Toxic Motivators & Toxic Positivity

Underhanded tactics for crippling discouragement

I remember once watching a video by this self-announced “influencer.” He was bragging narcissistically about his alleged “success” and kept claiming that anything was possible as long as you put in the work and wanted it enough. His whole thesis rested on the premise that he grew up in war-torn Gaza yet he still “made it big” in the world.

But even in his own masturbatory story of self-aggrandising, he showed how his misfortune was, in fact, his fortune since he was randomly picked for a scholarship at a top American university precisely because of his victimhood privilege. It was a gift from a pretentious government charity - arbitrary wealth redistribution systems predicated on the whims of sanctimonious moralist bureaucrats who pretend to be charitable only when spending other people’s money.

So, this influencer’s bad luck of being born in a bad environment turned out to be his good luck - can’t say the same for the other kids who grew up next to him - the kids who weren’t picked for a scholarship and had to stay behind. I guess they “never worked hard” or never “wanted it enough.”

And at a privileged American university - in a Western self-righteous culture where self-proclaimed victims enjoy privilege - we can safely assume that his victim status gained him sympathy from pity, which brought networking opportunities.

All influencers and celebs have an exaggerated or totally fake underdog story.

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We are all the product of randomness. Who you are, how you think, what you believe in, what you will… these are all the consequence of randomness, of when and where you were born and to whom… what random identity-shaping experiences you had growing up… what trauma got to define you, which information you happened to be exposed to, which mentors or abusers you bumped into - or they bumped into you.

Don’t get me wrong - this is not to alleviate responsibility for the crimes of criminals nor to take away ownership of success from those who happened to stumble upon it. This is simply to explain how things work and perhaps to take away some of the undeserved self-worship by people who can’t appreciate the fact that their success was founded on chance… not how hard they worked after they were blessed.

Working hard is easy when opportunity knocks on your door.

The toxicity of compulsive motivation

I love it how all these self-advertised “successfuls” take on the mantle of “motivator” to presume to “educate” the rest of us on “how to be successful” - endlessly lecturing us on why we are stuck, as if they know the individual circumstances of each person specifically… as if they “know” how they themselves became successful.

They don’t even know how they became successful in the first place. They don’t acknowledge or appreciate that they were presented with an opportunity whereby hard work would pay off. They appoint their success to themselves and themselves alone, proving they don’t even know how they made it.

Then they passive-aggressively turn to underhandedly berate you, to infer their superiority to you, to announce to you that you’re not as hard-working as they are. They even call you a jealous hater for suggesting that luck, opportunity, and favourable circumstances are the foundation for any success in life. And the sad part is that you believe them.

Constant compulsive positivity is damaging to your mental health. It alienates you from your true self and detaches you from your true emotions. It pushes you to pretend to be someone else, to wear a mask, and to put on an act to mimic what you see on your sick online feeds: the cringe-worthy vomit-inducing faux-optimists of LinkeIn, the sanctimoniously preachy positivity influencers of Instagram, the holier-than-thou masculinity-guru narcissist scammers of Twitter and YouTube… all those people who emotionally abuse you with their impossible standards, their condescending inferences, their flat-out berating.

They create a false standard of success and happiness. They make you feel guilty for feeling down on top of just feeling down. They deprive you of the opportunity to experience your negative emotions, to explore them, and to learn from them. Instead, you waste time binging on their mind-raping content and their disrespectful demeanour, forcing yourself to “be positive” because being real with how you feel is somehow “defeatist” or “pessimistic.” Yes, you need to push through, whatever your circumstances, but you can’t do anything when you deny your real emotions. That’s just a fast track to madness.

Psychology of the Toxic Motivator

Those who presume to “motivate” you by flaunting their alleged “success” as an appeal to their perceived “authority” are in fact needy of validation, as they are tormented by their impostor syndrome.

They feel like frauds because deep down they know they were astronomically lucky.

They desperately need you to validate their worth because they feel unworthy of their success. So they seek your help to attribute all their success to themselves and themselves alone - it’s the only way to mitigate their guilt and lack of confidence in themselves. The higher they are, the more insecure they get with what feels like undeserved success. They feel like frauds because deep inside, that innocent inner voice of theirs knows they wouldn’t be anywhere had it not been for chance.

Here’s an example of toxic positivity where she who sees herself as “successful” declares that success is a direct consequence of hard work alone - the inference being that anyone less successful than her is lazy, dumb, or incompetent. What else can she insinuate by this?

She fails to show empathy for people struggling and not making it regardless of willpower and hard work. She fails to show compassion for those less fortunate than her. She insists that it’s their choice and their fault for “not succeeding as much as her.” What’s really happening is that she’s arrogantly patting herself on the back to mitigate her crippling impostor syndrome.

As if only she’s ever worked hard, as if only she’s been smart, and as if only she’s toiled and struggled in life... Look around you… The hardest-working people are the least rewarded, and the biggest bullshitters like billionaire market manipulators with exclusive insider government info grab all the cash. This is because this world does not value hard work.

Granted, we are all rewarded for the perceived value we offer, not how much fatigue our work brings. But to brag about how “how hard you work” ties success to toil, which suggests that those who struggle to succeed but fail somehow aren’t toiling enough. It’s an accusation of laziness and choice of misery. And this is just not true. People try hard to succeed in their field and success is simply not possible for everyone no matter how hard people work. And the ones on top aren’t necessarily the best or the hardest working. It’s the ones with the opportunity.

In sports, it’s the kids who had a coach who happened to see something in them or who was favourable to them. Not many kids have this opportunity, despite their dormant potential. In business, it’s mostly nepotism - the networked trust-fund babies with first-access insider information on new corrupt regulations, which grants them an unfair advantage in investment options. And the influencer types? It’s who was lucky enough to have the skills to make “content” that is palatable to the masses.

Being able to give what the ridiculous masses want is not a compliment - we see what the masses cheer for. Maybe this is why the “successfuls” feel like frauds deep down.

(De)motivation

Toxic motivators want to demotivate you and turn you into less of a threat - reduced competition for them - through faux positivity. Repeatedly claiming that “it was all them” shows their narcissistic self-aggrandising in bragging and claiming credit for random life blessings.

Toxic positivity raises the bar to impossible standards for you - if you take them seriously, you’ll assume that there is simply something wrong with you for not achieving anything despite your hard work. You’ll convince yourself that you are incompetent and lazy, and you’ll internalise your failures… How else will you be able to explain your lack of results if hard work is all it takes?

Not only that but these motivators project a fake image of success with fake positivity and fake success markers like rented sports cars and rented villas. You feel worthless by implied comparison, not inspired to achieve more.

In reality, these “motivators” want to demotivate you; the lower you are, the higher they feel by comparison. Why on earth would they want to elevate you and have to compete with you? Narcissists think this way.

Imagine the psychopathy of the toxic motivator - imagine being so vane as to deny the appreciation of the random blessings you had in life… so much so that you feel the need to attribute them to your input alone rather than bow humbly in appreciation of the opportunity given to you. This is just ingratitude and failure to appreciate.

By repeatedly claiming that “it’s all hard work and no luck,” they imply that you’re lazy, dumb, or incompetent. There is nothing more demotivating than that.

When successful people are honest with you about their luck and blessings, you stop blaming yourself for simply being unlucky - and you can then feel motivated to work hard because you know that a chance might still arise for your hard work to bear fruit. If the successful admit to being grateful for their blessings, then you can learn to focus more on finding opportunity rather than working hard towards nothing. When the opposite happens - when the “successfuls” tell you it’s all hard work, you toil endlessly and aimlessly (without seeking opportunity) until you get disappointed and give up.

Besides, if you have an opportunity, it’s easy to work hard. Who would want to waste an opportunity? So seeking opportunity first is more important than the hard work that comes after.

Summing up

You are the result of randomness. All that you believe, your decision-making processes, and who you are are the result of random chance. Even your drive, aspiration, ability, and affinity for hard work are the result of chance. To fail to recognise this is narcissism - yet another condition resulting from random luck.

All successful people seem to succeed within specific geographical areas where socioeconomic factors allow for success. You can’t be an entrepreneur or yet another dime-a-dozen success guru in Somalia or Burma or whatever, no matter how hard you work. It’s always in the States, Canada, Hong Kong, China, Dubai, and every other economic hub where random circumstances allow for “success.” And we know how they define success: money and fame.

This is not to take away personal responsibility and accountability for our own troubles and bad decisions. This is also not to take away ownership of people’s random luck - it’s theirs even if we think they don’t deserve it. Lastly, this is not an excuse for misfortune, but rather, it is an explanation. Your bad condition may not be your fault but it is still your responsibility - don’t blame yourself but do hold yourself accountable for as many areas of your life as possible. Accountability means agency, and therefore, control, which is empowering for you.

Recognising that all is random luck is not fatalism and defeatism. It is to give you some credit for the random challenges you face in life - misfortune that you didn’t deserve - that simply forbade you your chance at success no matter how hard you were willing to strive. It is also a reminder that perhaps one day an opportunity might arrive, and that you could seek opportunity more than toiling aimlessly without a plan. And this is true optimism.

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Toxic motivators keep reminding you that their success is directly analogous to their supposed “hard work.” They thus overtly accuse you of laziness since you are less successful than they are. And since you know you work hard already, then (if you believe them) you conclude that you are dumb, lazy, and incompetent. This is true hopelessness and this is what they want from you: to remain unmotivated and reliant upon them for the drug of instant cheap “motivation.” This is how all drug dealers and manipulators alike work. The more hopeless you are, the more loyal of a paying customer and fanboy you’ll be for these foney success gurus.

By attributing all success to the individual - without any gratitude or appreciation for random blessings - toxic motivators condition you to be self-obsessed and narcissistic. This is because they appoint success only to themselves - without any recognition of the fact that we are slaves to our nature, hopelessly reliant upon environmental factors, strictly limited to our mind and body’s limited potential.

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If you are successful, recognise your blessings - it’s the only way to appreciate them. If you are unsuccessful, don’t blame yourself for the lack of opportunity, and for your random lack of personal growth that led you to bad decisions. But still remain accountable and responsible for your bad choices - it’s the only way to control (as much as you can) your life’s direction.

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Thank you for reading. I appreciate your time. All my work here is free.

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