{"id":1673,"date":"2013-09-26T06:02:58","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T13:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=1673"},"modified":"2013-09-25T21:39:25","modified_gmt":"2013-09-26T04:39:25","slug":"its-all-about-me-me-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1673","title":{"rendered":"Self help for smart asses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I had opinions<br \/>\nThat didn&#8217;t matter<br \/>\nI had a brain<br \/>\nThat felt like pancake batter<br \/>\nI got a backyard<br \/>\nWith nothing in it<br \/>\nExcept a stick<br \/>\nA dog<br \/>\nAnd a box with something in it<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;the White Stripes\/The Hardest Button To Button<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re so mean when you talk<br \/>\nAbout yourself, you are wrong<br \/>\nChange the voices in your head<br \/>\nMake them like you instead<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;P!nk\/Fuckin&#8217; Perfect<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s pretty clear by now that I have conflicted feelings about (everything) any sort of media designed to be inspirational or motivational.\u00a0 It&#8217;s all so&#8230;slick. So&#8230;.phony. So&#8230;saccharine. So&#8230;.positive. So&#8230;.woo-woo. It makes me want to gag, and then poke someone in the eye.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, OK, balance is important. Do you have to be so jargon-laden and sanctimonious when you tell us about it?<\/p>\n<p>So what does a woman in need of inspiration and motivation do?<\/p>\n<p>Well, if she&#8217;s me, and in this case she is, she turns to rock &#8216;n roll. It&#8217;s self help I can sing along with!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When I am in need of dispositional adjustment, I frequently turn to P!nk, Storm Large or Bob Marley.\u00a0 P!nk tells me to be nice to myself. Storm reminds me that big girls aren&#8217;t built to walk the straight and narrow. Bob tells me to alter my consciousness and relax. I&#8217;m not a huge fan of his personal way of altering his consciousness, but an IPA or two serves the same purpose. Especially if you have good company. I am lucky enough to spend\u00a0 a lot of my time in good company.<\/p>\n<p>Lucky. I say that a lot.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it&#8217;s because I&#8217;m generally in such a good mood. From listening to music.\u00a0 And singing. Or is it the reading?\u00a0 Don&#8217;t you wonder about that? Not about MY luck, but about yours?\u00a0 Are people with generally good dispositions luckier? The Internet seems to think so, a quick Google search turned up a couple of articles. I&#8217;ll throw\u00a0 links down at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n<p>Movies and books are also motivational. Not movies and books that intend to be though. I prefer movies I can memorize. Movies with Monty Python. Movies that make me laugh and think.\u00a0 Books by Christopher Moore about Jesus or vampires. Books with talking fruit bats.<\/p>\n<p>Laughing is the most neglected self help tool, don&#8217;t you think?<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re thinking that my motivational tool set might be a little lacking, you could be right. It might not work for other people. Plus, I am almost entirely devoid of motivation to do much beyond read, sing, laugh, write and go to work every day.\u00a0 Would I like to do a better job getting to the gym more often? Yeah, sure. But I have shit to do. Music to sing. Books to read. Stuff to think about. People to laugh with. Important stuff.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Shrug.<\/p>\n<p>My life is pretty great. I may not need as much inspiration and motivation as I think.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Semi-random note:<\/p>\n<p>When I was looking to see if there was actually a book called &#8220;Self Help For Smart Asses,&#8221;\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t find one, but in searching I stumbled on a site called &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/lifeaftertampons.com\" target=\"_blank\">Life After Tampons<\/a>.&#8221; The tagline to the site is &#8220;Quit Your Bitching. Change Your Life.&#8221;\u00a0 I&#8217;ve not actually looked at the site, but certainly the domain name is very promising. It contains a section proporting to help a person declusterfuckify their life which can&#8217;t be a bad thing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Links about luck:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/daringtolivefully.com\/how-to-make-yourself-lucky\" target=\"_blank\">How to Make Yourself Lucky<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/collections\/201307\/make-your-own-luck\/the-luck-formula\" target=\"_blank\">The Luck Formula<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I had opinions That didn&#8217;t matter I had a brain That felt like pancake batter I got a backyard With nothing in it Except a stick A dog And a box with something in it &#8211;the White Stripes\/The Hardest Button To Button &nbsp; You&#8217;re so mean when you talk About yourself, you are wrong &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1673\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Self help for smart asses<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-qZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4533,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4533","url_meta":{"origin":1673,"position":0},"title":"Validation is mine sayeth The Lord. Oh wait, that was me.","author":"Michelle","date":"March 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This has been an excellent week for the sarcastic, foul mouthed fat people of the world. Suck it, goody two shoes. First, I read a story somewhere last weekend that indicates that there's yet another study which shows that dark chocolate is good for you. Then later that same day,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5257,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=5257","url_meta":{"origin":1673,"position":1},"title":"Movie dream","author":"Michelle","date":"April 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In the dream, they were in an enormous crowded place. Like a mall. They bought tickets to a movie, then he asked her to wait for him for a few minutes. She waited. She searched for him with her eyes. She sent him text messages. He never came back. She\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11871,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=11871","url_meta":{"origin":1673,"position":2},"title":"Is this thing even on?","author":"Michelle","date":"March 24, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah. This whole daily writing thing. Suddenly it just-poof-disappeared! What was with that? Is it coming back? Nah. It's been done. Occasionally? Maybe. I have thoughts now and then. Sometimes I miss spitting them out here. It could be good to get them out of my head and onto virtual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Random thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2128,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2128","url_meta":{"origin":1673,"position":3},"title":"Be vewwy, vewwy quiet","author":"Michelle","date":"October 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. --Khaled Hosseini\/The Kite Runner \u00a0 By the time I post this, I'll be going into my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4456,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4456","url_meta":{"origin":1673,"position":4},"title":"Imaginary misunderstanding","author":"Michelle","date":"March 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm cold. Sometimes you are. What? Sometimes you're cold. Cold? Yeah. Sometimes you're kind of cold. Wow. OK. I just meant that I forgot to wear a jacket. What do you mean sometimes I'm cold? Like emotionally? ... ... How am I cold? You just said. Physically. Ah. What? Nothing.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1758,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1758","url_meta":{"origin":1673,"position":5},"title":"Agents of fortune","author":"Michelle","date":"October 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The fates are vicious and they're cruel You learn too late you've used Two wishes like a fool. --Hedwig and the Angry Inch\/Wicked Little Town \u00a0 Destiny, destiny, no escaping that for me. --Young Frankenstein \u00a0 It's so tempting to believe in destiny isn't it? If you believe that everything\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}