Don’t believe me? It’s easy! Here are 10 simple, fool-proof steps to inhibit two completely opposite states at once.

1. Wake up with a heavy feeling in your chest about The Awful Thing. Sit in the sadness for a few minutes while scrolling through social media for a momentary distraction. Then, remember the breathing exercises your therapist taught you and practice them for a few minutes more.
   
2. Attend your friends’ weddings, engagement parties, christenings, and birthdays. Wear lovely colorful clothing, style your hair just right, and clap and cheer at all the right moments. Excuse yourself to the bathroom every 45-60 minutes. Sit on the toilet and cry. Wipe your tears and wait for 6-7 minutes until your eyes return to their new-normal chic shade of bloodshot rose. Return to the party inconspicuously, making sure to feel genuine happiness for your friends throughout.
   
3. Wear blush and lipstick, but never mascara. You may feel happy now, but sadness is a sneaky little thing that creeps up at the most inconvenient times.
   
4. Skip the concealer, too; it feels like a betrayal to cover the dark circles caused by The Awful Thing. (Plus, your drugstore products aren’t powerful enough, turning your under-eyes a weird grey hue anyway.)
   
5. Accept friends’ invitations to go to the pub, fancy dinners, and their homes. Laugh at their jokes and anecdotes. When it’s your turn to share, tell them about how earlier this week, when your manager asked how you were, you burst into such a violent fit of sobs that you had to duck under your desk to hide from the camera until you could get a hold of yourself.
   
6. Ignore how awkward your “funny” story makes everyone.
   
7. Share your happy news with your partner. Mention your new job offer, your new book-reading streak, and the compliment a stranger paid you as you were walking down the street thinking you looked like a mess. Then, mid-sentence, burst into tears—big, fat ones that make absolutely no sense to your partner or to you. Wipe them off aggressively and say, “They’re happy tears!” when both of you know they’re not.
   
8. Wake up with a peaceful feeling in your chest, momentarily forgetting about The Awful Thing. Spend a few minutes of pure bliss scrolling on social media before remembering it all. Enjoy the mixture of guilt and crushing sorrow as you process it all over again.
   
9. Do the stupid breathing exercises.
   
10. Get angry at how they actually work.