Fake it ‘til you make it. Or at least, that’s how the saying goes.

One of my closest friends hates this saying, thinking it both untrue and an assault on what is good and honorable. To be honest, I never really gave it too much thought, but over the past few weeks it has crept into my head like a Kelly Clarkson song. And like a fever, I can’t shake it.

FITYMI (which I pronounce “fitty-my”) sounds as if I should hate it. In principle I do, and did actively every time my friend mentioned his loathing of it. I don’t like fake things, generally speaking. I strive for truth, authenticity and honesty in everything I do and everyone I seek out. So, needless to say, acting in a dishonest manner doesn’t sit well with me.

But the older I get, it seems the more true this phrase proves. Applying it to personal happiness, I’ve found it quite plausible to convince yourself that you’re good enough spirits to just get by. Again, until I tried this, I would have found the theoretical application of the FITYMI phrase a farce and utter rubbish.

Applying the phrase to contentment or willpower, I have yet to disprove the FITYMI model again. When enraptured in a fit of materialistic passion, if I tell myself that, “no, in fact, you are fine with what you have and you don’t need more,” then things calm down. One cannot let the follow-up retorts of the psyche get in the way, for inevitable screams of “oh, you’re just telling yourself that! you really DO need that lamp!” attempt to drown out the FITYMI methods. But in the end, what you knew to be true already (that you are just fine without another possession) holds fast. All you had to do was tell yourself (despite if you believed it at the moment) that you were ok.

Additionally, making yourself believe that you’re a better person for not stopping at that fast food restaurant, or convincing yourself that you’re happier and better off for exercising actually…in the end…proves true. You’re setting the stage each time for an eventual good goal. The FITYMI mentality just helps you steer towards it.

I want to disprove this model. I want to set it on fire and burn it in effigy for those pillars of truth and righteousness that are under attack every day in the world. The propogation of untruths and “fakeness” in our society (in theory) has degraded and undercut so much already. So how in my right mind could I endorse a model of behavior based soley around falsehood?

I think in the end that the FITYMI mindset is less about falsities and more about positive thinking. Setting a favorable frame of mind seems to be one of the most successful strategies for a person to achieve a goal they ultimately want. So, ultimately, “faking it” gets you to actually “make it.”

But as a person who grew up in the School of Cobain and Vedder (and to lift a line straight from an Offspring song), I’ve always thought that being positive is so unhip. Happy, fake people are annoying.

But what I didn’t learn as a teenager was that there apparently is a middleground, where positive thinking is different from idiotic happyfaces.

Being an adult is hard.