The clichés of life.

Like the circle of life, only less inspiring.

One of my very favorite pieces at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao: “The Renowned Orders of the Night” by Anselm Kiefer.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Laughter is the best medicine.

All’s well that ends well.

Time heals all wounds.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

We’ve all heard them. The “life is what you make it” clichés. And look, I know I’m not the most chipper person out there, but can we agree that, well, they’re kind of crap? Let’s take “All’s well that ends well.” Ends well for whom? Just you? Or everyone in the scenario? Because I’ve rarely encountered a nasty mess of a problem that involves regular humans (i.e. people who are not made of sunshine and rainbows) who all come out of it being like, “You know what? I’m totally satisfied with how that ended up.” The person who got their way might feel like that, but the others? Come on.

Why, you are asking yourself, is she ranting on like this? Isn’t there enough pessimism in the world? Yes, there is. But I also firmly believe that to ONLY look at the bright side (cliché), blindly assume everything will get better, and spackle every truly not-good thing with silver linings is not the way to go. It’s “toxic positivity” as they say.

There have been several instances of this kind of toxic positivity floating around in my small world lately. Most come from well-intentioned folks. But most also are just another way to avoid that finicky little thing called reality. To avoid blame. To pretend that by hoping hard enough, maybe everyone else won’t notice that you put them all there in the first place.

Okay, I didn’t mean for this to be a run-on rant. The point I’m trying to make is that we need to embody another cliché if we’re actually going to make any real, good progress in life. And that cliché, my friends, is a Sheryl staple. (For newcomers, Sheryl is my mother. I refer to her here by her first name because, among my friends growing up, she was the Queen Bee Mom; the ultimate Minnesota mom; the sends-dinner-in-used-plastic-containers-that-used-to-house-sour cream-and-Cool Whip-with-you-before-a-school-event mom; the mom that everyone else also considers their mom because she somehow knows and sees everything.)

The cliché? “Everything in moderation.”

Extremism has infiltrated every aspect of our lives recently (or not recently, depending on who you ask; it’s not like it’s a new thing). Having the most followers. Being absolute in your beliefs. Refusing to budge even when the facts have been weighed and you’ve come up short. We talk about it a lot with politics and religion, but it feels like it’s become more than that. It feels like the most common mindset nowadays is that you have to be all or nothing — with fitness, food, alcohol, job paths, socializing, hobbies, lifestyle choices: You’d better know EXACTLY where you stand and not waver, otherwise you’re out.

I can’t say I don’t get it; I used to live my life that way. The word rigid can’t even sum up how I lived life in my 20s. Everything — and I mean everything — had rules. Routine ruled my life and straying from that routine, or even considering straying, was bad. (“Bad” — that’s a whole other essay.)

Living that way is predictable. It’s safe. It’s also lonely, filled with fear of failure, and cold.

I never applied the impossible-to-meet standards I imposed on myself onto others, but I would get baffled by how nonchalant other people my age were. How they prioritized fun, passion, joy, while I prioritized “doing it right.” Once, at a pool party when I was maybe 24, everyone else was drinking, playing, and having fun. I was in the thick of things with the second wind of my eating disorder (more on that here) and forced myself to nurse a light beer and get in the pool to throw a Nerf ball around. I was the most fit I’d ever been, but I didn’t see it that way: there was always more work to be done. At some point later that night, my best friend told me one of the guys we were hanging out with had commented on my body. Not in a creeper way, but more of a baffled way.

“She must eat a lot of legumes,” he’d quipped.

My friend had laughed and changed the subject, knowing how much more complicated it was, but that’s always stuck with me. I was living such a hidden, carefully crafted life that to the average observer, the only conclusion for my too-skinny, too-ripped, too-perfect physique was that I must have to force myself to only eat things like beans. It was sad. It still makes me sad. Because I was SO PROUD. Proud that my body had drawn attention for its sharp edges and lack of fat. Proud that instead of worrying the people around me, I was impressing them. My rigidity was working! I was alive, but not really living! I’d won the self-improvement game!

Clearly, I was not actually winning. I was losing — mostly myself. Because that’s what happens when you take things to the extreme: they take over. You’re not you anymore, you’re whatever your current obsession is. It’s a sad way to live, and the more I see it, the more sad it makes me.

Maybe because I’ve worked so hard to soften myself, metaphorically and actually, over the last several years. Maybe because I see the harm it does to the people trapped in it and everyone around them. Maybe because I think I have more perspective on the matter and want to yell, “Stop! It’s a trap!” But whatever the reason for the sadness extremism triggers in me, it’s there.

Whenever I feel myself being pulled back into the trap of “good” and “bad” and no in between, I think about the painting at the top of this post: “The Renowned Orders of the Night.” I think about seeing it for the first time at Guggenheim Bilbao and being completely transfixed by it. It’s huge — 17 feet tall x 16.5 feet wide x 3 inches thick — and filled with so much detail, it’s impossible to absorb in one sitting. I must have stood in front of it for an hour, maybe two, admiring the texture and size and intimacy and truth of it. We are all going to die someday, and when we do, we’ll return to the earth. To the universe. To the dust. To the stars. We’re all going to pass from this realm to whatever comes after, and to waste this life living by strict rules? Being inflexible? Putting on such narrow blinders that anything slightly different from your point-of-view is automatically wrong? Well, that’s the saddest thing I can think of.

“Everything in moderation.” I used to see this, too, as a rule, but now I consider it a love-filled mantra. The one thing I’d suggest as a tweak, though: Let’s love each other and ourselves fully and deeply, not moderately. Even when it feels impossible. Because, sooner rather than later, we’ll all just be stars.