Your Sh*ts Aren't The Trick
Has your anxiety fixed the world yet?
#1, March 7th, 2023
Listen to this post in audio format below.
Hey Shani,
How do I stop feeling like life is an unrelenting uphill battle? Politically, personally, professionally? How can I reframe the bullshit without engaging in toxic positivity?
Hey You,
I want you to know, immediately, that many in the Hey Shani community feel the same way about toxic positivity. Specifically, it can eat glass. Throughout my life I’ve carried shame around being “too negative” from my family and peers’ perspectives while in my own head thinking “no, this shit is actually pretty bad you guys,” so it’s incredibly validating to know I’m among my kind. I’ll do my best to answer you without peppy, Quinn Morgendorffer delusions and instead try to come from a place of raw honesty. Advice tartare, if you will.
You’re doing exactly what your programming was coded for, let’s start there. If life feels like a permanently inclined treadmill of striving, trying, and a general unsettled feeling like everything is awful and it’s entirely your responsibility to fix it, the game is performing exactly as developers intended. It’s harder to raise children who don’t care about anything, so we were bred to associate achieving things with receiving love and safety. What no one realized in the goddamned 80s and 90s was that the vast majority of human life isn’t occupied by achievements, but by the process of reaching for them. We’ve also been taught to ignore the difficulties of the process because supposedly the rewards of hitting the bullseye are so great. Do they feel great? I don’t know man, I think a life lived solely for moments of achievement sounds half lived, if that. I think it would feel better to… exist (?!) if living in a way that balances contentment and motivation was more celebrated. It certainly sounds like a better idea than operating as though life is just a giant string of things that are wrong and the only ways to fix them are making more money, phone banking, or leaving a huge tip. You’re tired, babe. By design.