My Positive Affirmation: Positive Affirmations are Bullshit and Knowing That Makes Me Smart

I’m going to start off with a warning, I’m foul as hell today. I am just in a shitty, shitty mood. I could blame it on waking up on the wrong side of the bed, or I gained 3 lbs, but let’s tell it like it is… Without going into too much detail, you may want to mark this day on your calendars, because every month around this time I get fucking foul. We women like to treat men like they’re total dickheads if they say we’re bitchy during our periods, but I’ll admit it. It’s SO true. We are nasty bitches. My husband knows when I start, to just come home from work with a bag full of chocolate and not to look me directly in the eye. The man’s not a fool. Due to my seriously foul mood, the pictures that my friends and family are posting on Facebook with the “Positive Affirmations” today are really pissing me the fuck off. Let me tell you why…

Positive affirmations and the whole “Self Esteem Movement” that revolves around it, is a gigantic, steaming pile of BULLSHIT. I’m not saying that it’s bad to feel good about yourself, but repeating mantras about how beautiful and special and unique you are, is not going to suddenly make you beautiful, special, or unique. It may, however, warp your self-image and turn you into a narcissist. On the other hand, telling your children how perfect, special, beautiful, and unique they are WILL turn them into narcissists. The self-esteem movement is bullshit, do you know why? Because in the REAL WORLD (You know, that thing that we all end up having to deal with…) there are winners and losers. The real world doesn’t give a flying fuck about your self-esteem.

I was raised in the 80s. Right smack dab in the middle of the “Self Esteem Movement”, when everybody was a “winner”. Luckily for me, I was raised by a realist who let me know early on, “Uh no, you’re not going to become a ballerina. Why? Because you’re short, chubby, and you’re a crap dancer. Here, read this book that’s 4 grade levels ahead of your class. You’re good at reading.” Did that crush my 5-year-old soul forever? No. I am short and chubby, and I am a really bad dancer… But I’m an excellent reader and I’m fairly intelligent. My mother did me a favor when I was little and refused to buy me a tutu. She taught me how the real world works. In the real world not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to think you’re pretty. Not everyone is going to think you’re funny or smart or a good dancer. In the real world, life isn’t always fair. You have to nut up and deal with it. You have to accept that you’re not going to be a movie star, instead you’re going to be running the fry station at Burger King. Guess what? Life isn’t fair, but at least you have a fucking job and someone has to make my french fries.

What I’m trying to say here is this… Stop it with all this positive affirmation crap to boost your own and your kid’s self-esteem. You’re really not doing any favors for either of you. There was actually a study done in California (The fucking weird shit capital of America, mind you.) that ran from 1987 to 1990 that showed no correlation between high self-esteem and better grades or a lower tendency to commit crimes. High self esteems do, however, create douchebags. That said, go delete that shit off your pages before I, personally, call you out on it.