StylePower

 

 

I’m aware of my obsessions: My dog Alfie, rocks I collect from beach walks, old photos — and message-tees. I have dozens of them. To be fair, I also design them. I don’t design anything I wouldn’t wear myself. When I’m not buying samples of my own designs, I’m buying them elsewhere. They all have meaning, and the ones I make usually reflect my hope for awareness and an eternal quest to change the world, one bad-ass female at a time.

 

But given all that’s going around us today, certain empty message-tees piss me off. A t-shirt is not the same as action. Maybe they’re valuable for kids and pre-teens who are still figuring things out, but for grown women who purchase and wear them, I have one question for you: What else are you doing? Because wearing the T-shirt ain’t cutting the mustard.

 

I  have an Instagram account that’s devoted to positivity and the lightworker’s lifestyle (@thebiggreenheart), and when you are immersed in this world you begin to realize that, much like the stereotypical nutty (psycho)therapist, there are lots of people seeking “inner peace” who are truly and utterly deranged assholes. I call it the Angry Hippy Syndrome. 

 

It’s about accountability. If you really care, put it into practice. Putting it into practice often requires taking action and stepping outside your comfort zone.

 

I love and make message tees for two reasons: 1. I do believe they can have a certain influence, and  2. They’re fun. It’s fun to be aligned with a particular attitude or mantra. Below I’ve listed my top five that I currently can’t stand the most, not because the messages are bad or wrong, but because they’ve been so shared and overused they’ve lost the importance of their meaning. Or maybe they lacked meaning to begin with. I’ll let you decide.

 

 

 

 

 

What’s most annoying about this shirt is that it’s all about the wearer. He or she is screaming “I’m the kindest person you know! See?! I’m wearing the shirt!!!” Truthfully, if you have to tell an adult to be kind, it’s already all over. More importantly, kindness isn’t always what’s required. In a world where you can be anything, why the hell wouldn’t you want the superpower to stop hunger? Heal the sick? Get those immigrant kids in Texas back to their parents? You would have been better off donating the money for this T-shirt to a volunteer animal shelter.

 

Is it? Is it, really? Look around you. I do believe we are all born with potential, and that potential is all around us at all times. But some people aren’t good, and what they put out into the world is just plain awful. Can they be better? Yes, everyone has potential. Will they exercise that potential? Potentially…no. The people who are trained to help them try to gain the skills to bring their potential to the world, those are the saints among us.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, can we stop pretending that happiness is a just-add-water emotion? It creates the most horrific gas-lighting culture. Yes, by all means you should be happy. We all want to feel happiness and want that for people we care about. But there’s a whole range of emotions that are so valuable, including happiness’s parasitic twin: Anger. This subject is better explored in a longer article. TBC.

Hey, you, with the “Spiritual Gangster” T-shirt! Do you have any idea whatsoever what this means? Moreover, does it mean anything at all to you? Or was it just on sale at Target? I relate to this wholly and fully, and being spiritual means something different to everyone. The close runner-up was “Gratitude”, generally worn by people for the same reason: It was on sale at Target. Spiritualism and gratitude are two of the most important practices, but these words — especially once they’ve turned into a hashtag — lose their weight.

 

 

 

It slightly pains me to post this, because I know in my heart that vibes are real, but too many really horrible people are preaching “good vibes only” and it’s kind of ruined it. The scary part is, many people think that this phrase refers to what they receive: Now only accepting “good vibes” in my ever-flowing spiritual energy tank. Oh, no, my dear. This is about what you put out into the world. I’d love to follow these “good vibes only” people around all day and see how they’re exercising their good vibes on a moment to moment basis. I mean, only means only, right? It doesn’t mean “good vibes only—except when that barista gets my chai order wrong” or “good vibes only—except when the woman next to me wears that shit outfit to yoga.” I just think we can do better.

 

 

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