Making Life a Better Place To Be

Maintaining a positive outlook on life can be a difficult chore for some. I even find that people with cheery dispositions often irritate me to no end. The person with a constant smile on their face, the person for whom the glass is always not only "half full" but also "half full of wholesome goodness," the person for whom a Shirley Temple pout is the ultimate expression of unhappiness or disdain - these are the ones that exacerbate my own feelings of gloom and doom. How very "yin-yang."

My own outlook on life would be much better if I didn't constantly reinforce my pessimistic view by repeating negative affirmations and dark-side mantras. If we indeed create our own reality, perhaps this practice is at the root of the situation.

One of the oldest of these sayings is "Life sucks and then you die." There are, of course, many permutations of this one but, my favorite is quite extended: "Life sucks and when you try to die they put you on life support, then charge you for it. And then, when you can't pay the bill you're made to feel like more of a worthless shit than you did when you tried to check out in the first place."

One of my other oft used litanies is based on what an old college buddy of mine used to say. "The world is filled with stupid people and there are more of them than there are of us." Over the years this has proved to be a quite flexible invective, one that can be endlessly customized to the situation.

"The world is filled with stupid people and there are more of them than there are of us and they impact our lives daily."

"The world is filled with stupid people and there are are more of them than there are of us and someone gave them all driver's licenses."

"...there are more of them than there are of us and somehow they all became a) doctors b) lawyers c) political commentators d) *fill in the blank*.

So, if I stop repeating these affirmations and replace them with positive, happy, cute and fuzzy sayings, will my life transform into a better place to be? Well, maybe it would, that is, until someone punched me out for being so glib.

In the words of one of my favorite bumper stickers: "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention."