I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead and Other Quotes I Hate

“Live, laugh, love.”

WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN? I have never understood the allure of these three words and I judge anyone who uses this phrase as an IG quote. I’ve seen more than one person with this tattooed on them and believe me when I say, I am judging if this is you. I’d like to suggest a few more equally as nonsensical quotes to consider. “Donuts. Ice Cream. Popcorn.” “Mimosas. Martinis. Mojitos.” “High Heels. High Standards. High Fives.”

“Fake it until you make it”

This quote started out with the best of intentions years ago before social media dominated our lives. But in today’s day and age, this is probably the worst advice you could give someone. Living a champagne lifestyle on a ginger ale budget will most certainly make you broke. Filtering all your photos will only make you more self-conscious.

I like the mantra “Know Your Role”. Figure out what you do and do it well. Becoming the person you’ve always wanted to be only happens through authenticity. In most cases, people will notice you and respect you much more if you’re being open and honest with yourself first. This is why I love Cardi B. and Tiffany Haddish and hate the Kardashians. Cardi and Tiffany worked their butts off (literally in Cardi’s case- – #StripperJokes) to get where they are today. Kylie Jenner entered all the cheat codes in life and no one respects that.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead”

Anyone who knows me knows I love Drake and I will defend him when it comes to his music. However, there is one line in Gyalchester that hurts me every time I hear it, “…I don’t take naps, me and the money are way too attached to go and do that…”

I don’t understand the idea that in order to be successful you must work hard work and sacrifice sleep and health as a result. The worst people in the world are those who brag about being up before the sun rises just because they want to. I don’t care, I’ll still be sleeping. Congratulations.

I know my body needs at least nine hours of sleep if I’m going to be at peak productivity the next day. #ConfessionTime most days when I get home if I know I don’t have any pressing tasks to deal with, you know what I do? I TAKE A NAP. I love to sleep.

When I first started my current job, I kept getting sick. I mean like, barely could get out of bed, kept losing my voice, and sanity sick.  When I went to the doctor they ran all these tests and couldn’t find anything. When it was all said and done, my doctor told me I was stressed out and just needed to calm down, get rest, and that would be enough to keep me healthy. Guess what? It worked! I told my boss how I was feeling, I took a day off did absolutely nothing all day and within 48 hours I felt good as new.

Constantly running your body into the ground is a surefire way to tick off seconds, minutes, and hours of your life. Self-care is important. Get some rest!

“Keep calm and…”

Whenever I would visit a new friend’s dorm in college if they had a sign that said Keep Calm and… followed by anything else on their wall I instantly knew we could not be friends. Most notable is the phrase, “Keep Calm and Carry On”. This quote is like the motto of complicity. Sitting around and just being okay with everything? Nah, not here. Especially in today’s social climate, this just doesn’t sit right with me. Demand action. Demand change. Don’t just sit back while everything else around you is going up in flames. It’s not fine and it’s not okay. Every day doesn’t need to be a martyr day but to just willfully and blissfully remain ignorant and go about your life while there may be others around you in pain or peril? That’s not how I want to live.

“Live every day like it’s your last”

In a similar vein to, I’ll sleep when I’m dead, “live every day like it’s your last” is also very unsound advice. People hear this moto and think #YOLO so then they go hard in the paint every day and burn out. If I lived every day like it was my last my diet would consist of Chipotle and mimosas, I would constantly spend money I didn’t have on travel and if I wasn’t traveling, I’d be binge-watching Netflix.

While I enjoy all these activities doing them every day would be very unhealthy. I’d for sure have a prosecco belly (is that a thing?) I’d always be gassy from all the cheese and guac I’d consume, and my butt would get flat from sitting down all day. Some days I spend doing stuff I don’t like, mainly working, but if I don’t work, I can’t travel. Sometimes I don’t want to cook, but I know I feel like crap after eating chipotle for the third day in a row. Everything in moderation (even moderation…as they say).

“Shoot for the moon even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”

This quote is false advertisement. Fake news. Sometimes you just fail. No fluffy pillow of star dusted clouds to land on. The message in this quote, while well-intentioned, makes every failure seem like a cutesy little mishap. I’ve had some colossal failures in life and they’ve helped me very quickly realize, I’m never doing that again. That’s not a bad thing either.

Remember when American Idol was enjoyable in the few weeks at the beginning when thousands of people who couldn’t sing would audition? There’d almost always be a story of someone who gave up everything just for a chance to get to Hollywood. Some lived out of their cars, others dropped out of college. You know what happened to almost all of those people who “shot for the moon?” they failed. They got four minutes of fame on tv and went back to their ’02 Toyota Camry, they called their families to explain how they blew through a semester worth of tuition and they were never heard from again. Be realistic about your abilities.

Harsh? Yes. But where is the lie? Now Jennifer Hudson? She shot for the moon. Didn’t quite fall all the way back to Earth but she floated somewhere in between and eventually, she became a star. Unfortunately, there’s only one Jennifer Hudson and thousands of Josiah Lemings. Don’t know who that is? Exactly.

What quotes drive you crazy? Let me know in the comments below.