Dumbass Sayings: “Keep Your Chin Up”

When you’ve lost custody of your kids to that overweight witch of an ex-wife and you’ve subsequently gotten back into huffing paint people around you say “Hey, keep your chin up!” That person is the lady at the DMV who’s trying to take a picture for your new license. But sometimes friends and colleagues will tell you to “keep your chin up” because that means to remain cheerful despite your life being complete horseshit. The problem I have with this saying is it’s an improper metaphor. If things in your life are gloomy and you’re depressed then sometimes it feels like it’s always raining and dreary. When it’s raining one of the last things you want to do is keep your chin up because then you’ll get nasty ass rainwater in your mouth, nose, and eyes. If anything, when you’re weathering a storm of sadness you should just keep your head down and plow though it. There’s just no reason to keep your head up in a torrential downpour of tragedy. That’s impractical and foolish. The only reason you’d want to keep your chin up is to present the illusion that you’re enjoying yourself, but why lie? If your life is shit then accepting that fact is the first step. People who walk ignorantly with their chin up can only do that for so long. Eventually their chin drops and they realize they’ve swallowed way too much pain in an effort to conceal it. The only reason to keep your chin up is to maintain a good posture, aside from that it’s pointless.

Keeping your chin up requires your chin to never fall below an angle less than 90 degrees.