10 Pep-Talks for the Cynical

drowning out the voice of shame with the voice of reason

This week, I kept seeing “pep talks” all over the place. I’m not sure if it was the frequency illusion at work or if pep-talks are becoming a larger note of our cultural background music, but I ran into a bunch of them.

If the increasing frequency of pep-talking is, in fact, real: People need pep-talks when they’re feeling rotten, low, worrried—when they’re feeling ashamed. The more pep-talking that’s going on, the more shame must be being felt, and pep is the placebo treatment for many, many emotional wounds.

Crap. That’s dark.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m marinating in corrosive shame, I don’t want a pep-talk. I don’t want to be told to live and laugh and love when I want to crumble and cry and stab. I want an honest voice to lead me out of the cauldron, not one that makes excuses in cursive frosting while my skin melts off. Maybe you do, too. So instead of saccarine pep-talks, here are some dry Voice Of Reason visuals.

When you see the rational honesty of reason contrasted with the meanness of shame, you can’t help but feel less bad, and see shame as a needlessly, pointlessly cruel feeling. BOOM: pep-talks for the cycnical.