Saturday, April 16, 2011

Be nice to yourself, mmmkay?

Everyday Health has a recently-published article titled "6 Unhealthy Things You Should Stop Saying Now". Presented for your enjoyment, the six things and my rebuttal (huh huh huh, I said rebuttal):

1. "Look at my arm jiggle."
Not everyone who makes negative comments about their body is fishing for compliments. Some of us legitimately have jiggly arms and floppy asses to complain about. If no one else is blunt enough to tell me, "Hey, you have droopy knees!", I'll do it for myself.

2. "You always..." or "You never..."
But my husband always farts in bed! What if I am being as specific as possible with my comment? I don't think that's going to cause things to spiral out of control, to the point where he's pooping on the comforter. However, this is the one point in the article that I disagree with least, mainly because guys don't seem to "get it" if you speak in anything other than definitive, black-or-white statements.

3. "I'm such a pig."
First of all, the example given in the article doesn't really seem that bad. A whole bag of pretzel M&Ms? God forbid you eat 150 calories beyond the saltines and applesauce you've been subsisting on. Seriously, pretzel M&Ms? How about "I'm such a pig because I accidentally the whole thing! Is this bad?" If you inhale an entire Pizza Hut, that's something to be concerned about. But pretzel M&Ms? Feh. Eating candy from the vending machine in the break room is nothing to beat yourself up over. As for calling yourself a pig, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

4. "I'm soooo sorry."
What's wrong with apologizing for bumping into someone in the elevator? Saying nothing makes you look like an inconsiderate ass. I definitely don't see this as damaging my self-worth. What this article should really have for point #4 is overuse of the word "love". You do not "love" that necklace or yogurt or end table or whatever. I do realize that one of the word's many meanings is "strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything", but I doubt people who habitually overuse "love" are that passionate about everything. I see nothing wrong with people loving Mom, apple pie, and Elvis, but I do have a problem with people who "love" everything. It devalues the word. The same goes for the word "hate"; everyone is always spouting "oh, I hate this" and "I hate that". What's wrong with "like" and "dislike"?

5. "Ugh, I'm beyond stressed."
Like, ohmigosh. The author of the article says that admitting you're stressed out "[implies] incompetence." No, it doesn't. It implies that YOU'RE STRESSED OUT. There's a difference between "I am so stressed about the metric ton of stuff I have to do" and "meh, I'm not gonna do any of this bullschwa so I can chillax."

6. "I can't afford this."
The article says that if you pick up a pair of $1195 Louboutins and say, "I can't afford this," it means you're not in control of your own situation. Um, no, I think that shows I'm in pretty damned good control of my situation. If I look at how much it costs to take a trip to Rio or how many hours of work it would take to pay off an iPad, there's no amount of creativity that's going to get me to buy those things. If I can't afford a luxury item, I don't need it. This is why Americans are in debt -- they buy crap they don't need with money they don't have.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm OK, I don't say any of those bad things. I remember watching 24 on TV and there so many times that Keifer Sutherland was saying "I'm so sorry." When we'd hear it we'd just look at each other and wish there was more to the scripts.
Mike

PS Stop over at my blog, I'm having a new giveaway.