5 Quotes for When You're Fed the F**k Up

Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

Sometimes, I’m just done.

It’s either the child that won’t nap during my zoom, the fact that my husband has taken to feeding our praying mantises earthworms that can crawl through the holes of their cages which he has positioned on the kitchen counter, or it’s the simple fact that I ordered McDonald’s specifically for the barbecue sauce, dropped it, and splattered it all over the clean laundry before I could take a bite.

Whatever it is, there’s always a last straw. Clutch your f**king pearls all you want, lovely readers. Sally Positivity over here has some f**king bad days, too. I’m human. I am not immune to the proverbial last straw, camels smell like $h!t, and I DON’T F**KING LIKE EARTHWORMS ON MY GODDAMN KITCHEN COUNTERS.

Sorry for the shouty capitals, but I’m not perfect. Nobody is perfect. And we all have bad days.

Here’s the thing — when bad days happen, it’s the people who put on their boots, scream into a pillow, and slog through the f**king bull$h!t to the other side that will succeed in the long run. The end. There is no secret formula other than you have to get to the other side of $h!t river to continue your journey.

I’m one of those people willing to slog. I have my boots on. My kid is in bed early, I used ketchup instead of barbecue sauce, I threw the whole pile of laundry right back in the washer, and I covered the damn worm-ridden mantis cages. I’m f**king slogging.

Real talk — success is not attained by the lucky and the perfect. Success is attained by the people who write articles in their pajamas on a Saturday night when everyone is asleep after two glasses of wine and a Xanax. Success is attained by the scrappy people who will never give up. Success is reached by the people who outlast their less passionate or mentally weaker opponents.

So, in the interest of a little inspiration, here are five of my favorite quotes to read when I am absolutely positively fed the f**k up.

1. “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” — Og Mandino in The Greatest Salesman in the World
2. “Fatigue is an opportunity to evaluate how much we want it.” — Stacey Abrams
3. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” — Thomas A. Edison
4. “The road to success is always under construction.” — Lily Tomlin
5. “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not’ unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” — Calvin Coolidge

The point is that you can have bad days. You can scream, you can cry, and you can angrily shove fast food down your gullet.

Contrary to popular belief, this will not have any effect on your trajectory other than you might have bags under your eyes and feel a little puffy the next day.

What DOES matter is that you keep moving. And when you arrive at the other side of $h!t River, take off your boots, recalibrate your compass, and keep f**king moving.