Laurie:  There’s a reason for sayings like “No good deed goes unpunished” or “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”  Well, Coaches on the Edge agree and have decided that a lot of these goodie-two-shoes philosophies are myths that don’t work in today’s world. Nice is not always the way to go.  Here are some instances that quickly come to mind.

Laurie: Good Myth # 1:  Turning the other cheek.  Now I get the concept I think.  You keep offering up cheeks and eventually the hand of the person smacking them gets tired.  That doesn’t make much sense to me.  You end up with a bruised cheek(s).  Instead we recommend that you stand up for yourself and drop them with one witty retort and a deadly glare.  Let the intellectual battles begin.

elizabeth: Good Myth # 2: Intellectual battles begin? You love those song titles and spiffy little expressions, don’t you?  I try to live my life by my own rules. I make them up as I go along. Okay, I got one from my mother – “it wasn’t cold when I gave it to you.” I would like to answer that. Yes, it was.

Laurie: Good Myth # 3:  Refraining from profanity.  Why?  There are these perfectly wonderful words that fully express just how damn angry you are and how little shit you’re willing to take.  Somebody went to the effort of thinking them up so use ‘em, abuse ‘em, and never lose ‘em.

elizabeth: Good Myth # 4: A picture is worth a thousands words? No, not really. A picture of Donald Trump’s hair in the middle of a windstorm only needs three words – WTF.  (refer back to Good Myth #3)

Laurie: Good Myth # 5:  Thinking positive and all will be well.  Yeah, well while you’re trying to put a positive spin on losing your job, your spouse leaving you, your dog biting you, and all of life’s other little obstacles and misfortunes, someone else is taking your anti-depressants.  Seriously, positivity has its place but there are times when it just can’t beat a down-and-out, full-force temper tantrum.

elizabeth: Good Myth # 6: Do these pants make my ass look big? What do you think?  There were reports of the sun being blocked by an eclipse scientists could not identify. Would you like to come clean? You’ll feel better. But those shoes make the outfit. See I can even be nice.

Laurie: Good Myth # 7:  Bad experiences are fantastic learning opportunities.  When is recess?

elizabeth: Good Myth # 8: The exploration of myths found a new dimension in the work of Carl Jung. Whereas Freud saw the unconscious as being entirely personal, the product of a lifetime’s repressed sexual urges, Jung identified a layer of consciousness below this – the collective unconscious. This is a vast psychic pool of energized symbols shared by humanity as a whole. It is filled with ‘archetypes’ – symbolic figures, such as the Trickster mentioned above, the Mother, and the Father. I got this info from a site and I can’t find it so if you wrote this, I will do a blog later giving you credit for everything.

Dear Drs. Freud and Jung: You guys just gave me a killer headache.  I am throwing out my Freudian slip.

Laurie: Good Myth # 9:  The meek shall inherit the earth.  No offense, but who wants it now?  Oil slicks, global warming, barren forests, extinct species, polluted oceans, and on and on and on.  This is what I call a booby inheritance.  So forget about meekness – lift your voice to the ozone hole in the sky and make your feelings known.

elizabeth: Good Myth # 10: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This is one of the most overused quotes that I hear. I pucker up when I hear it and pray that the person saying it is not heading in my direction.  Now if we change the wording to “when life gives you lemons, you have permission to hit the person next to you,” I would feel a lot better.

© 2010, Coaches on the Edge ™

If you would like to learn more about Laurie, please go to her site: Empowered Life Journeys.

Stop by at elizabeth’s site at: Branching Out Life Coaching