Just a list of things I've found to be totally untrue
There are ten of the things
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1. Find something you love doing and you’ll never work a day in your life. Preposterous. I have been in a line of work I love and mostly doing stuff I love for years and years now. I work constantly. I feel good about what I’m making but it’s harder than I ever worked at stuff I hated doing.
2. It’s okay to ask for an entire can of a soft drink on a plane instead of just a cup. I believed this to be the case and that indeed was clever. But former flight attendant T.J. Newman explained on Fresh Air that this is selfish. If everyone did it, they’d run out and not get to everyone. And so I shall change my ways.
3. If you just smiled more you wouldn’t feel so depressed. Yes, I would. Want to try it out and see what happens. Let’s bet a lot of money.
4. Someone who is fortunate in some ways has nothing to be depressed about. This chowderheaded comment pre-supposes a depression that responds to logic. If it was that orderly, it wouldn’t be a disorder. This is the passive-aggressive heir to the horrible parent saying, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”
5. Never meet your heroes. Generally, for me, meeting my heroes has worked out great. I think this is because I try to see people as inevitably flawed human beings so nothing really disappoints me all that much. And many of my heroes are artists and in the current age, artists can’t really afford to be assholes much anymore. I’ve had occasion to meet lots of comedy and music heroes and several have become real life friends.
Why, here’s one of my heroes now. Lovely guy:
6. It’s the end of the world. This has never been true so far and therefore it is a lie. This is a good thing to mumble to oneself all day.
One of the closest experiences I had to the end of the world was when I did this song at karaoke after a couple of drinks. I still don’t know a lot of the words to it and certainly didn’t then. It was a disaster.
7. Mean dogs and bullies are more afraid of you than you are of them. Absolutely false! In the case of the bullies, it is precisely because of the power they feel when pushing you around that they push you around. Maybe they’re miserable somewhere else in your life but they’re being assholes to you in order to feel better. As for mean dogs, they’re too messed up for things like feeling afraid.
8. Only you can prevent forest fires. That’s a lot to load up onto me. Fuck off, Smokey the Bear. If you spend enough time on YouTube trying to find Smokey the Bear videos, you will go bananabonkers.
9. People can’t change. Back in the 1970s, a lot of parks looked like ass. Litter everywhere. We finally had the idea to pick things up and throw them away. It was a revelation! An owl led us.
I invoke the terrifying singing owl to say that my whole thing, my whole DEAL, is getting past the stigma of mental health treatment in our society. So more people get help, so new ways of helping can evolve quicker, so fewer people die. I know people can change.
Did I say all this to set up an excuse to include this sketch below? No. But I would have been justified if I had.
10. Karate is going to be important to know. Really believed this as a kid and knew my life would be worse because I knew I’d suck at it. Too poorly coordinated. Too afraid of combat. I’d get beat up by some karate guy all the time. This was going to be part of adulthood. Turns out, I’ve never been attacked by a karate guy nor have I been in a situation where karate training would help. Whew.