Of Course I Can

I can’t even.

That’s been my mantra the past few weeks and it’s not a good one.

While I didn’t make it a formal New Year’s Resolution, I did decide to quit saying FML (or fuck my life, if you want the whole thing). I got to thinking that it wasn’t a productive, life enhancing thing to say. It wasn’t even really acknowledging any truth. It was just a random phrase from pop culture that I glommed onto, and it was becoming such a negative that it was bringing me down.

So what did I do? I glommed onto another phrase instead.

I really started noticing it a couple of weeks ago, when I would wake up in the morning, realize what was on my plate for the day, and think, “I can’t even…” Then, I would get up and power my way through all the things I had to do, but instead of feeling like I had accomplished anything, it just began to seem more and more overwhelming. Because I can’t even. Clearly, I could, and did. Over and over again.

I’ve noticed that the words I say to myself have a lot of power of me. Far more power than the words other people say to me. So, I’m reprogramming my brain to think I can, rather than I can’t.

This isn’t some kind of positive thinking nonsense. I’m certainly not going to say I can lift fifty pounds, when I can’t (at least not safely). I’m not saying I can run a marathon without training. I’m just saying I can get through the day. I certainly can. I get through every day, and have since the day I was born. The only day I really “can’t even,” will be the day I die. But today is not that day.

So this phrase has to go sit out on the curb, and guess what? It’s trash day.