from my X the worst thing I did was watch “Mad Men”. I couldn’t help myself. I’m a Mad Men addict.

E) Don’t Spy. Which probably also means: no facebook, twitter, and limit all websurfing. How come? The news is already bad. She or he left. She’s gone. Any information you find out now is for what point? To win her back? To prove her wrong? To prove you right or justified in yelling at her? What good will that do you? It’s over. So you have to avoid outside stimulus that is going to make you feel bad and just move forward. But why not websurfing? Because you know you are going to check her facebook page. Or her blog. Or her tweet stream. And it will just make you angry. You have to follow the advice in “How to Deal with Crappy People” only this time, the crappy person is your ex. You don’t want to become a crappy person also.

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F) Forgive yourself. So you did spy after all. So you threw a book in anger. So you were a complete jerk and now he left and is with another woman. So you got angry and cried and tried to argue with him or her not to go. So the police came and picked you up. So you wrote those angry letters about what you were going to do. Ok, you were bad. But you’re not a bad person. You just were abandoned. It brought back memories of every other time you were abandoned. The faster you forgive yourself, the less likely this type of thing will happen in the future. Maybe you deserve to have been left. But there’s seven billion people on the planet. About half of them or of the opposite sex from you. You’ll find another one who is even better. It’s a law of the universe. If you use this event as an event that will inspire personal improvement then it’s a guarantee you will meet someone better.

The Best of James Altucher

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