How To Be a Victim

“I feel like a victim right now… and I love it!” Ridiculous. And yet, from time to time, we all make the choice to see ourselves as victims. While spotting this behavior in others is easy, ego makes it far harder to see in ourselves. But we are not helpless. Humor is disarming, which makes it an ideal strategy to flank ego. Exploring how to be a better victim is a back door to self awareness.

Practice these 8 steps, and you will be a world class victim in no time.

1. Live in the past and the future. Any victim knows they are powerless over their circumstances. Dedicate yourself to focusing on on things you are actually powerless over. Resenting the past and fearing the future are great places to start. You can’t change these things, which proves that your victimhood is justified. Plus, the more you live in the past and the future, the less time you spend in the present, where you actually CAN do something. 
2. Use Parkinson’s Law. Do you know someone who always complains how “busy” they are, but they never seem to be doing much? This person is a victim of Parkinson’s Law, which says your tasks will expand to fill all of your available time. An important part of being a victim is feeling out of control. Make sure your life controls you as much as possible. Minimize your commitments and continuously repeat your mantra of “busyness.” These minimal commitments will gradually expand to fill your entire life. Then you can start dropping victim cliches like “Even if I wanted to do something about it, I just don’t have any time right now.”
3. Turn up the volume on your ego. How often do you calculate in advance how your actions might impact other people? I’m willing to bet its almost never. But forget all that. Everyone thinks about YOU before making their decisions, right? That’s your ego talking. If you are really serious about being a victim, you need to turn up the volume on that inner voice. You are the center of the world. Not just yours, but everyone’s. When things don’t go your way, you can be sure that someone else (most likely a group of them) is plotting your demise.
4. Avoid serving others. Serving the needs of others gives you a sense of peace and purpose. It also helps right size your ego. There is a good chance you will connect with other people who share these attributes. This makes it nearly impossible to maintain the covert narcissism necessary to move up in the victim world. Any serious victim will avoid serving others like the plague.
5. Take no ownership. Ownership is the direct opposite of victimhood. It is kryptonite to your victim status. Once you take ownership, you are on a slippery slope to accountability and responsibility.
6. Be a martyr. Martyrdom is a great way to avoid taking ownership. Be sure to emphasize guilt while avoiding responsibility. Avoid using phrases like “Here’s what I did wrong…” That has ownership written all over it. Instead, say things like “I guess it’s all my fault…” An additional benefit of martyrdom is identifying “rescuers.” These people will fall for your emotional misdirection and try to save you from your faux guilt. Surround yourself with these enablers and you can remain a victim indefinitely. 
7. Cling to a rigid mindset. An inflexible mindset is the wall to your victim fortress. Make it tall and reinforce it at every opportunity. You have worked hard to establish yourself as a victim. Don’t throw it all away by allowing flexibility in your thinking. Here are a couple useful tools to increase the rigidity of your mindset:
   • Only associate with people who have the same views as you do. Even victims need support and encouragement.
   • Develop an arsenal of universal rationalizations for dismissing anything that challenges your way of being. A few timeless classics:
     • “You could never understand.”
     • “I guess we will have to agree to disagree.”
     • Shamelessly change the subject.
8. Procrastinate as much as possible. A growing list of tasks and projects that never get accomplished is proof that life controls you. Procrastination is the perfect way to fabricate this evidence.