DON'T QUOTE THE RAVEN: An Anti-Inspirational Blog Post

An Anti-Inspirational Blog Post

7.20.2017

Ron Swanson, the greatest anti-inspiring person ever aka my spirit animal - marry me Swanson!

As I scroll through all my pointless, irrelevant, trivial, aimless, futile and meaningless social media feeds, I am often inundated with positive meme's, you-can-do-it attitudes and syrupy affirmations about life. Some days I nod my head in agreement, and others I want to round up all that positivity and the people that spew it and sling shot them all to the fiery depths of Walmart aisle 5 at 12:14 am on Black Friday in Muncie, Indiana.

Today is one of those days.

There are enough inspirational assholes out there. Between them and grammar snobs, it's hard to feel up to par with the rest of society. So I figure it's high time to write something a little, shall we say, not so inspirational for the rest of us.

Aka, the best of us.

- Let's lead off hard with the most obvious and annoying inspirational folks of them all: the braggart. I wrote an entire post on these specimens here but figured they deserve another mention, because can you just put a sock in it already!? Showing off your mansion and all your money doesn't inspire anyone. Actually, that's not true. It inspires me to like you even less than I already do.

- The girl power squad of "women can do it all, women are powerful, women are amazing, women rule the world, etc." I mean, everyone already knows we rule the world. Duh, we have boobs. But the overemphasis of it all is cringeworthy. And sometimes, the enthusiasm can be downright dangerous. One of the worst pieces of advice I have ever heard in my life is, "Don't look for a man to save you. Be able to save yourself." Ok man-hater, have you ever been hanging off the edge of a cliff seconds from death, only to have a *gasp* man reach out his hand to save you? Yes, I said save you. If you lived life by your advice, you would hang there until you eventually fell and died. But hey, at least you did it all by yourself! Woman power! Oh, and the next time I hear someone say, "I did everything he did, but backwards and in high heels" I'm gonna say prove it. No, right now, do that one handed layup off the backboard that you just saw him do, but you know, backwards and in high heels. Either do it now, or get out of here with that inspirational but totally inaccurate drivel.

- "If you can dream it, you can do it." Um, actually, that's totally not true. Seriously, why all the inspirational lies? I've been dreaming about being a Calvin Klein underwear model, or Britney Spears' tour manager, or a professional Grey Goose vodka taste tester for years now and I've never been not closer to any of those dreams in my life. My husband has been dreaming for a wife that regularly doesn't overspend and underperform and well, my point is that not all dreams come true. In fact, if we're being honest here, most never will. One or two might squeak through the cracks, but life is hard, and then you die.

- Social media has created a mass amount of #goals no one knew they were lacking. Like the girlfriend who constantly hashtags #boyfriendgoals when everyone and little Susie down the block knows he flirts with everything that walks and makes you go dutch on your #goalworthy date nights. The chick who hashtags #hairgoals when she painfully obviously wears fake extensions. The mom who has three nannies and hashtags herself #momgoals (L O freaking L). And then of course we have #squadgoals that everyone and their posse posts. I hate to break it to you, but if it ain't a trio of Britney Spears, Ron Swanson and Billy Bob Thornton, your #squadgoals are busted.

- Speaking of hashtags, this one deserves it's own bullet point. I'm talking about those who post a selfie of their mug with #nofilter when obviously and I mean so obviously they are using a filter! Newsflash! Even if you pull a photo from Snapchat (where you so obviously used a filter) and then post it to Instagram and don't use a filter, it is still a filtered photo!! That's like me drinking five vodka soda's at Applebee's and then moving on down to Red Robin and sidling up to the bar and telling the bartender, "I haven't had anything to drink here yet! Give me my first vodka soda." Truth, but mostly just lies.

- Then we have those people who are experts on life and try to tell you how to live it. Every time I see their status update on Facebook I think, "oh for f*cks sake, here we go again." Yes, please do tell me how much sugar is in that soda and how many pus pockets are in my steak, you life ruiner. Also, I pinky promise that if I need to know how to get pregnant, what to eat while I am pregnant, what not to do while I am pregnant and how many times I shouldn't be doing it while pregnant, what doctor approved medicines to definitely not take while pregnant and which position is best to birth out a baby from my honey pot, I will ask. Did you get that? I. Will. Ask.

- Can't leave out the gym rat #inspos, oops I mean #fitspos (eye roll). Let's just say there are more phones at the gym taking selfies these days than actual people working out, and yeah yeah you're on a health journey and have already lost twelve pounds and I'd probably take that selfie too if I looked like that but I don't and truth be told I prefer my burpies come from eating too many doughnuts instead of those God-awful exercise thingamajigs but that's neither here nor there. Do you think "checking in" at the gym on Facebook is going to inspire anyone to give up Ding Dongs? Girl please. But my favorite, and I mean my absolute hands down indisputable favorite are the #sobrave posters whom obviously have no body fat whatsoever but post photos of themselves bent over with the quote, "everyone has rolls when they bend over." Well no shit Sherlock that's just basic gravity but I have rolls when I'm stick straight upright frigid in the middle of winter! I might have an ounce of sympathy for you if you walked around like the Hunchback all the time but you don't. Because that's not how people walk. And that photo of your "roll" isn't how you really look. Thank you though for trying to "stand in solidarity" with us fat folks, I guess.

Now go flex yourself.