Everyone Is Awful

Introduction
Everything and everyone is at least a little bit awful, and there's nothing we can do about it

We are told that every cloud has a silver lining. This is a lie. Clouds do not containany precious metals, otherwise they wouldn t be floating in the sky. The other more implicit lie is that all situations have a positive side. But no, sometimes they re simply a shitty situation. Of course, they probably will have positive outcomes later on down the line that you re not aware of but other times the only good outcome is that they re over.

My point is some things are bad and we need to stop lying to ourselves and claiming that they re still somehow secretly good. No! Some things are just simply bad, with each side being negative, no matter which angle you look at it. Sit with it, and then get on with life. What other option is there? To be stripped of your basic human right to occasionally wallow in self-pity? To not treat yourself to a little tantrum?! That s an absolute travesty. If you have to go through a tough time, at the very least you should be allowed to complain for the duration. And on top of that, you too, I m sorry to say, are flawed. Awful, even. At this point, you re probably expecting me to say, And that s OK. But I m not going to do that, because it s an entirely useless sentiment. It won t magically make you OK with your flaws. Instead it ll make you obsess over your new flaw of not being perfectly content with yourself, which will invariably make you feel even worse than before.

No. Your only option is to be flawed, to cause your own problems sometimes, and then to feel bad about it. Until you stop feeling so bad, but then you re just going to make some other mistake and repeat the cycle. And that s it. That is the human condition.

So I m not here to tell you how to live life, mostly because I don t think I m particularly good at it. Nor can I tell you how to become a better person, or even a more resilient one. My comics

Natalya Lobanova is a freelance writer, artist, illustrator, and animator. A former BuzzFeed writer and illustrator, she has been creating viral artwork for years, with many pieces shared hundreds of thousands of times. Her previous clients include the BBC, Vice (Change Incorporated), The New Yorker, Apartment Therapy, BuzzFeed, Penguin, The Iconic, The International Women s Media Fund, The Press Forward, and New York magazine (The Strategist).