From the age of seven to twelve, my brother was the world’s conscience. He was worried about everything – the weather going screwy, not enough food, too many guns. His posts had to be deleted from the Newsround website for freaking out other current event conscious tweens with his hellish visions of the future. Now of course, aged fifteen, he cares about nothing but furtive masturbation and tagging his friends in Facebook photos of poo. But my point is that the full title of this week’s self help book by Richard Carlson ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff...and it’s all Small Stuff’ isn’t entirely accurate. There is big stuff, like the end of the world and pregnancy scares. But the point is that everyone over the age of thirteen is too wrapped in their mini human drama to notice. My grand disillusionment came at ten with reading an Enid Blyton biography and discovering she was not the Guardian of My Childhood but rather a Class A Bitch. These days children are more likely to lose their innocent optimism snorting Vicodin off an iPhone or starting a blog about their life as a schoolgirl prostitute, but the effect is essentially the same.

By adulthood we have developed into mewling, self-centred brats who lie around drinking smoothies and watching shoddy 4oD documentaries, and since the mid-nineties ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’ has been touting its abilities to counsel us through the teensy anxieties which arise from our shallow lives. The technique of ‘Don’t Sweat’ is to shock you out of your daze of needless stress and to make you see you how good you have it, mainly by reminding you that you’re Not Dead. That’s an exaggeration, but there are about five chapters that rely heavily on this very technique – see ‘Remind Yourself that When You Die, Your ‘In Basket’ Won’t Be Empty’ ‘Imagine Yourself at Your Own Funeral’ and ‘Remember, One Hundred Years from Now, All New People.’ The last chapter in this list is the best; it’s basically soul balm for when someone’s mere presence in the same town as you fills you with profound rage. Fear not, says Carlson, for soon they will be six feet under, as will you, and everyone you love and cherish. It’s quite a numbing way of looking at the world – I’m not sure I want to inoculate myself against the difficulties of modern living if it means seeing everyone through a veil of mortality.

I have found a far more effective method of soothing neuroses – the reliable warm glow of schadenfreude. Why revamp your lifestyle and your world view when you can simply feel good that you’re not someone else? In our celebrity saturated culture, ailing stars and wannabes are a brilliant source of delight in another’s misfortune. Yes, you may be royally screwed, but at least you’re not Jodie Marsh/Frances Bean Cobain/Jordan’s kids or married to Charlie Sheen. Closer to home, comfort can be found in student life wrecks. You may have drunk a combination of cider, cream soda, white wine and Yakult last night, but a wander round college will ease your worries about time wasting and brain frying. At least you’re not that boy who hasn’t started reading Ulysses for his dissertation on Ulysses when it was due in last week. At least you’re not that girl who had a fivesome. The way to overcome the little failures and annoyances of everyday life is not to improve upon them, or yourself, but rather to remember how much worse things would be if you had any power or influence. Be grateful that the most you can fuck up is to slowly poison a perfectly workable relationship, or miss an essay deadline, rather than reprieve a death sentence lose an election, or invade a country. Hallelujah, I say, for being one of the little people.