"Good vibes only" always bothered me. Now I understand why.
Sometimes inspirational quotes can go terribly wrong.
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As a writer, I’m a fan of great writing. And great quotes.
Shocking, I know.
But I’ve always cringed a little at the idea of “inspirational quotes,” even as I’ve been guilty of sharing them or using hashtag-inspirationalquote myself. They’ve always seemed like a cynical, if wildly effective ploy to sell knockoff Etsy merch designed in Canva with vector art; to bring people to your publication with search optimized for keyword INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES; or just to gain Instagram followers, usually by copying someone else’s quote and popping your own handle on the bottom of it.
Or just, you know… copying the quote, period.
If I bookmark an original quote that resonates, it’s likely from someone like
or , maybe because they’re not necessarily trying to “inspire” — they’re encouraging. Or comforting. Or just speaking truths about life as it is, not life as I wish it to be.
It’s specifically those hollow quotes about happiness that have always hit me wrong for some reason, and I’ve been noticing that there’s starting to be a lot of backlash toward messages that are dishonest at best, harmful at worst.
That backlash is a good thing.
I mean, I just stumbled on a sort of clickbait slideshow of happiness quotes that was published fairly recently. It include this quote:
Be happy. Be bright. Be you.
That’s from Kate Spade.
So.
That hurts my heart.
Then there’s this from Gabriel García Márquez:
No medicine cures what happiness cannot.
I’m sure my friends undergoing chemo treatment, recovering from surgery, or suffering from torn achilles tendons or insanely bad menstrual cramps will be glad to know that the cure was in them all along.
Then again, his genre is magical realism, so I presume there would be some magic involved for this to work properly. ( I haven’t read Of Love and Other Demons so I’d be open to any elaboration.)
The other happiness quote that always bugged me is let your smile be your umbrella, because technically, wouldn’t a frown actually be a better umbrella?
I mean, look at the shape of a smile and then look at the shape of an umbrella. There’s a disconnect there!
Give me a ginormous, disembodied frown in a rainstorm any time, then come join me. We’ll stay dry together and laugh out the storm.
Happiness is is so essential to American culture, it’s enshrined as one of our three “inalienable rights,” along with life itself. (We’ll skip the liberty part for now because it’s problematic in all kinds of ways.) So I understand that this constant push for happiness as the ultimate goal is deeply ingrained in us.
Thus, very popular on Instagram.
All this said, of course I want to be happy. Don’t we all? I just want to find it in all the right ways.
I’ve always liked what author
of The Happiness Project has to say about happiness, because it’s grounded in truth, science, research, and her own personal discovery, not magical thinking.Overall, she knows happiness takes real work.
It’s easy to be heavy; hard to be light.
Hashtag-inspirationalquote.
I guess I am mostly averse to those pat quotes that indicate that you should just “be happy,” which isn’t something that’s accessible to everyone at all times.
Sometimes, quotes make you feel worse. Like “why can’t I just get happy if it’s so easy?”
It all clicked this week when my friend and former colleague Emily Stetzer, the co-founder of Presently Bracelets, published a thoughtful blog post about 6 phrases we all use that are actually really toxic.
The first one: Good vibes only.
Presently Bracelets is a beautiful company founded by two sisters who suffer from OCD and anxiety. They create jewelry inscribed with sayings pulled directly from cognitive behavioral therapy—the kinds of mantras that are genuinely effective in helping you manage unhelpful thought patterns—and donate a portion of sales to impactful mental health organizations.
They are the kinds of mantras that flip “inspirational quotes” on their head, so they become more productive than merely aspirational.
About “good vibes only,” Emily writes:
I used to live my life by the mantra of "good vibes only," hoping that simply willing positivity into existence would bring about a sense of well-being. However, I soon realized that you can't just wish away anxiety or mental health disorders. It takes real work and effort to navigate through the challenges they present.
If you're struggling with anxiety, telling yourself that "only good vibes are allowed here" may seem like a helpful approach. But what happens to all that anxiety when you push it aside? Does it truly disappear, or does it resurface even stronger later on?
Instead of masking anxiety with empty positivity, a more effective approach is to sit with those uncomfortable feelings and face the problem head-on. By acknowledging and accepting the anxiety, you create space for genuine growth and healing. It's in this process of facing our fears and seeking rational solutions that we can truly experience a shift towards lasting well-being.
So, rather than hoping for good vibes, try embracing the discomfort, allowing yourself to address the root causes of your anxiety, and finding practical ways to cope with it. In doing so, you may discover that genuine good vibes and a sense of inner peace are within your reach.
I know that doesn’t all fit neatly in a 1x1 Instagram square, but I think it’s wonderful.
Oh, and her alternative: Brave the uncomfortable.
Read the post for the other 5 quotes she discusses. You may not agree with all of them, but I think it’s fascinating to know that some quotes really do have the ability to create positive impact on us and our ability for emotion regulation, as proven out by actual psychosocial therapy techniques.
As for me, I bought a Presently bracelet that says “it’s okay to feel how I feel.” You can’t imagine how reassuring it is every time I look at it.
I could even say it makes me happy.
Do you have a quote you have always loved? One that rubs you the wrong way? I’d love to hear it. And hey, if “good vibes only” works for you, that’s okay too!
Liz! Thank you so much for featuring my work here -- it's an honor, particularly as a fellow hater of "good vibes only." This was the thinking behind Em & Friends' Empathy Cards -- hey, let's create cards for hard situations that don't alienate the suffering person by bright-siding them or imply that their grief/fear/anger/sadness is wrong! It sounds like the biggest DUH in 2023, but 10 years ago it was groundbreaking. I look at this shift as evidence things are changing -- irritatingly slowly, as evidenced by the multiple screens of GOOD VIBES ONLY IG stickers in your post -- but my hope is that as we get more comfortable talking about hard and complex emotions, and we teach/model this for the next generation, that in the future, the imperative to JUST BE HAPPY (as if this is the cause of happiness) will seem as antiquated as the "Alive with pleasure!" cigarette ads from the 70s. :)
Ohhhh thank you for this and the link to Presently. As a lifelong anxious depressive (yes, I’m on meds, and they work… mostly) the “just decide to be happy!” mindset has always irked me. There’s a difference between what you focus on and what you feel. If, for example, I consciously commit to focusing on being grateful, I tend to be happier. But if I tell myself “just feel different!” that… doesn’t work.
As for quotes… my oldest asked me to write “embrace discomfort” for her, and then she got it tattooed on her forearm. Because it’s okay to be uncomfortable (that’s where growth happens!) and uncomfortable isn’t necessarily unhappy. (In leaving you this comment I’m realizing that really, we Americans are just bad at nuance. “Good vibes only” is devoid of nuance. That’s the problem.)
Tl;dr: We can choose where to expend our energy, perhaps even toward an end goal of feeling good, but we cannot choose how we feel. And that’s—as your bracelet says—totally okay.