Hang In There, Baby!

I live in utter fear of motivational products—those soundbites of schlocky uplift that appear on calendars and posters, accentuating images of glorious sunsets, soaring eagles, big-eyed children dressed as cute hobos, and kittens dangling precariously from tree branches by their tiny, razor-sharp claws.

It’s because there lives inside me a deep-seated anxiety that everything I read (except Ann Coulter) must have a grain of truth to it. Or a strain. Like a virus. A strain of virulent truth, inoperable and drug-resistant, that will enter my bloodstream through my eyeballs. There will be no symptoms initially, other than a persistent snickering. One poster, featuring an image of a lush woodland path, says, “Fall down seven times. Stand up eight.” Why? If you’re that clumsy, it’s safer to stay down. Maybe invest in a helmet.

The snickering eventually clears up on its own, but this only indicates that the infection has progressed to a more dangerous stage. By then the uplifting message has been internalized, gnawing a sanctimonious new neural pathway through my psyche.

It may lay dormant, awakening only during a flare of activity, such as jogging. I could be half-heartedly chugging around Lake Nokomis, with only the sounds of my leaden footfalls to keep me company, when the endorphins kick in and “Just Do It” repeats in my brain over and over again, licking at my fiery hamstrings like a lash from an inspirational whip.

Or, as in the case of “WWJD?,” the homilies may go to work immediately, cross-contaminating every thought, word, and deed until I am no longer able to distinguish between reality or Wal-Mart’s professed focus on scriptural principles. (I’m pretty sure Jesus wouldn’t back a company that lines its management’s pockets with gold and drives its workers into poverty, while hiding behind a yellow smiley-face mask. I’m Christian myself. Look it up in our manual. See Revelations under “Great Deceiver.”)

Actually, if you give them any real thought, all of these sayings are problematic. Take “I grumbled at having no boots until I met a man with no feet,” attributed to “Unknown.” First of all, what does this mean to the guy who has feet but no boots? Stop complaining? Maybe the guy with no feet had feet until his feet froze off because he had no boots. Second of all, if I didn’t have feet, I wouldn’t need any boots. I’d need fake feet, and probably a ride to the fake-feet store to get a pair. And boots at that point would be superfluous, like balloon valances.

Also, doesn’t the fact that most of these sayings come from some “Unknown” freak you out? The Void is telling us how to live our lives. It’s like taking a prescription drug from a doctor you don’t know. Tell you what; just substitute “Beelzebub” for “Unknown.” It works almost every time. Imagine Lucifer in his blazing pit, pointing his pitchfork at you and cackling, “Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday!” And that little kitten hanging from the branch—she’s dangling just above Satan’s head. The white-hot tines of his trident are poking at her furry bottom as he screeches, “Hang In There, Baby! BWAH-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Come to think of it, isn’t it a little suspicious that the kiosks selling these calendars all vanish after Christmas? Admit it, Anthony Robbins looks like the Devil, doesn’t he? How else could he be that big? He’s got paws the size of catcher’s mitts. Brrrr.

Nobody buys motivational calendars for themselves. They’re always given to you by someone who claims to have your best interests at heart. It’s like presenting someone with a can of Slim-Fast and a mirror and saying, “I know you’re going through a tough time right now. I saw these and I thought of you.”

Deep down, my real fear of these motivational posters is that eventually, if I’m infected long enough by the germ of truth in their sayings, I will have to face up to my responsibilities. And that’s scary because the answer for me is almost always: No. No, technically, I am not being “All That I Can Be.” I could be nicer, thinner, richer, smarter, and more loving to my fellow man. I could get up at five a.m. and walk my dog around the lake and come home and throw a load of laundry in and do the Times crossword puzzle and sing my children awake and pack healthful lunches and smile at my co-workers for no good reason. I could eschew takeout in favor of home-cooked. I could give up sugar, sugar substitutes, and trans fats. I could think globally, act locally, and visualize world peace. I could do more sit-ups and have more face time and look on the bright side until my retinas are French fried.

I could probably keep up this kind of schedule for a week, and then I would go shoot up a Wal-Mart.