The 4 Most Useless Pieces of Advice Everyone Believes

4 "You Can Do Anything"

The idea that you can follow a dream is one of the most noble and rewarding ideals ever thought up by mankind. Think of how many brilliant writers, performers, scientists, and more have gotten to the pinnacle of their professions because they believed they had the skill and ability to be the best. It's inspiring. It also needs to be tempered by the fiery sword of bullshit and reality.

I want you to take a look at this fellow here, whose name is D4nny. I suspect he spells it that way because he legitimately doesn't know any better. I need you to try to handle this video at least until the chorus is finished.

Still conscious? Good job. Now, let's suppose a few things. Suppose D4nny here is legit and that is actually how he sings. This is the level of skill D4nny has. Suppose that all the messages on his Twitter are legit -- the messages about never giving up on your dreams, and never listening to "haters," and so on and so forth. Suppose D4nny here really believes that he can pursue his dream of becoming a famous singer.

D4nny is fucking deluded, and so is everyone who supports him. If you can look me in the eye and tell me you honestly believe this man has a chance at a musical career, you deserve a slap in your sassy mouth for either being so bold a liar or refusing to accept that you have a hearing disability by faking your way through life. I'm not being one of these fabled "haters" that creep through the meadows and enchanted forests of the Internet. I'm being completely honest and genuine when I point out, devoid of malice or ill will, that D4nny cannot sing well. He does not make pleasant music in any objective way, let alone subjective. He's awful, and he will never, ever be successful. It's a shame he does not have anyone in his life who cares enough about his happiness to be honest with him and let him know that not giving up on this dream will see him wasting his life.

"This tattoo means success! Time to get that job running a day care now!"

What I just said sounds like a downer, and the optimists out there will say I have no right to make such a claim -- who am I to tell someone what dreams they can pursue? Well, I'm a guy who can hear. And so can you. Don't enable the delusional. Especially if you really do care. Some people can absolutely chase a dream and make it, but you know what, I will never be in the NBA. As a pasty lump of unkneaded dough who gets a solid 2 inches of air when standing still, I have no game. If I pursued a career as a ballplayer, I wouldn't just fail; I would probably make people around me worse as a haze of shameful lack of talent oozed from me wherever I went.

There's something to be said for practicing and getting better at something, but not everyone is going to be an astronaut, and sometimes you sing so poorly that it makes dogs wet themselves. Telling people they can do anything and to never give up is telling them to beat their heads against a wall.

3 "Things Could Be Worse"

This is arguably the most depressing platitude of all, because you use it only after you get shit on. You wake up one day and your best friend sleeps with your spouse, your dog dies, you lose your job, and you get diagnosed with Puckett's Erratic Dysentery. What an awful day. But hey, it could be worse -- your house could have fallen into a sinkhole, and you could have found out that your mom and dad are brother and sister and that's why you suck at math.

You don't deserve to be shit on by yourself after life shits on you, so never tell yourself that things could be worse. That doesn't mean you need to wallow in self-pity like some kind of mega-baby; it means you need to deal with and come to terms with what is wrong with you and move on. To say "things could be worse" is an awful way to minimize what's happening to you. It's like calling yourself a whiner. Yeah, I'm on fire, but hey, I'm not being fisted by an ape. That may be true, but being on fire sucks, and you need to be OK with admitting that. It doesn't make you weak or sad in any way. You have as much right to be unhappy about unpleasant circumstances as anyone; you don't need to suffer more than anyone has ever suffered before it's OK to acknowledge it.

"Well, I did get shot in the brain, but at least hamster windmill pig fucker."

This platitude almost amounts to blaming the victim, in this case yourself, for whatever is wrong with you, and it puts you in a position to refute your own feelings. Why would anyone ever want to do that? Because we're conditioned to in a society that wants everyone to shut up and be happy. Ever heard a parent tell a child to eat all their food because there are starving kids in Africa? If you cared, you'd box up my leftover broccoli and send it to the Ivory Coast, not make me choke it down. How does my nausea help a starving boy, anyway? It doesn't, but the sentiment is only to make you feel bad about the way you feel.

As it happens, most platitudes serve this purpose -- to make you basically bend over like a bitch and be happy about it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, this too shall pass, tomorrow is another day ... they all mean that, yes, you're currently being rode like a majestic stallion across the frontier, but why are you complaining? Just shut up, my show's on. If I had to guess, they were all legitimately thought up by someone who wanted to be polite and supportive but also just got sick of listening to their friends complain.

2 "You're Entitled to Your Opinion"

Being entitled to something is saying you have a right or claim to it. There is justice in you having this thing. And what could denigrate that idea more than someone being entitled to a chucklefuck stupid opinion?

The modern world is rife with people convinced that their opinions are important and valid when, sadly, that just isn't true. For any opinion to be valid and important, it needs to be informed, and good God do few people aspire to that. For evidence of this, please refer to people who are "not racist but raised to believe you stay with your own kind." That's their opinion. Other people have an opinion that gays shouldn't get married. That the Earth is 6,000 years old. That climate change doesn't exist. That women who lead you on deserve to be raped. These opinions are not informed. There is no logic behind them, no foundation on which to base them. They're fucktarded.

I'm not sure when people began to believe that any opinion was above reproach, or that the idea that someone's opinion could be made fun of is anathema, but we need to cut that shit out, and pretty quick. Here's a fun video that's been causing some controversy lately -- it's Suey Park, the woman who started the Cancel Colbert hashtag, being interview by HuffPo's Josh Zepps.

For those who missed it, Stephen Colbert used a racist joke as a satirical dig at a racist on his show. He did this knowingly, because that's how satire works -- it was offensive in order to draw attention to another offensive and stupid thing. Park is of a mind that this doesn't excuse the racism. Zepps comes right out and calls Park's opinion stupid after she craftily allows her argument to waver incessantly throughout the conversation, possibly due to the hope that her eloquence will mask her contradictions. She goes from claiming that the joke was racist to insisting that white liberals need to do more than just joke if they want to end racism. She claims that white liberals don't really care about ending racism anyway, but rather their entitlement to laugh at things that aren't funny. So basically all white liberals are racists at heart. You may understand such a blanket statement about a certain racial group as racist. But whatever. Point is, when Zepps calls this stupid opinion of hers stupid, she reacts with utter incredulity and shuts down. The idea that someone would not respect her foolishness causes her to basically refuse to take part in the interview (I think that's what "enact the labor" means) and end her zany little tirade.

I've said before that everyone will have an opinion -- that's inevitable -- but you should reserve your opinion until after you have informed yourself on the matter at hand, and you should only respect the opinion of others if it passes that test. If someone asks me my opinion on the slap fight between Martha and Julius in the food court yesterday afternoon, my opinion is going to depend heavily on me knowing just who the hell Martha and Julius are and why they were slap fighting by the Taco Bell to begin with. If I don't know any of those things, then I may as well give you my opinion with a side of pickles up my ass, because neither one is doing you any favors.

Fresh from my ass, lady.

Saying that people are entitled to their opinion as a way to dismiss stupid opinions only supports the proliferation of those stupid opinions. You wouldn't say that everyone has a right to piss on your shoe, so don't say that they have the metaphorical right to do it in your brain.

1 "Money Can't Buy Happiness"

This saying is pretty old, and likely we've all heard it at least once, but probably not from a lot of rich people. It's a lovely sentiment that speaks against greed and materialism, and don't get me wrong, I would not propose that we all be greedy and materialistic scumbags. However, it's worth noting that there is almost nothing in this world that can't be made better with money. If money can't buy happiness, it can accessorize the hell out of it, upgrade it, and add some really sexy accents to it.

I have to assume that the basic idea behind this saying is that things like health and love and friendship are what really matter in the world. But wouldn't you and your family be happier if you had your own go-karts? And being healthy is great, but say you're in peak physical shape and also on a beach in Costa Rica, then backpacking across Europe, then riding an elephant in Thailand.

"Walk into the club, I'm like, what up, I got a big trunk."

The fact is, money makes things better. We live in a world in which goods and services are readily available in exchange for cash, so no matter how happy you are and how awesome your life is, you can do something more fun and more awesome if you pay for it. And that's not bad. There's nothing wrong with that, but we have this weird self-flagellating attitude about money sometimes and don't want to admit that having access to more than our neighbor means we may be living better, happier lives. Maybe because it flies in the face of some deep-rooted humble nature or a desire for equality that makes us feel bad if we have more than someone else, so we don't ever want to rub it in. Nor should we -- I didn't come here with an article about my awesome gold-encrusted sex swing, but I could have.

Let's not pretend to live in a different world than the real one, however. Being with loved ones is great, and that should be a great source of happiness. But if you can be with friends and family in a bouncy castle while you drink champagne and Slayer plays a live concert for you, do that shit. Don't deny yourself happiness when you can afford it.

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