Affirmative

When I was younger, affirmations struck me as vapid, cheesy and, perhaps most importantly, inaccurate statements that people would use to sugar-coat reality. One of the benefits of maturation is that I've grown past the idea that the world is a nasty and dark place of necessity. So, today, affirmations strike me mainly as cheesy.

But I still find myself indulging in them sometimes when I talk to people. I think that it's more about learning not to take myself as seriously as I tend to otherwise. But a part of me also thinks that they work, at least somewhat. The idea that someone believes in us, I think, gives us license to be ourselves - which, unsurprisingly, is what we're best at.