When Life Hands You A Sh*t Sandwich

What up! What up! What up! It's Marie here with Q & A Tuesday Q: So today we have a great question, little controversial but super fun and it's from Lynn, and Lynn writes: "Hi, Marie. When life's giving you a sh*t sandwich, how do you stay motivated to stay on track with your goals? No jobs, no prospects, no money, depression spider spinning their webs. Thanks! Lynn."

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So I figured you know, we wanted to actually look up what sh*t sandwich means in the Urban Dictionary just in case you're not familiar with sh*t sandwiches or you've never had one. And, when I looked up this definition, it says "an unfavorable situation or dilemma. E.g. "I knocked up my best friend's wife. What a huge sh*t sandwich!"

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A: Anyway okay, so you know I really thought long and hard about how to answer you, Lynn, and I have to say your question has evoked a lot of things that I will talk about. Especially with young people; especially with privileged young people, and privileged old people. Here's what I mean by that, first part of my answer is about perspective and gratitude. I did a little research on you because I have your email and I have your Twitter account. I have all that stuff and I learned that you live in the developed world.

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You live in the United States. You have a husband. You have a business. All of that means that what you consider a sh*t sandwich is like half of the world's freaking fairytale life. And, I don't mean to be insensitive at all and I don't want to belittle at all your feelings of feeling not good enough and having a bit of a hard time. But I think perspective is awesome for all of us, myself included.

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I just came back from a trip to South Africa. That was my first time ever in that part of the world and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of young people, a lot of kids actually And they in my perspective have a bit more of a sh*t sandwich than any of us do. For example, meeting lots of kids that were five, six-year-olds, they're orphans. Their parents both have died of HIV-AIDS and they also now have HIV. That to me is a little bit more of a serious sh*t sandwich.

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A huge favorite book of mine it's called Half the Sky and it's about all the things that are happening to women around the world. So for example, a real sh*t sandwich is not being able to get a job because half of your face is burned off from acid because you turned down a marriage proposal. That I consider a sh*t sandwich. What you and I go through on a daily basis, not really!

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Okay, so not to make you feel awful but here's one of the things that I do if I ever catch myself complaining again and not really seeing all the blessings and the things that I do have around me that are amazing. So what I would suggest for you if you ever find yourself in a circumstance where your mind's going like, "Oh everything sucks! And, "All I'm eating is sh*t sandwiches." Put down the sh*t sandwich! Put it down and start looking around. 

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Like, what do you have?  Do you have running water? Check. Do you have a roof over your head? I bet you do. Even the fact that you're watching this video right now. You're probably watching it on a computer, right? You have to be watching it on a computer or an iPhone, or something like that. Tells me that you've got things to be grateful for and if you start paying attention to what you actually have and just have a little bit of gratitude.

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I know it's cliche but it actually works and just say, "You know what, I have these things going for me. What can I build on? How can I take this and leverage it to actually move ahead?" And, you start looking around, look at the paper. I've never opened a newspaper in my life and not seen Want ads. That's one of the things that my dad taught me that think that's always useful and people are like, "Oh, I don't have jobs. I don't have prospects." It's like if that was me, I'd go work for freakin McDonalds.

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But I mean I have; I've cleaned people's houses. I've bartended. I've waited tables. I've done anything that I've needed to do in order to put money on the table and it's a funny thing when you start getting into that mode of hustling and working. You start seeing what you have and then momentum builds, and pretty soon you're not looking at sh*t sandwiches because you're looking at all the great things that are happening in your life. So that shift in perspective really does do a lot.

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To wrap this whole thing up, all of us from time to time if we get a little lost, we can think, "Oh life is giving us a sh*t sandwich." I say no. I say take a look, be grateful and then if you need to, you probably need some new friends or some new inspiration. Like, go read some great blogs or watch a great movie, or read some books that are actually empowering and enlightening, and positive. That does it for me. I don't know about you but that's what I would suggest to just turn that sh*t sandwich frown upside down, honey.

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So thank you as always for watching and if you like it, like it! If you have any comments about sh*t sandwiches of your own or ways that you've turned it around, please leave a comment below and I'll talk to you next time