You’ve been told by advertisers and other nick-picking monsters that your weaknesses and thought crimes will destroy you and facilitate your entire family’s descent into generations of inescapable poverty.
Naw. Your vices are nothing but improperly maligned, very human impulses that exist to enable you to survive. Your vices are gifts. Enough with the shaming. Burning people (including yourself) at the stake (metaphorical or real) for every misstep is needlessly cruel.
Everybody survives by being a little imperfect.
So don’t be a dick to me if you find a typo in this thing.
And on that note, here are your ten wins for the week:
WIN ONE: FOOD!
You were ravenous and so you consumed. Gluttony is a crime only if you are never hungry. And you are hungry. Always. It’s a function of being alive.
Putting nutrients in your mouth and use them is not only an activity that prevents your death and decomposition, but also a trigger for the little happy chemicals in your brain to get to work.
WIN TWO: PERVERSION!
You thought some thoughts that your ancestors did not approve of and, if you’re lucky, got someone to let you act on them.
You are someone’s idea of what is WRONG with this country and honestly, that assessment is one to take pride in (I mean, your boat floats. They don’t even admit they HAVE a boat. Who’s the real weirdo?). Anyway, good for you. Don’t ever change unless that’s what makes you happy.
WIN THREE: NAPS!
You were tired and so instead of giving up and surrendering to the horrid stress, you took a pause and arose more ready than you were before to carry on. Sloth is not a crime. Sloth is just another word for rest. Rest is just another word for recharge. Recharge is just another word for preparation. Preparation is just another word for future power.
Your nap was an investment in your future.
WIN FOUR: RANTS!
You were pissed and muttered or shrieked or threw something. You stomped around and deftly won never-fought arguments with non-present bullies while conditioning your hair. You called famous people unspeakable things. Rightly so.
Congratulations: You’re aware of the dumpster fire engulfing us all and you’re not yet dead enough inside to shrug at it. Being angry means that you care. Thanks.
WIN FIVE: JUST ENOUGH!
You did nothing “spectacular” and only what was needed. The good-enough things you did flew under the radar and so you’ll be able to do them again without needing to prove that they work because they already did, without any fuss.
Cheers to you, one of the capably unnoticed who keep the civilization from imploding without imploding yourself.
WIN SIX: LIES!
You told the best lies. You told yourself that you’d feel better soon, that you had a scheduling conflict with that overtime shift, that you could handle that repair, that it would all work out eventually, that the pointless call failed, that the creepy baby was so cute. And the best part about those lies is that not only do you kinda/sorta/partly believe them, but you know that the lies you told were kindnesses.
You recognized the love embedded in deceit and used that slippery stuff to ease the friction of daily life. Those lies you told: they helped.
WIN SEVEN: MOCKERY!
You laugh when the camera is off. You scroll past so many posts and think, what stupid little pieces of trash. You delete obvious spam. You judge. You judge without even thinking about it. But if you didn’t, you’d be living in a house full of unsellable MLM products and grifter roommates demanding alibis and a little more time for the rent.
Don’t turn off your bullshit detector. It’s saving your life.
WIN EIGHT: IGNORANCE!
You are out of many, many loops. You are unaware of so-hot gossip occurring in the 4th Circle of LinkedIn (where the recruiters are banished). You are not paying attention to every single one of the nine billion pressing issues destroying the world.
You are doing what you can on the topics you have studied, and that’s filling all your time, thanks. You do not have enough of an opinion to get into arguments with experts (real or facebook), and you know it. Enjoy the bliss created by your own priorities.
WIN NINE: DRUGS!
Maybe you laughed at your own jokes or went for a run and you got a little high on that bootleg serotonin you made yourself. Perhaps you made a cocktail of a little-something snazzy and watched some plotless television.
You maybe even took all of your prescriptions on time, even the giant, gritty vitamin, and now your brain is pleased. Or you might have had a can of that trashy soda you can only get at a gas station and you burped something that smelled like deodorant, and you liked it. But somehow, you got some fun chemicals into your bloodstream. Nice.
WIN TEN: ARROGANCE!
You won this week by being secure enough in yourself to ignore the following message (paraphrasing here) sent by our culture:
“Just who do you think you are? Huh? We’ve been sending memos about this for years. Years! And yet! Here you are, not GETTING them! When will you understand that it is your ONLY and EXPLICIT purpose in this economy to feel absolutely, perpetually terrible about your mouth skin, typeface decisions, secret credit score, vehicular sex appeal, hair shaft circumference, educational document collection, posterior aesthetics, sleep schedule, eyebrow fluffiness, fingernail density, SMELLS, attention allocation, sports knowledge, nostril symmetry, lawn mowing frequency, financial trajectory, partnership opportunities, hobby monetization, funeral planning, WEIRD TITS, gadget ownership, grout filth, knife sharpness, anal noises, and overall agreeableness level, to name JUST a few things? At your earliest convenience, begin to remedy yourself before we change the trends and your work is rendered obsolete. Have you NO shame? Apparently not!”
Good job, everybody. Now go get some orange slices.