• Volunteer with abandon to do things you know very little about in order to look good in the eyes of people you hardly know. This ratchets expectations so you have much to live up to and you can put yourself under a lot of pressure. Remember, you work well under pressure. Lots of it.

• Keep lots of secrets, especially those that ought not be secrets in the first place and especially those that are none of your business anyway. Harboring “confidential” or “sensitive” information will make you feel important especially if it includes stuff about your friends and they don’t know you know.

• Take on problems and difficulties that other competent people have already found impossible to solve. Feeling, at least for a while, as if you are Superman or Wonder Woman, can offer a real charge.

• Gossip with abandon.

• Get slap-bang in the middle of other people’s conflicts, especially if the conflicts are none of your business, and especially if the conflicts have a long history. Being the new hope on the block will get you fired up. You’ll even feel very spiritual. It’ll feel like God calling you to a sacrifice of some sort and then when you are ground down and close to burned out, rather than feeling like a busybody (which you are) you’ll feel as if you are aligned with the martyrs of old.

• Agree to roles (at work and where you volunteer and most definitely at church ) where you have much responsibility but very little, or even no authority. Guilt and blame are a real grind, and this is one way to ensure the grind begins as soon as possible. Remember, no pain, no gain.

• Take yourself really seriously – important people with important positions and important missions have no time for recreation. Why should it be any different for you?

• Be nicer than Jesus.