Motivational crap, er, stories

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I don't want to denigrate, downplay, minimize, etc. etc. etc., but, I find "uplifting"/"motivational" stories in general vomit-inducing! It's not that the people the story is about doesn't deserve credit for what they have done - they very much deserve credit for getting through whatever it was they got through!

I just have a hard time feeling "uplifted" and "motivated" by these stories.

Maybe it's just lack of empathy but, I fail to see how motivational stories are supposed to apply to me.

Those stories are not uplifting because they are exploitative. They put some hapless person on display as if he/she were a circus animal, and people who watch get to feel noble for "caring" when what they actually feel is pity, and relief that it's not them who has a disability or other challenge.

I find motivational stories, and many self-help books, condescending. The moral is usually simplistic, so if the story were really supposed to teach me some answer I hadn't thought of, I would have to be an idiot. And if I did know the moral, then why are you telling me this story? Plus, it puts the teller of the story in a superior, "I know more than you, and I know more about you than you know about yourself" position, which I really hate.

I also find these stories underestimate the amount of effort needed to deal with depression and the like, and the lack of inner resources I might have to confront them. This shows a rather irritating lack of understanding. Also, I usually don't recognize my situation in these stories, so I feel like a box is being imposed on me by a storyteller who doesn't care enough to try to empathize with my situation and see it from my perspective. (And NTs say WE'RE the ones who lack empathy...)

Lastly, I dislike motivational stories because I find anything that oversimplifies the complexity of human nature and emotions to be really freaking irritating!

Bee, I like your point too. I hadn't thought of it before, but it makes a lot of sense.

I don't really care for motivational stories. I can motivate myself, than you, very much. I find those books and speakers, very annoying.

I occasionally get the impression that the message is "life is hard right? WRONG! Life is easy! You Suck!.

Some motivational stories can be just plain useless eg
I was taken to a psych (parents were looking for a diagnosis).
After mum gave him the whole spiel about me not interacting much and stuff like that. He just told some story about getting up the courage to dive off the high dive at the pool.
totally irritating as anxiety had nothing to do with the search for a diagnosis.
We never went back after that.

I always hated them....still do. I don't care about other people's plights and never have. It's either due to lack of empathy but think it's becuase I am simply a b***h.

I also hate those. I wonder if the target audience isn't in fact people with the problem the story is about, but rather people who DON'T have that problem. -- that is gives them warm fuzzies to hear a story about "overcoming" and getting back to life exactly as it was before.

If I want to get motivated, I'll join a gym.

I don't like them either. A guy are work always reads them and has even told me I should to. I thinks I should because he has I don't have a good out look on life.

I have a very good out look on life. Just because I would not go around running and yelling if the world is about to end does not mean I don't have a good out look on life.

The only thing I fear about death is the fact that I will never be able to see outerspace or that I might not be able to see the rest of Earth. Aside from that I don't fear death and I don't need self help people or books. I just need to be me.

I don't particularly like hearing about good life can be for other people. Once in a while it can be nice but it's rare.

One of the more "motivating" things I've seen or read was the movie "Home Room" which is about a school shooting, the main character is a gothic girl who talked to the shooter on occassion but they were in no way close. The shooter killed himself, his parents, and multiple classmates and the cops wanted to lock her up to "Put the parents at rest" because "someone has to be held responsible" and she herself is asked by the principal in the mean time to visit the only victim to be shot and live through it. Throughout the movie the main character is seen as a total jerk to the victim. She is otherwise viewed very negatively by everyone around her for her various shoplifting charges, the fact that she is an underaged smoker, the way she dresses, the fact that she "cuts", has ZERO friends, etc. At the end of the movie everything unfolds that she is the way she is because she had a baby and it died and that she kept the shooter in the one classroom for 8 minutes until the police arrived.

There is almost nothing positive about the movie aside from the relationship between the victim and the main character and what the main character did to try to save her peers that she didn't even like.

My school showed my year this video in assembly about this person who was in a wheelchair or something, but who's dad helped them do all these sporting events.

I thought it was great the dad was doing all that and it must feel great for both of these people, and it's all nice and everything... But how it's meant to motivate me, I don't know

But, seriously...