Self-affirming posts just don’t work for me. It’s the equivalent of those mantras that are recommended for people with a poor self-esteem. You know, the ones where you’re supposed to stand in front of the mirror every morning and tell yourself how beautiful you are, or how important you are, or how brilliant you are, or how…that’s what I believe is wrong with so many people these days. They’re so busy trying to convince themselves that they’re something that they don’t feel, that eventually they believe the lies that they tell themselves without ever resolving the underlying mess that led them to feel un-beautiful, un-brilliant, un-important or un-anything!
It’s an escape from reality (cue Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen). The only mantra that ever worked for me was ‘I don’t wanna be here’…and I would say it in a deliberately hypnotic trance-like tone that was audible to the people around me. I would also hold my fists together and twiddle my thumbs for full effect while maintaining tongue firmly in cheek. That worked for me because it made me realise quite quickly how ridiculous it was to wish for something without taking action.
What’s worse is when I see people posting these statements of intent of how they will survive, they will overcome, they will be great, they will move on, they will they will they will…but they never DO! Hasn’t Nike gotten through to them yet? Just do it! It’s great to state that intention once, maybe twice, or at a stretch three times! But to continue intending for months on end without acting is just a ridiculous waste of life.
Perhaps at some point in the future we could then say,
“hey, I spent 2010 hurting,
2011 hoping,
2012 planning,
and eventually in 2013 I decided to act…
but it seems that all my plans were outdated by then because the world had moved on while I was still denying the reality of what happened in 2009!”
And before you hate me, I’m NOT undermining the hurt or the pain that anyone has gone through in their lives, nor am I assuming that my experiences were worse than anyone else’s. My point is simple, the more you reinforce the statements of intent, the longer you dwell on your afflictions as a victim! Stop being a victim and do something constructive. Like that old cliched proverb goes, action doesn’t always bring happiness, but there can be no happiness without action!