I have discovered the secret to lifelong happiness and peace of mind!! How cool is that? Are you curious to know what it is? It’s quite simple, actually, here’s the step by step tutorial:

1. Move in with a nice, easy to please person who already has a lot of money.
2. Use their money and go on an extended vacation to a tropical island paradise.
3. While you are there, say hello to one of the locals, and next thing you know the two of you will be hanging out together and on the way to becoming very good friends.
4. Make an offering at an ancient temple.
5. Accumulate good karma by being nice to people.
6. When you get home from vacation invite your new friend to come for a visit. The two of you will hit it off and in no time at all you’ll be in love and making plans for marriage.
7. Because of your good karma, a mysterious person will leave a magic lamp on your doorstep in the middle of the night.
8. When you find the lamp, keep it safe until you are in a really good mood, and then rub the lamp.
9. A genie will appear and give you three wishes. Isn’t that nifty?
10. Wish for peace of mind. (Save the other two wishes for later).
11. You will then be in a permanent state of grace – and lifelong happiness will be yours for the taking.
12. Now, marry your friend from the islands, and when that person is in a really good mood, give them the lamp so they can wish for their own peace of mind… and the two of you will live happily ever after!

I know this to be true because I played the Sims all day yesterday and that’s exactly what happened!

Here’s the back story:

I’ve been having this urge to play the Sims – which usually means there’s an important lesson about life that I can learn from it. So I powered up my game and created a person just like me. And of course, right away I realized that she was going to be a real pain in the ass because I couldn’t get her to make friends with anyone. She flat out wasn’t interested in talking to people at all… and spent all of her time making sure her 3 cats didn’t destroy her house. She didn’t have any money, and she couldn’t find a job she liked. It was sounding way too familiar!

So, I decided I’d populate my neighborhood with copies of me and see if I’d even like myself if I happened to meet myself on the street. I love social experiments like this… Anyway… she’d never talk to herself when she walked by – and if I made her stop and chat – she’d spend like… I dunno… 2 seconds saying “hi” and then she was out of there.

It was obvious that she was going to die alone and unhappy.

So I decided to try something different. I made a copy of my person and her 3 cats and then I moved her in with a total stranger, a nice, easy to please stranger with money. They hardly spoke and never became friends but now my person had someone to take care of her animals while she went on vacation – and off to the islands she went. Once there, she wanted to learn some of the local customs – so she said hello to one of the locals and they just hit it off. I had never seen my sim person so animated and interested in talking to anyone ever.

When she got home from vacation, their friendship continued, and somehow she accumulated some good karma and the magic lamp showed up on her doorstep. I have no idea how that happened. I suspect it might have something to do with the offering at the ancient temple… I dunno… but whatever it was, she is now in love and permanently happy.

Ok… yeah I know, life is not a sim game… but I’m just saying… all it takes is enough money for a cool vacation.. an offering at an ancient temple… and who knows…