Recategorizing Motivation

Have you ever scrolled down your Facebook feed and run into one of those posts. . . you know, the click-bait "articles" titled things like "10 things totally awesome people do" or "15 thoughts awesome people never have" in the style of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? They aren't written by psychologists, and they aren't backed up by anything other than photos of attractive celebrities. They seem like harmless motivational advice, like the kind you get on free calendars, or you find framed in black and hanging on every wall in that call center where you work.

These articles make a serious transgression, and I would encourage anyone reading this to mitigate the damage by not re-posting. Not all of the articles transgress in this way, but if you can't read critically with this idea in mind, remember that somebody will, and your carelessness can hurt them. 

So, uh, Happy Galentine's Day.

I'll talk more about the context I think these articles sprang from in a second, what I want to explain first is the damage they can do.

The transgression these articles commit is to describe depression, sadness, or lack of motivation (or symptoms of these things) as a personal failing. The language divides people into "successful" (those who do all these things, or do not have this negative trait) and "unsuccessful" (everybody else). The implication is that if you just change these dozen things about you, then you could be George Clooney. This is all fine and dandy for everyone still delusional enough to think they want to and can become George Clooney. These articles claim the groundless authority to tell the reading public both what they should be, and how they should be it, with the assumption that it's just that simple. Just change these dozen things. Just fix yourself, because if you're not George Clooney, then you're broken.

Are you familiar with the contemporary concept of "shaming?" In a previous post, I discussed the difference between shame and remorse, and defined them as external and internal, respectively. Shame is making someone embarrassed about how they appear to others. Remorse is the internal knowledge that you've done something incorrect. Shame is connected to identity, and remorse to action. The operational difference is that doing can be undone, but being cannot. I can apologize all day for being clumsy, but it will only make me clumsier. I can apologize for shattering your favorite mug, and then go online and buy you a new one.

Do you want a new mug? Then don't shame me.

These articles, and this type of "motivational" message, are Depression-Shaming. They associate negative thoughts with your "type" of person, as if thoughts were ephemeral, and presume to judge you for not changing them immediately: an external perspective that belittles your struggles, and reinforces an image of who you are as static, rather than dynamic. For someone suffering actual mental illness, the effect is pure devastation. The symptom of a treatable illness becomes a defining character trait. Fortunately, people familiar with mental illness are also very, very familiar with this kind of bootstrap-levitation nonsense.

Thoughts are neither easy to change, nor a defining factor in your divine nature. There's a bodybuilding metaphor here, but I'm struggling to find it. The truth is that our thoughts are resistance. The faster we move them, the easier it becomes, yes, but nobody out here in cyberspace can or should presume to judge what struggles are in your head, how heavy or hard to shift your thoughts are. People who think that thoughts are easy to fix and we can all be like George Clooney are experiencing mental health privilege, and total delusion (because really, George Clooney has better things to do than tell people what to think, and clearly, these people don't. . .).

You are the only person who can dictate in what way you are to be happy. Thoughts are not easy to fix. Your struggles are real. You are strong. There is help. 

 

As for the cultural impetus: I am becoming more and more interested in what I call "call-center culture" because call centers are a common employer in my geographical region. The companies employ a large pool of minimum-wage/part-time representatives with little or no opportunities for advancement. These companies are highly invested in keeping wage-slaves content and subservient, and that includes underhanded tactics like convincing them that their dissatisfaction with their lives comes from their brains, and is therefore meaningless. It includes shaming mental unhealth because they won't pay for insurance to get it fixed.

Again, I'm generalizing. The company a phone-representative chooses will make a huge difference in the culture and satisfaction of its employees. But there are still clear parallels to early industrialization problems like unions and strikes and large, aggressive capitalists. And my third-tier capitalist brothers wonder why I don't think unions are dead yet. They never worked in call centers. Or adjuncted.

The point is that while these articles use people like George Clooney as their motivation, what the culture really wants are people happy earning $5.25/hr, and maybe even willing to put in free overtime. (Both of which are illegal).

Support fair wages. . . er, I mean, Mental Health. Don't re-post thoughtless "motivation."