There is a lot of motivational wisdom around, sometimes taking the form of aphorisms, little packets of truth to take around with you. Facebook people love this. No-one is you and that is your power. That kind of stuff. Pepping people up; always optimistic. It doesn’t matter that you might also say the opposite. No-one is you and that is your tragedy.
Here are a couple I saw recently:
Life doesn’t always introduce you to the people you need to meet. Sometimes life puts you in touch with the people you need to meet, to help you, to hurt you, to love you, and to gradually strengthen you into the person you were meant to become.
As in so much of this type of wisdom, it is all written from the perspective that life will inevitably take you to a better place; it can never take you to a worse one. As though life were a benevolent guide. We are back to the Panglossian world of the meilleur des mondes possibles.
Here is another one.
Lemonade is my word because it reminds me that life is sweet and even when it has moments of sour you can make something great out of each experience.
What such sentiments remind me of are the Soviet requirements that literature and Art should be uplifting. This is American totalitarianism.
Life is about being yourself. ‘Cause no-one can tell you you’re doing it wrong.
But what if you are?

peoplearerubbish.com