If you’re one of my Facebook friends, you may have seen the Salon column I linked to titled “I trusted my gut and got screwed” by Cary Tennis. If you’re not one of my Facebook friends, you can clicky the linky. And you should send me a friend request, because I rock and would make an awesome addition to your stable of “friends.”
In short, the column is about being honest with ourselves about what we really want in order to avoid making gut decisions that make us want to disembowel ourselves so our guts can never ruin our lives again with their dirty, sweaty lies.
Red Flashlight pointed out that the column was good for not saying crap like, “If you just change your attitude, everything will be moonbeams and kittens, and moonbeams shining out of the asses of kittens, and kittens shining out of the asses of moonbeams.” I paraphrased her there.
I got to thinking about how much that advice to look on the bright side pisses me off. It generally means, “If you just delude yourself into being happy, you will be.” Of course you will be. But you’ll also be deluding yourself. There’s a word for people who do that shit, and it’s “Scientologist.”
I’m not always successful at the brutal self-honesty thing. There’s no evidence that Mom can hear me when I talk to her from the toilet or that asstastic people will meet with bad karma, except in the sense that they generally attract each other in a vortex of suck. But if I’m unhappy, there’s probably a good reason, so I’d rather be genuinely bitter and pissed off when the occasion calls for it than floating on a cloud of false optimism.
Sometimes, you gotta tell a kitten to piss off and take her moonbeam with her.
What kind of -ologist always looks on the dark side of things? ‘Cause they suck, too. I suppose they’re just … “depressed.”
No, those are emo kids.
Interesting. To add a contrary voice, I would say that if you followed this “analyze everything you love about the current thing” philosophy, is that it could make it more difficult to take chances on new things. Someday I will be old, stuck in my ways, unwilling to change, and yelling at kids on my lawn. That day is not now, and I don’t want to generate mental blocks in the way of new experiences.
So what if she didn’t love her new life in the country? She may learn to like it after shes been there as long as she was in the city. Instead of complaining that the grass over here isn’t as green as she thought it would be, maybe she should focus her energies on tending the grass where she is to make it greener.
Change always comes with risk, I guess I have limited sympathy for people who take gambles that don’t pay off. That’s part of the deal
Your husband wasn’t so sure about New Jersey, but eventually it led to him marrying you, super-awesome-chica, and living in one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world. You just never know!
Indeed. I think he was saying that, too, in the part where he advises her not to be too quick to move back to the city. But I do like his advice to look harder at the little things, because when making life choices, we tend to look at the big picture and toss the little things that truly make us happy.