positivity is mustard

there's a lot of positive affirmations flying around out there... a whole lot of, "think positive, live positive." and that's totally cool if that's your thing. but i think you should know that you're gonna need a lot more than positive affirmations or famous quotes that reflect lots of positivity to get through the day. life can be an ugly sludgefest beyond the assistance or repair of any makeup. we'd all probably do well to know ugly when we see it and not try to view it through some sorta rose colored glasses.

sure, a positive outlook is better than a negative outlook. i'm not debating that. what i am debating is that you can fix anything at all with positivity alone. sometimes you're doing something wrong or maybe you're not trying hard enough or maybe you're just having a shitty day that's not gonna get any easier on you no matter what you do. 

if positivity was enough, we would've cured cancer with facebook posts years ago. if all you needed was to see things in a brighter perspective, the football team coached by ned flanders would always win. ugly things happen. sometimes the bad guys win. we won't always get the happy ending. shit ain't like that. it's not. i can't tell you why but i know it's true because everyone has a shitty day and shitty things are constantly happening to good people.

don't go abandoning the good guy routine. the world needs more good guys than bad. but being good won't be enough. sometimes you gotta have a better plan or a bigger gun. sometimes you gotta be smarter, stronger, or more charismatic. a lot of times you have to be richer (sucks, i know. hooray capitalism???). no matter what the situation, most of the time, being more positive won't be enough to get you through your trials and tribulations. 

i'm not saying you should stop being positive altogether. to me, postivity is like a condiment... like ketchup, or mustard if you hate ketchup. and life's a burger. the point is to eat the burger. you're gonna eat it regardless and it's probably gonna taste better if you put your favorite condiment on it. but the condiment itself can't eat the burger. you gotta do that yourself. start chewing.