There is an upside to everything
Loneliness
Loneliness when viewed on it’s own, without thinking about how other people are, is not a bad thing, especially when compared to the horrors of failed relationships, and the fact that most people are a waste of time. The loneliness experienced when surrounded by other people, is far worse that sitting at home in a quiet apartment with only your cat for company. Society pressures people to associate with other people, not because this makes sense or because this is necessarily healthy, but because your average person lacks the emotional and psychological resources to survive without a support-group of friends and family. In a sense, being lonely, and being able to handle it for more than 10 minutes, means that you are stronger than you average person.
Impotence
Sex, like Christmas, like Valentine’s Day, is just another commercialized product that big-business has taken control of, repackaged and is in the process of selling back to you. Commercial sex is a lot bigger deal than the real thing. The whole problem of psychological impotence is due mostly to sex being such a big thing to everybody. If you are impotent and are able to accept it, then that takes some of the pressure off, which in turn will take care of the impotence if it is, in fact, psychological and not, you know, cancer.
Exhaustion
You get to sleep at night. There is nothing like being tired at night to get you to sleep. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, and in those cases, being exhausted can serve as a distraction from other problems you may have. Like pain it tends to swallow up everything else in your life.
Hunger
Apart from making you appreciate food, you get a tolerance for those basic uncomfortable situations of which adult life is full. It makes you less of a pussy, and patient. Note that short-term hunger is different from chronic hunger leading to starvation, though I guess, the same principle holds true. You also may lose weight if you are hungry enough of the time.
Smoking
There are apocryphal benefits relating to the positive effects of nicotine on the part of your brain that is affected by Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. There is more stuff concerning the relative immunity of smoker’s to airborne diseases due their passages constantly being flooded with mucus, but there are more definite benefits to smoking, that while not make up for the obvious drawbacks, are definitely there. These benefits include:
- Something to do with your hands
- A basis to socialize with other random people in designated smoking areas
- Something to look forward to every hour or two
- A long tradition of smokers in movies that serve as a club to which you have been admitted
- Something to force self-righteous non-smokers to keep their distance
Poverty
There is no greater motivation to work hard that the desire to escape poverty and a life among the poor. The whole reason rich kids like Paris Hilton are the way they are is because they have not had enough poverty in their lives. Poverty can also teach you the value of money. To be honest it does not always work, but it’s an excellent teaching tool that is available only to the poor.
Incompetence
Incompetence and stupidity do not always go hand in hand. A stupid person can be, and usually are, competent at limited tasks that don’t call for a lot out outside-the-box thinking, and most intelligent people are incompetent at something. The upside of incompetence is that you get the motivation to learn if you are courageous enough to keep going even after your incompetence has been demonstrated.
