Seven Habits of Highly Unemployed People

Hard work, dedication and a game plan – these are three things you’ll have to avoid entirely if you have no plans on ever reentering the workforce.

Anyone can be jobless. Even in a good economy, losing your job is as simple as having a few drinks at the company Christmas party and needing to prove to your boss that you’re a “big man.” Still, few people can truly find a state of permanent and blissful “unemployment.”

Here are seven tips on avoiding the daily grind:

#1: Change your Way of Thinking
A lot of your friends, family and most societies throughout the world will look down on you for not working. You can’t get caught up in ideas like that. Viewing life as a constant need to move upward is known as “vertical thinking.” You need to use “horizontal thinking.” In fact, while you’re at it, start doing everything horizontally – sleeping, eating and watching television are all good starts.

#2: Find Time for Yourself
It’s easy to lose personal focus when you have so many lives of daytime television characters to worry yourself about. But the free time during unemployment is the perfect time for self-discovery. Luckily, it’s much easier to find something when it’s always on the couch, right where you left it.

#3: Stay Busy
Most people don’t know what to do with themselves while not employed. The trick is to find one project every day to complete. A good suggestion is spending at least three hours each morning growing a very untidy beard. Mustaches are easy. But a scruffy, ninth-grader beard is your way of saying, “Even if I accidentally walked into a job interview, my appearance alone would keep me out of a job.”

#4: Get Your Rest
Between barely moving, not doing laundry and refreshing your Facebook homepage, it can be hard to find time for proper rest. Sleep is important for maintaining your health and vitality. There’s no set rule for how many hours you should get a day. If you’re having trouble with it, try sleeping until you no longer have a sense of the passage of night and day.

#5: Manage Your Personal Ties
Once you stop working, it might be tricky to keep your relationships in order. This is a good start, as friends and family tend to complicate joblessness. They keep asking questions like, “When are going to go back to work?” or “Get out of my basement.”

Truly alienating your closest friends, however, will take more skill. They’ve stuck by you for years and may be hard to get rid of. To complete the task, be sure to repeatedly tell them how difficult it is to sit in a bathrobe for twenty-two hours a day. For extra effect, always point out how happy you are that it’s “finally the weekend.”

#6: Create Clever Titles
Some jobless people can’t get over negative titles like “unemployed.” That’s why you’ll need to think of new ways to label yourself. Do you criticize commercials out loud? “Marketing consultant.” Do you spend all day ogling attractive female characters in “World of Warcraft?” “Human resources analyst.”

Failing any of that, “freelance writer” is always a safe bet.

#7: Keep Things Fresh
Despite all the perks and easy lifestyle involved in not having a job, it will eventually get tiresome. Just remember that variety is the spice of life – or lack of one. There’s lot of ways to pass the time while not technically adding anything to society. Spend some time in Starbucks “writing your novel” so everyone can see it. Nurse the same one-dollar item at a fast food restaurant for eight hours. Make that “Bionic Man” noise whenever you get off the couch or go to the bathroom.