Dogs generally seem like a happy bunch. Like, they default to happy: Nothing’s going on, there’s Pupper over there wagging a tail and cheesin’ and looking like there’s nothing wrong with the world. But when nothing’s going on with a human, there they are with a fidget spinner, biting the insides of their lips and wondering when the apocalypse will come so they can stop worrying about all the little worry-worthy things they have to slog through before they finally die.

But if the apocalypse is gonna come anyway, it would make more sense to be more like dogs. Yeah, they might live shorter lives, but in the words of award-winning 21st-century philosopher Aubrey D. Graham, “I’m here for a good time, not for a long time.” Dogs live that. But how?

Here’s 5 cool, very fun ways.

1. Dogs refuse to read or write listicles.

Think about it. Have you ever seen a dog doing what you imagine I must have been doing to get this article to you? Of course not. Yet. And if this sounds dumb, let’s get on some stats: Rates of depression and anxiety in the U.S., especially among young people (the most susceptible to the ills of listicles), have jumped like a dog trying to catch a tennis ball since around 1930. Maybe we can chalk that up to improved diagnostic methods, but those wouldn’t explain the same trends since 2005. What’s happened over that same time? The popularization of listicles. Clear correlation. Blame Moses. He started it.

2. Dogs are comfortable with platonic nakedness.

UNC, with our wonderful streaking tradition, does better on this point than most places (Note for plebs: Night before the first reading day, meet at the flagpole). But if you were to walk across the quad naked, people would arrest you, not pet you. Generally, people will say that everyone being naked would increase risks of sexual violence, but look here for an argument in the other direction, mostly focused on Christian culture, but it gets at some important points for secular ones. Being more comfortable with our bodies and choosing whether to show them or not (even dogs love a cute sweater-vest every once in a while) seems like a good move.

3. Dogs greet each other with their butts.

Another body-comfort thing: When did humans decide we had to cover up our natural body-smells? If you've been out all day, sweating up a storm in the summer sun, you’re gonna smell like a human. So are we all. But how many times have you caught yourself being low-grade (or high-grade, if that’s your thing) anxious about forgetting to put deodorant on or talking with a friend right after working out? Just another small but persistent worry that we add to our long list of small, persistent worries. Dog’s don’t give a shit. They just smell each other’s asses and appreciate the idiosyncrasies of the bouquet therein like seasoned sommeliers.

4. Dogs fight for fun.

When did we lose our collective love of youthful scrapping? Probably right around the time we got to thinking that speech could be violent. Our over-sensitization to violence may well be related to our expectation that it’s always remote and always extreme: We export our violence, then say it’s never acceptable here. But when we normalize the idea that violence is never acceptable, then we see our country perpetrating seemingly arbitrary war crimes, we forge this idea that either violence doesn’t exist, or it is extreme. How many mass shootings could be avoided if we were more comfortable with old-fashioned bar fights? I don’t know. Maybe none. But the line of reasoning is, at the very least, plausible.

5. Dogs bark.

A good bark does a body double plus good. Bark at your friends. You’ll giggle, they’ll giggle, everybody feels a bit less constrained, and you get to communicate with them without the pesky tendency of language to remove you from all immediate experiences, forcing you instead to live in an imaginary world of categorized simulations. Dogs do not do this. Dogs see the truth in the world. Bork bork! Feel that? It’s the feeling of escaping the Matrix.

So bark at me, fight me, spit on me for writing listicles if you see me. In the words of UNC’s preeminent ukulele god Juan D. Roa, “I’m just tryna be a dog, man.” May we all be so wise. May. We. All.