In which we discuss the purpose of a personal motto...

(Fake editor's note: I just finished reading my first book of the year and it may come as a shock to know that said book was set in New York in the late 1800s, any peculiarities in my grammar and vocabulary at the moment can be attributed to the fact that I am, indeed, a damn dirty imitator when it comes to lingual patterns and tend to pick these things up easily. My apologies and more on that book in my next post.)

Right, so I really truly believe that a well rounded person requires some variety of personal motto or words to live by. These can be obtained from a variety of sources, really. Mine come from the internet, TV shows, and music. But I do feel fairly strongly on the matter.

I'm sure I have multiple reasons for feeling this way, but the one that I can pin down right now as being of particular importance is that I feel that having a motto or three gives you some kind of focus in your life, so that when things get difficult you have a single point of focus to get you through it. Wow that was a long sentence. I actually have 4 personal mottoes, all of which provide something different to me (two are actually retorts, but I love them desperately).

1. "Nothing in this world that is worth having comes easy." This I actually stole from an episode of Scrubs. I can't remember the name, but here's the video of it happening on YouTube. However, the concept itself goes back at least to one of the trials of Hercules (I forget which one) wherein he is given the choice to either take a long, winding, easy path which may or my not lead toward his ultimate goal (I forget what that was) or an incredibly difficult, but ultimately shorter, path that would lead directly to whatever the fuck it was he was after. I think one of the women who was offering to guide him was named Work or Virtue. If I could remember a damn thing about the story beyond that very basic outline, I would probably start attributing that quote to it instead of to a TV show because I always feel kind of shallow when attributing life changing quotes to comedy television shows.
2. "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future." This one becomes hilariously rerouted, similarly to the Hercules to Scrubs quote. I think it may be an Oscar Wilde quote, but I actually got it from a song by the band Ludo. It's repeated nearly constantly in the song "Topeka" off the CD "You're Awful, I Love You." Good quote, though! And fortunately, Ludo is still obscure enough that even if I were stealing it from them nobody would catch me.
3. "I guess I'm not your kind of lady." Similar to quote #2 in that I totally stole it from a song, but it was probably originally said by an actual person. The full line is from the song "Anne Braden" by The Flobots, which is the story of a real life white civil rights activist from Mississippi in the 50s. In the song, Anne and a group of other white women have been arrested when trying to talk to the governor of Mississippi about Willie McGee and then...

Then from her cell she heard her jailers
Grumbling about outsiders
And when she called him out
And said she was from the south they shouted
"Why is a nice southern lady
Making trouble for the governor?"
She said, "I guess I'm not your type of lady
And I guess I'm not your type of southerner.
But before you call me traitor
Well it's plainest just to say
I was a child in Mississippi
But I'm ashamed of it today."

It's pretty safe to say that I fucking LOVE that song. Seriously. Regardless, I find the particular line I referenced above to be a great catch-all retort when someone accuses me of not being ladylike or some shit. I have no idea if the Flotbots' account account of what happened is accurate (the internet has failed me!) but the song is obscure enough that I don't feel like a total corporate whore.
4. "Go 'head and hate on me hater." This is another song one (noticing a theme here?). It's called "Hate On Me" and is originally sung by Jill Scott, however, I actually heard it the first time on an episode of Glee (outstanding). It usually fits as a retort in all situations that #3 does not cover. Let's face facts, I'm kind of a bitch. I find it to be quite useful to acknowledge that if someone isn't going to like you, let them go the fuck ahead and not like you. I got shit to do, and trying to win over someone who doesn't want to like me isn't high on my list.

Assuming I have any readers at this point, I'd love to hear what he or she thinks on the subject or any other good mottoes to keep in mind.