Use this analogy to stop people from telling you to “think positive”. Dicks.
Imagine you’re a lumberjack. Every day from dusk till dawn you crank out the hard yards making lumber for your fire.
This fire is essential for heating and cooking, and without it life just sucks.
Sometimes the lumber you get is bad. It doesn’t always burn right. But you need it every single day.
Now imagine that some jackass I mean helpful citizen points out the applications of electricity. No grueling labour, no chopping and sawing. Just flick a switch and BAM you got all the heat and cooking power you could ever need.
Now imagine there’s an electromagnetic anomaly that stops electricity from working near you (At this point you need to say “look I know this analogy has holes in it but shut your face this matters”).
Where was I? That’s right. No power. There’s an electromagnetic anomaly. In fact, imagine you, the lumberjack, you ARE the anomaly.
Electricity just doesn’t work near you. Fact of life.
Now imagine that you, the lumberjack, have never heard of this “electricity”. Imagine your hope and delight at the prospect of a life without all that sawing.
And imagine their frustration and disappointment at finding out that it doesn’t work for you. You hit the switch and nada. Bagel. Nothing happens.
But sure as shit works for others. With visible results.
That’s what it’s like hearing the “think positive” thing the first time.
Now imagine that you, the lumberjack, have already heard of electricity. And you know of your unique anomaly. And you know that it means you have to work hard to live comfortably.
Now imagine having to say all this to this citizen. Imagine having to look them in the eye and explain that you’re not lopping trees for fun or profit. Imagine explaining that the toil and suffering was just to make life better every day.
Imagine explaining that yeah, sometimes you fall short. And sometimes you do so well no one would ever know you can’t use electricity.
But you’re doing the best you can with your circumstances.
And imagine explaining how you can see how fucking helpful their “electricity” could be if you could use it.
And imagine explaining how fucking tired you are of having people tell you that it’s easy.
You just flick the switch.
Can you imagine that?