A FEW YEARS AGO, I was watching a TV ad for Gatorade, and Michael Jordan ended the spot by saying, “Life is a sport . . . drink it up.”
The commercial reminded me of a bumper sticker I’ve seen often over the years that says, “Life Is a Bitch and Then You Die.” I have begun to use this bumper sticker as a teaching tool. It’s one of the most effective tools I’ve ever used because of how quickly it reveals the key weakness in the victim’s philosophy.
Not long ago I was conducting a workshop for a major high-tech company with about 100 people in the audience. As I wrote the words, “Life is a bitch and then you die,” on the board, one of the participants called out, “Hey! I’ve got that on my coffee cup!”
“So . . . You drink from that philosophy every day?” I said.
“I guess I do,” he said.
“Well, we’re going to study it,” I said. “When we’re through, you might want to give that cup to someone you don’t like.”
The slogan “Life Is a Bitch and Then You Die” is a perfect expression of the core belief system of a victim. It also contains the key to why victimized thinking always leads to fatigue and low performance, and why victims are only victims of their own defeated thinking.
For the fun of it, let’s say that the first half of the bumper sticker has some truth. Let’s say that we agree that life is a bitch, or any variation of that: Life is difficult; life is unfair; life will wear you out; life is a struggle.
But if that is so, why is it so bad that “Then you die”? If life is so difficult, what’s so negative about dying?
That’s the contradiction. That’s the double bind in the philosophy. It would be just like saying, “I hate being here, and what’s worse is I might have to leave.” Or, “I hate working here, and what’s worse is that they might lay me off.” Remarkably, a lot of people think exactly like that. About life, about their jobs, about their marriages, about everything. Like the singer in Ol’ Man River: I’m “tired of livin’ and scared of dyin’.”
But the brain doesn’t let us have it both ways. The human brain is a magical biocomputer. It sends us energy when we send it something clearly inspiring. But it slows us up when we feed it something that is self-contradictory. “Whoa!” shouts the chorus of cells in the brain and body. The brain and body go on strike against contradiction because the biocomputer wants harmonious logic. It always seeks out wholeness and completion.
It is illogical that life would be bad and death would be bad. In fact, if life were truly a bitch, then the bumper sticker ought to say, cheerfully, “Life is a bitch, but then you die!” Maybe put on a little happy face at the end. And then it might even help people more by putting a phone number at the bottom of the bumper sticker: “1-800-Kevorkian.” It could be a service.