Mental Health – Half-Blood Kuwaiti

Women, Beauty Standards…and Men

I don’t like choice feminism.

If real feminism were a fruit, choice feminism would be artificial fruit candy, or maybe Fruit Loops cereal. Not nearly as good for you, but much easier to digest…and sell.

By choice feminism, I mean the idea that anything can be an act empowerment if it was freely chosen. Nothing is more important than choice. I’m not advocating taking choices away by any means, it’s just the only criteria for a good choice cannot be that it was a choice.

Maybe after centuries of women being told what to do all the time, the movement designed to help them doesn’t want to start doing it too. Maybe it’s due to feminism becoming mainstream, and too many people are chiming in who don’t want to think critically. But surely if we want to help women we have to be able to talk frankly about choices and consequences.

This is especially evident in the beauty industry, perhaps because of the amount of money at stake. If it makes you feel good, it’s good, even if it’s painful plastic surgeries that mutilate your body and threaten your health. But sometimes feeling good is just fitting into patriarchal beauty standards. It’s not bad to enjoy that; it’s understandably pleasant. But let’s not pretend all joy is your soul self-actualizing and reaching nirvana.

A short walk through any mall reveals ads using phrases like “express yourself,” “be you,” or “empowering” to describe shopping, often for entire categories of products that men don’t even buy. I guess they’ll never get to experience the satisfaction of being themselves or having rights. Or maybe I don’t need to buy pants made by a sweatshop worker in India to express who I am inside. Maybe makeup doesn’t somehow reveal my inner beauty by covering up my actual face.

There’s no way forward when people refuse to say anything is inherently harmful. Empowerment is not simply feeling good. It’s about gaining actual political, economic, social, or personal power. Feminism wanted to create a better world for women than the one where they only power they had was through being sexually attractive to men. It isn’t real power, and it doesn’t last. No one would patronize a man by saying he was empowered when he put on a nice suit or got a haircut. No one would expect them to be satisfied with something so inconsequential.

I recently followed an account on Instagram called @notyourmanicpixiedreamcurl. Helen doesn’t shave, wear makeup, or dye her hair and is critical of the idea that we should. While I don’t see myself giving up makeup anytime soon, I scroll through her content fascinated. One, it’s refreshing to see someone stating a real opinion, and two, she makes a lot of sense. Why is it that the natural female body is seen as disgusting? Why is it that women are told they’re expressing themselves through makeup when they’re actually changing themselves? How is painting on a new face everyday not a message to your psyche that your real one isn’t good enough?

I’m not sure I’m willing to sacrifice my own attractiveness at the altar of these principles, but the principles themselves are logical. In the end, the thing I most have an issue with is not women trying to be as attractive as possible. It may not be good for us, but it’s understandable, perhaps even instinctive. It was probably completely harmless in hunter-gatherer days because we didn’t have the option to surgically alter our entire bodies. My issue is with pretending this is an empowering, feminist choice just because it’s a choice.

When men care as much about their appearance as women do, it’s strangely unattractive. Many women would be horrified if their husbands started wearing makeup. Why? I’ve heard one theory that it reflects our hatred of women. Men who act like women are making themselves less because women are less. This is possible, but it seems odd to make wearing makeup such an integral part of being female when it hasn’t been for a long time. My theory is that it seems pathetic for a man to put so much weight on his physical appearance because he should know he’s worth so much more than that. But for women, it’s okay because it’s accepted that how they look is the most important thing about them. In a world where that kind of thinking is prevalent, imagine how damaging it is to believe your defining quality doesn’t even exist anymore after you wash your face at night.

If any men are reading this, I’m willing to bet many of them are nodding along agreeing, saying they’ve always said women shouldn’t wear makeup. Theoretically, I should like these men. In reality, I usually don’t. The more often they mention how much they don’t like makeup, the worse they usually are.

Many of them aren’t coming from a place of concern for how makeup affects women. They don’t believe it’s unnecessary because most women are so beautiful without it. The reason they don’t like makeup is because they think women shouldn’t pretend to be more attractive than they are.

It’s not totally illogical. But if no women wore makeup, we would get used to it and the standard would adjust to reflect that. The women you think are attractive with makeup would probably still look attractive. I once heard a man say he thought men were better-looking than women because they don’t need makeup. Newsflash: No one needs makeup. It’s something that exists, people use it, our expectations have adjusted accordingly. The man who hates makeup and expects women to be beautiful without it is so often toxic because our current beauty standards reflect the number of artificial means for enhancing beauty that are available. Without realizing it, makeup-hating men expect women to look that way without any help, which in my opinion is just cruel. The most beautiful women in the world wear makeup and get photoshopped. Most men can’t even tell when someone is wearing makeup. They genuinely don’t realize how unrealistic their expectations are, because very little of what they see around them is totally natural. I would prefer to be around more traditional misogynists who complain about women not putting in any effort to look good because at least they realize an effort is required.

In this strange reversal of common sense, men are giving themselves feminist points for criticizing and shaming women who are trying their best to get by in a world that values them most on things they can’t control. Whenever they try to take some level of control, they’re criticized for being artificial. But it’s hard to forgo the opportunity to be more attractive when going natural usually results in being asked by everyone if you’re sick. I’ve had people stare and even gasp when they see my natural face. I am apparently such a convincing portrait of illness that if I want to skip work, all I need to do is come in the next day bare-faced, and no one questions it. This strategy was once so successful my own students told me it was okay if I wanted to go home and take more time off.

I don’t think I’m an unattractive person, but incidents like these make me wonder. Sometimes I think we have forgotten what natural faces look like. In a world without makeup, my made-up face would be the shock, not the real one. But then I think I’m only telling myself this to feel better, that somehow I’m the only one who looks this way, who manages to masquerade as attractive with the right disguise but falls into hideousness without it. As much as I am defending the human frailty that leads us to paint our faces and even operate on them, beauty culture is still extremely damaging and this is one of the reasons why. Women have become more and more isolated in their insecurities. Just like men, even we don’t know what other women really look like anymore. We only see our own face, with all its flaws, and feel alone and ashamed. Although I wouldn’t put body hair removal in the same category as makeup, it often has a similar effect. Women grow up secretly ashamed of how much hair they have, believing they are a special, defective minority. But the truth is, when everyone removes their hair, no one knows what normal is anymore. When everyone wears makeup, filters their photos, and dyes their hair; when celebrities almost ubiquitously get nose jobs and Victoria’s Secret models get boob jobs, people forget what natural beauty looks like. They don’t even recognize it as beauty anymore when they see it.

In all of this, people seem to have forgotten that if the most important thing to you about a woman is her appearance, you have missed the point entirely. Looking prettier than you really are is only a crime when looking pretty is terribly important. It’s better to say women don’t need to wear makeup because they don’t need to look good. Men who are afraid of makeup think they’re entitled to a beautiful woman and deceiving them is like robbery. But what if we didn’t care what women did to their faces because their faces just weren’t that important anymore? We don’t live in this world yet—we probably never will—but if we did, it wouldn’t really matter if women wore makeup or not. It wouldn’t damage their self-esteem the same way, we wouldn’t think showing your unadorned face is showing your true self because it isn’t the self at all. Before we criticize something, it’s worth considering why we think the matter is so important in the first place. It all hinges on the idea that women are defined by their appearances, what they do or don’t do with them.

Sometimes, when I feel unattractive, I think about two things to feel comforted. One, it’s God’s fault I’m ugly not mine, so He should feel bad not me. Two, I remember that if the way I look is the most important thing about me, and the best thing, I have truly failed. I have succeeded in something that will surely fade, and failed at everything that really matters. I can’t control what the world values, if people are more impressed by my painted-on face than my personality, but at least I can decide how I value myself. How I feel at night in bed with my eyes closed is more important than anything I see in the mirror.

You’re Not Spiritual, You’re Just an Asshole

Ten years ago, if I had met someone who told me they were on a spiritual journey, I would have been enthralled. Now, I’m more likely to run the other way. It’s not that I hate spirituality. I think it’s amazing. I even follow @theholisticpsychologist, although sometimes I wish I didn’t. It’s just that when I think of a spiritual person, I think of someone humble, deep, and capable of experiencing life on a whole different level. What I usually get is someone who hates their father and is too busy finding themselves to commit to lunch plans.

It just seems like spirituality has become a trend, and while a helpful philosophy becoming popular should be a good thing, that tends to not be what happens. Whenever something becomes mainstream, it automatically loses a lot of its nuance. It has to in order to be accessible to average people who haven’t looked at the subject in depth and probably aren’t interested in making radical changes to their lives. Susan who practices five minutes of daily mindfulness wants to reduce her anxiety, not find the source of all human suffering.

It’s not bad to simplify concepts to help a normal person live a better life. But we have to be careful. While we acknowledge that religion can easily be misused or misapplied, spirituality isn’t regarded with the same suspicion (despite spawning its own fair share of sexual predators).

One of the first problems with the current discourse around self-help and spirituality is that the same messages are being sent to very different people, who may not have enough self-awareness to determine what applies to them and what doesn’t. There is a lot of focus on being yourself, saying no, and not being responsible for other people’s feelings. That’s exactly what some people need to hear. However, it’s not as many people as you might think, despite the vast number who will tell you their toxic trait is “being too nice.” After all, the problems in our lives tend not to be caused by having too many unselfish people around us. Many people would benefit from being less self-centered—being encouraged to help others and think less about their own desires. When only the first message is circulated, everyone picks it up, and what happens is much like when a narcissist or psychopath sees a therapist. They don’t change, they just learn how to dress up their self-centered behavior in fancy words that make it harder for others to argue with. Disagree with someone like this and expect it to be labeled gaslighting, shutting down all further discussion because a difference of opinion is now a psychological manipulation tactic. Expect a certain standard of behavior from them, and you will be treated like you’re codependent, trying to change them, or too attached to whatever aspect of the conventional world best dismisses your point. To the toxic woke person, the only emotionally healthy people are those who don’t ask anything of them.

The second big problem is that the spiritual quest is often seen as seeking your authentic self, but what gets left out is that the authentic self in a spiritual sense is the part of you that is closest to God or a higher power. It’s not your personality or anything we mean by the self in the usual context. Monks and nuns sometimes practice cultivating an inner and outer silence in order to more clearly hear the voice of God in their heads. You probably know the voice they’re referring to even if you wouldn’t describe it as God. Essentially, the personality needs to be subdued for the higher self to emerge. This means abandoning your ego and surrendering to something greater than yourself. When this distinction about the meaning of the true self is lost and you remove the connection to some type of higher power, even if it’s just the universe, the result is a radical change in purpose. The end goal becomes you and figuring out what you want. But the destination at the end of the journey should not be you. It should be letting go of you.

This isn’t because it makes you a better person or more pleasant to be around, although it does both of those things. It’s because this is how spirituality will make you happier in the end. The person who goes for a walk in the woods or sits by the ocean and feels lighter and freer feels that way because they’ve been reminded of how unimportant their own worries are compared to the vastness of the universe. They feel small and insignificant, but not in a bad way, because they are also a part of the world that has just left them wonderstruck. This person has just let go of a bit of their ego and felt connected to something more important.

These are the things that bring a person peace–connection to something more, seeing our problems with perspective, feeling that we bring something of value to the world, loving and being loved, and being in control of ourselves. None of these things are easy, but any path towards fulfillment that doesn’t include them is going to be incomplete.

For some reason, spirituality has a reputation for being Religion Lite—all the fuzzy feelings associated with it without the annoying parts. No rules, only vibes. In reality, spirituality is the purpose behind the rules of religion. In his book The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley discusses the concepts all religions have in common, and it’s not things like having one god or respecting your parents. It’s that rules and spiritual practices like praying and fasting are designed with the goal of diminishing your ego so that you submit to the will of God. All religions are meant to achieve this. People would rather argue about what the rules are or whose rules are better than look at the big picture, which is that the rules are there to teach you discipline. This matters more than the rules themselves.

I don’t say this to glorify religion. I just say it to illustrate that the idea of the spiritual path being easier than the religious one is based on a misunderstanding. Spirituality is the ultimate goal of religion and choosing it means taking responsibility for your own development instead engaging in rituals mindlessly. This is actually harder than just being religious. The spiritual person prays because they know it’s good for them. The religious person prays because they think God will punish them. For most people, threats are much more effective.

Spirituality that brings you only to yourself and your desires isn’t real. Any philosophy that results in you focusing on your own feelings all the time isn’t going to make you a better person. It can be necessary somewhere along your path to go through a period of self-absorption, but the purpose of understanding your trauma and emotions isn’t so that you can indulge them—it’s so that you overcome them. The next step should be moving forward.

If that next step isn’t reached, if the goal is focusing on the self for its own sake, you will get the problems we see around us. People will break commitments because being authentic to their (passing) feelings takes precedence. They will mis-interpret self-acceptance as an excuse to never grow, and a reason why no one should ever criticize them. Boundaries will be set from a place of avoidance instead of courage. You might have met examples of this in real life, perhaps in friends who think they should never be uncomfortable, or men who tell you how unenlightened you are when you ask them to stop sleeping with other people.

This type of spirituality involves avoiding discomfort rather than facing it, except perhaps the discomfort in cutting off relatives who vote Republican. I think we should bring back the type of spirituality people have to suffer for. What happened to meditating forty days under a tree, giving up your worldly possessions, or taking a vow of silence? Some monks clean as a form of meditation. In certain convents nuns are not allowed to look at themselves in the mirror to discourage vanity. Most people now would say, “There’s no real point to doing these things,” not understanding that the whole point is that it’s difficult. Doing hard things changes you, or at least teaches you something. I don’t believe you need to go to these lengths to develop a beneficial level of spirituality in your life, but if I’m going to be taking advice from someone, I’d rather take it from the person who spent a year challenging themselves than the person who spent a year doing whatever they wanted.

Human beings are better off when they don’t make themselves their own gods, usually because they aren’t very good at it. Much like children, we are happier with limits than when we follow our every whim. Relying on a consistent set of principles frees you from the burden of constantly evaluating your inner state to determine what to do next. And understanding how little we can control, even about our own futures, puts us in the frame of mind to accept what happens with grace. Religious people are often happier because they have given up the burden of believing they are the ultimate authority on their lives. Whatever is planned for them may be what’s best, even if it isn’t what they thought they wanted.

In the end, the easy way out is never real. Selfish people will always find a way to continue being selfish if they want to, so perhaps blaming it on poorly explained spirituality isn’t going to change them. But maybe looking at a more nuanced perspective will help the people who encounter them. Don’t be impressed or guilted when someone hits you with words that could have been picked up from the explore page of Instagram. Instead look at their actions. Is their life a good example of strong values? Has their brand of spirituality changed them for the better? Perhaps more importantly, has it affected the people around them positively? If not, smile, nod, and run the other way. The wolf who admits he is a wolf can be dealt with. The wolf who believes himself to be a sheep is impossible.

What Do I Do After I Figure Out What’s Wrong With Me?

gray monkey in bokeh photography

Juan Rumimpuna on Unsplash

I have been thinking about this question for several months now. I’m at a point where I may still be crazy, but I understand it better than ever. I’ve even figured out how it originated too, except for a few bits that can only be attributed to the generosity of God. But I don’t know what to do with this information.

I’ve always been good at sitting and analyzing my problems. Throughout childhood and adolescence, I made numerous lists of traits I wanted to correct about myself. My sister called this feeling sorry for myself, so I made sure to add that to the list. But these lists did not produce long-lasting results. They did, however, produce more lists.

The internet likes to suggest therapy as a catch-all solution for personal issues, and while I am not disagreeing with that, I’ve often wished that people would go further and explain a bit of the magic that is supposed to happen behind the closed doors of a therapist’s office. It’s like telling someone to go to the gym but no one wanting to explain what you’ll do when you get there. Then, when you finally go, you realize you could have done a lot of it in your own home and no one is blaming your parents nearly as much as you were hoping they would.

Anyway. My point is, a lot of self-improvement/healing is either about forcing yourself to be more productive or simply realizing why you have the issues you do. I have a few problems with this. First of all, I have realized many things in my life and failed to act on these realizations in any meaningful way. Second, if forcing yourself worked, people would keep their New Year’s resolutions.

Here is an example I have been thinking about recently. I procrastinate a lot and although it’s not a huge issue, I’d like to fix it. I have read that procrastination is often motivated by perfectionism, which is great, because I always thought it was because I was lazy. PSA to my high school chemistry teacher, former boss, and entire family: I’m not lazy. I’m seeking perfection. Apparently it’s a very thin line.

Anyway, the in-depth explanation for this did resonate with me. But it didn’t make a difference. I just understand why I procrastinate as I continue to do it. So I discussed this with someone recently, hoping for advice, but she did not offer any solution. She just said, “It’s not about fixing every little thing you don’t like about yourself.”

Strangely, I had never thought of it like that before. I didn’t realize that the purpose of gaining insight might just be to have more sympathy for myself and make slightly better decisions, and that that is enough. Insight is not a stepping stone to overhauling my personality.

Maybe healing and improving are not about fighting your nature to become a well-oiled machine. Maybe emotional health doesn’t manifest as effortlessly getting up at 5 AM each day, liking the taste of green smoothies, and becoming a CEO in your free time. Maybe it’s recognizing you hate that and shouldn’t try to bully yourself into becoming a different person.

It’s terrifying to accept that you will always more or less be the way you have always been, that no big change is coming. But I’ve tried to stay in this mindset the past few days, and I’ve found when you free yourself from constant self-shaming, it’s easier to do more of the small things each day that make your life better. Maybe a transformation is more likely to happen when you stop feeling like one is necessary for you to be worthy of self-acceptance.

I will never be the type-A overachiever I see as the embodiment of success (despite never actually liking these people in real life). I may be a bit of a perfectionist but I’m also lazy, and I can’t keep denying that when I check “Contactless Delivery” while ordering food, not because I fear corona but because I don’t want to change out of my pajamas to answer the door. I’m really bad at anything that pays well or involves sports, I’m scared to call people on the phone, and it’s remarkable how long I can stay in one place without moving. But that doesn’t mean someone else with different flaws would have a better life. (On a positive note, I can out-knit your grandma, and I’m really easygoing as long as you don’t get to know me well.)

Somehow, I’ve been thinking all this time that I could not be okay yet if I still have this many faults.

We cling to the idea of some people having perfect lives even though it’s illogical. We know we’re comparing our behind the scenes to their highlight reel, but we do it because we want to believe it can be a reality, and one day maybe our reality. Deep down, the voice inside of us is saying,

Perhaps, if I just do something differently, I will not have to be myself anymore.

I didn’t just write lists of my flaws as a child. I also wrote letters to my future self, as well as dramatic diary entries about various book characters and famous people I wished I were more like. Ironically, I actually did become many of the things I hoped for in these letters (except for popular and married at 17). And I was far more like the people I admired than I knew at the time. But even if I had seen these similarities back then, I wouldn’t have believed in them. And I think that takes us back to the original question. What do I do after I figure out what’s wrong with me?

I think the answer is, put down the scalpel, take a leap of faith, and believe in everything that’s right.

Let’s Be Marginally More Positive

persons hand doing peace sign

Anton on Unsplash

Only marginally, because excessive positivity is annoying and anxiety-inducing. Either things aren’t actually that good (annoying), or they are and God knows that can’t last (anxiety-inducing).

It feels selfish to talk about any personal benefits I’ve experienced from the corona pandemic when it has caused harm to so many others, but I need to be grateful, and I thought it might be a nice change from the usual stuff I write. I am lucky. Very lucky. Isolation may have eroded parts of my mind that I was once quite attached to, but that isn’t important. Today I’m going to count my blessings. Here is a non-exhaustive list of ways quarantine has benefitted me.

I have learned to appreciate the little things, like staying out past 6, not fearing the outdoors, and how good food tastes when it is prepared by literally anyone else besides me. On really dark days, I miss going to work.

I have an airtight excuse not to kiss my relatives for at least two years. Maybe the whole custom of cheek-kissing will die completely. I have never understood what pleasure I am supposed to derive from it, and if I started actively enjoying it, people would get very uncomfortable. So really, what is the point?

I have been forced to confront mental health problems I might have otherwise ignored. This is definitely 100% a positive thing! No drawbacks whatsoever! Without corona, I could have gone years without realizing I was crazy. That would have been dreadful. Truly, this was the biggest benefit of all.

My parents finally have a good reason to be glad I didn’t make it in medical school. Instead of risking my health and theirs working in a hospital, I’m at home, binge-watching TV shows made by people who have actually done something with their lives, and therefore come in contact with more germs. Corona has lowered the bar for underachieving children everywhere. I may not be rich, successful, or particularly well-educated, but I’m alive. At a time like this, what more could you ask for?

Face masks are cheaper than the nose job I occasionally consider.

I’ve learned new and exciting ways to bond with my family members. The most effective method I’ve found so far is to encourage them to complain about each other to me. Quarantine has given us lots to work with there, and annoyance with others is the common thread uniting humanity. I read in a book that the term for this is “triangulation,” and it is not healthy. Perhaps not. But it works and it’s not going to permanently damage my lungs, so I don’t see the problem.

I’ve gotten much more comfortable with how I look without makeup. I used to hide my face behind glasses if I wasn’t wearing eyeliner, and now I think putting on clothes is the most the world should ask of me. Plus, my makeup is now the wrong color. Corona has taught me to be grateful for the tan I never knew I used to have.

My relationship with my cat has flourished in direct proportion to the degree my connection with the outside world has crumbled. In other words, we have become very close. She’s one of the few beings I know that is needier than I am. I used to think her erratic behavior was due to my not spending more time with her, but now I realize she’s just crazy. It’s comforting to not be the only one.

In Defense of Binge-Watching Television

black flat screen tv turned on displaying 11

Mollie Sivaram on Unsplash

Ever since childhood, I’ve had a wide variety of interests. Skimming through the books in my old room takes me back to some of the phases I went through: Origami Magic, HTML in a Week, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ballroom Dancing, Ballet for Dummies. On an unrelated note, I may have also had low self-esteem.

Most of these interests did not go anywhere. I revisited Origami Magic recently, thinking it might be easier for me now than it was in first grade, only to find I had actually regressed. I still haven’t learned to spin wool even though I bought a spindle in 2016, and as you might have guessed, very few people learn how to dance from books. My career as a pianist lost steam around the time I saw a four-year-old Chinese boy play the hardest song I knew better than me. I thought recently about what I had actually stuck with long-term, and a common theme emerged. I have become really good at hobbies that can be done while watching TV.

The TV, our most devoted quarantine friend, has been the subject of considerable criticism. It’s been accused of wasting our time, ruining our morals, and turning our children into idiots. I once had a parent claim it was why her son hit me and chased me with a pair of scissors. “Too much television,” she sighed. (I had a slightly different theory.)

Maybe we are just looking at it too negatively. The TV is a valuable tool–if we just understand how to use it properly. It actually benefits us in many ways.

It immobilizes people, for one thing. Especially children. Anything that keeps a child still, in one place, without warranting a call to Child Services, can’t be all bad. But even adults benefit from sitting. I Love Lucy was so popular in the 1950s that the crime rate in New York went down when it was on the air. Mobile adults go to war, take advantage of the working class, and accidentally impregnate each other. If more time were spent Netflixing than chilling, the world would be a considerably less sinful place. Studies show that couples with TVs in their bedrooms get less action. And less action is exactly what God wants you to have.

On a serious note, you actually will amp up your productivity if you can combine repetitive activities with television. If you want to learn something new, consider knitting or crocheting just because of how TV-friendly they are. Know thyself, and therefore aim low. Use TV to motivate you to exercise, attempt a tedious recipe (like stuffed grape leaves), or do housework. Get creative with finding ways to do your usual activities from the sofa. Watching TV from exciting new positions is a great way to start doing yoga. Is your favorite show just as good upside down? Let’s find out!

It may be sad that we find it so difficult to focus on one thing at a time these days, but does feeling bad about that somehow improve your attention span? No. So accept it and use it to your advantage. Sometimes the way to accomplish more is to numb out your brain.

TV quiets your mind, or kills it, as my mother would say. But that’s not all bad. There is an old joke that says the only reason you believe your brain is the most important organ in your body is because your brain is telling you that. The truth is, your brain is overrated. Even my brain is overrated. How many problems do we create for ourselves by worrying, ruminating, or coming up with excuses? All of these things are functions of the brain. Sometimes the answer is to think less.

Television gives you that. It gives you temporary reprieve from the agonies of your mind. And it isn’t simply a distraction, a way to deny reality until you finally turn it off. Stories help us cope with the hardships in our lives, no matter what form they come in. They give our struggles meaning and teach us to believe in happy endings. When times are really bad, we need the most easily accessible types of stories to comfort us. You might not feel like reading Dickens or Tolstoy when you get divorced or find out your parents never wanted you to be born. But you will turn on the TV.

Most sitcoms deal with topics that are very serious, but we laugh about them. This is their magic. If the characters we love can laugh through a tragedy, it tells us that maybe we can too.

At the end of the day, I even believe TV can motivate people to succeed. At some point, after spending hours watching other people do stuff, you’re going to want to do something of your own. Project Runway makes me sew more, cooking shows make me cook and consequently eat more, which is precisely why I don’t watch them. You will want to do what you see. One of the reasons we watch TV is because it is aspirational. It shows us who we could be, in another life with good lighting and makeup men. If you are confused about who you are, look at what you like to watch. Look at the characters you love. What speaks to you and makes you keep watching long after your backside gets sore and your eyes burn? Don’t, however, take it too literally. Liking Breaking Bad does not mean your destiny lies in drugs. But it could mean you desire more adventure in your life. I’ve always gravitated towards heartwarming comedies because adventure and action are exactly what I don’t want. I want security and positive relationships. And, after I watch The X Factor, to be wildly famous.

In a nutshell, how can you discover your life purpose, finally start working out, and conquer the intrusive thoughts in your head about how you’re a stain on the reputation of your family? It’s easier than you think. Just watch more television.