everything i need to know i learned from lululemon

You know Lululemon, right? You don’t? This means you’re not into the kind of yoga that requires a $128 hoodie to practice. Lululemon is a company that “creates components for people to live longer, healthier and more fun lives. If we can produce products to keep people active and stress-free, we believe the world will become a better place.”

Or so it says on my reusable Lululemon shopping bag, which is currently holding my lunch and which, I suppose, could be considered a “component.” It’s a stylish mishmash of red and white text, with a silhouette of a girl in dancer’s pose. Let’s see how it suggests staying active and stress-free, shall we?

Don’t trust that an old age pension will be sufficient.

The world’s non-hoodie-based media sources would agree with this one. Luckily I’ve invested all my savings in this $78 Weightless Running Skirt. I just know its value is gonna skyrocket like a tract home in the Inland Empire.

Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live for the moment.

I actually spent about four months this year doing just that. It involved a lot of crying and Googling diseases I might have. If that’s living in the moment, I’ll take Zoloft, thank you.

Write down your short and long term GOALS four times a year. Two personal, two business and two health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. Goal setting triggers your subconscious computer.

Wait, I thought I was supposed to live in the moment.

The world is changing at such a rapid rate that waiting to implement changes will leave you 2 steps behind. DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW!

Aaaaaah! No offense, Lu, but this is not making me feel very stress-free.

Stress is related to 99% of all illness.

Shit. I’m totally fucked, in that case. Wait, you’re kind of implying that stress causes illness, but I smell a dangerous fallacy. What did they call this in AP econ? Ergo hoc, post proctor hoc? Something like that? I would believe that 99% of illnesses cause stress, which is a different equation entirely.

I wonder what conditions are in the 1% that don’t. I had a friend who went skiing and got a bad sunburn, and her doctor told her that the sun damage to her eyes would turn them blue in a year. I guess that wouldn’t be too stressful.

Nature wants us to be mediocre because we have a greater chance to survive and reproduce. Mediocrity is as close to the bottom as it is to the top, and will give you a lousy life.

Oh. And here I was thinking that Nature was good. Stop trying to fuck up my life, Nature. But, ha! I just set two personal, two business and two health goals. Take that, Nature! I’m gonna be an X-Man before you know it.

Observe a plant before and after watering and relate these benefits to your body and brain.

Okay, here goes…. I dunno, it looks kind of mediocre. Just sitting there, not making any money or doing any yoga.

Friends are more important than money.

Which is why it’s okay to spend $52 on something called a Silver Bullet Sleeveless Tech tank top.

Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.

Which is basically saying “Your outlook on life = your outlook on life.” Calling the Department of Redundancy Department! (Sorry to get all English major on you, Lu. You make way better Vinyasa Scarves than I ever could.)

The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.

So you’re saying I shouldn’t have set those goals? Or I shouldn’t have set goals that would lead to happiness? Like, maybe my goal should have been to encounter a swarm of angry bees this fiscal year?

Personally, I think the 405 is the source of some unhappiness.

Dance, sing, floss and travel.

Done and done. Except dancing and singing make me kinda happy, and when I flossed, I was not living in the moment. If today were my last day on earth, I would not have spent it flossing.

Breathe deeply and appreciate the moment. Living in the moment could be the meaning of life.

Got it. No more flossing for me. It’s all $78 Astro Wunder Under Crop pants from here on out. Namaste.