Please DONT Have A Nice Day

I've never been one to live in denial, to greet every day and every person with a pretend smile, and a happy demeanor, unless I happen to feel that way and then I will, because I feel that way....not just to save face. I just cannot lie to myself like that, and I don't want to lie to you either. In fact total honesty is the basis for my lack of a happy demeanor. For the most part I never feel like that inside, overjoyed to be alive. I consider the standard phrase “Have a Nice Day” or even “How are You?” to be sacrilege against my own personal code. While some people really do want you to have a nice day, for most it has more often become the standard utterance for a race of drones. I fail to understand the strategy behind the wish that you have a nice day because it has nothing to do with the day you are really having. And how would you know what kind of day anyone is having when everyone is pretending to be having a great day? Does pretending make it a great day? Asking every stranger “How are you” over the 5 second interlude you have with them may well be cordial enough, but do you really want to know how they are? Especially when you know they are going to respond “I'm great, how are you?” Well, I can only speak for myself when I say I would like to know how they are, but then I have never been one to follow what everyone else is thinking. Most people don't want to know your troubles. They want to know you are fine...because they don't really want to know you. Its just a way to get past any awkwardness. It seems to cover a vast range for everyone. People cannot fathom any other response than, “I'm fine” or else it interrupts the brainwashed brainwave of static that fills their head. Too much information might upset their apple cart. Isn't ignorance bliss?

You know I do understand that sometimes it's better to say all is well...and I can do that, but I cannot keep that up for too long because for me more often than not I don't feel everything is roses which makes lying even more a sheer pretense.

So what about all of the self help/positive thinking/Inspirational books that are professing that you live by your feelings, as a model for authentic living. Go with your feelings they say, your feelings are supposed to be your barometer. Well how can we do that when everyone is pretending that we are OK and that everything is fine? I am living from the way I feel but unfortunately the way I feel most of the time is not all that wonderful and it definitely doesn't go along with how everyone else SAYS they are feeling. It makes a hard match between me and the rest of the world. I tell the truth about things and I tell the truth about how I feel. But that doesn't sit well with people because this world is all about denial.

So the con must go like this....You have this plethora of broad ranged experiences from joy and sorrow, from humiliation to exhilaration. Regardless of how good or bad those experiences are you are still expected to be happy about them. And keep it in a general vanilla tone. "Just think of all the good things you have" people tell you, while nothing is mentioned about your feelings. Feelings don't exist.....

I'm not even counting the personal abuse episodes, government policing, class distinction or social humiliations. I guess I wasn't sold the same soundtrack as everyone else, because I don't want to lie to you by telling you that everything is fine when it is not. In the theme of The Who's rock opera “Tommy” I seem to be screaming to everyone...”I'm not going to take it” while everyone else has their ear plugs in, their eye shades on, and the cork in their mouths. In my mind, if I lie to you by telling you I am fine when I am not, I am also lying to myself and it goes against my internal code of who I am and therein goes against the grain of my own reasonings. No wonder I think I am different.
I stand out in this society like a sore thumb just because I am usually not having a nice day.

So here I am in the latter quarter of my life and I observe myself being still in the frame of mind that I was in my youth. Still expecting people to respond to me truthfully and be just as concerned about the way things are, the inefficiency and injustice of things, not to mention how they feel inside about their own lives. To taste it, to really feel it, and to churn it over and get past it. To understand it. But no one wants to know now either. Now, it's worse, as people are frowned upon for being in the doldrums or for not smiling through a grueling day. We all know that bad things are happening, even happening to those we love and sometimes to ourselves, but we are not allowed to acknowledge how those things affect our inner gage of feelings and our own balance of fortitude. You are only allowed to do that if you sign onto a talk show or a news documentary. Only then will you be revered for feeling bad.

I ask you then....Does it really help us to just pretend it isn't happening, does it make it any better of an experience to grit our teeth through the whole thing? Not really, because it is still a bad experience. And surely we remember it that way. We don't remember going through hell as Having A Nice Day!