Like many self-help books, Daily Negations can be kept by the toilet and read each morning or evening, depending on your personal habits. Or it could be kept by the bed, or incorporated into one's daily prayer or meditation routine.
The book serves at least two functions. First, Daily Negations will show people who have a negative outlook on life that they are not alone. Second, Daily Negations can be used by (or given to) people whose attitude in life is too sunny, too optimistic, too full of boundless strength and hope. Such people can come to a more normal, realistic world view by daily consultation of Daily Negations.

As a solo recording artist, and as lyricist and lead vocalist of King Missile ("Detachable Penis," "Sensitive Artist," "America Kicks Ass"), John S. Hall has recorded three CDs for Atlantic Records and eight independent CDs. He has appeared numerous times on MTV and was featured in PBS's The United States of Poetry and HBO's Def Poetry Jam. He is the author of one book of poetry, Jesus Was Way Cool (Soft Skull Press), an has been anthologized in a number of other books. John has toured extensively in North America and Europe, both as a spoken word artist and with his band. He lives in New York City.

On the first day of this year, I can tell myself that I will make a fresh start. I can tell myself that I am a new person, that I have left my old, worthless self behind. But within a week things will be back to normal. I may as well save myself the disappointment and accept the fact that nothing in my life will ever really change.

Today can be a clean slate. I can start over from scratch and completely redefine myself. All I have to do is tell myself that everything I did up until now was completely wrong, and I should just forget it and move on, because it won�t help me; it won�t teach me anything. It was a complete waste of time. That shouldn�t be so hard�I tell myself that in little ways every single day.

I don't really change much from day to day, or month to month, or year to year. The bitterness, anger, selfishness, foolishness, pettiness�all the feelings that I had last year, I will have them this year too. Today, I should take notice of my bad habits. They are proof that I don't learn, I don't change, I don't get better.

Most things that I can imagine doing are completely unachievable. Being able to know what actually is possible is almost impossible. The few things that I know I can do are things that anyone can do, or things that are not worth doing, or things that I don't want to do. I don�t really want to do anything.

If I were another person, it would be easy for me to see all of my faults�they would just pop out, and hit me in the face. I should try to judge myself the way I would judge anyone else, so that I can more easily see how bad a person I really am.

I may try to forget the sorrows of the past, but they will always be with me. When I find myself inexplicably sad today, perhaps the cause is regret over how last year was so uneventful, or full of mistakes, or badly lived. When I think about how bad last year was, I am preparing myself for how bad this year will be.

Maybe I should just start over. Maybe I should pretend not just that it�s a new day, or a new week, but a whole new life. I could take this day and entirely reinvent myself. Of course, I probably wouldn�t like the new me any better than the old me, so why bother?

I�ve eaten my breakfast. I�ve washed my bowl. When will I get a life?

When I spend time with young children, I can sometimes see innocence and joy on their faces, and it makes me think about how disappointed I was when I got older and learned the truth about how mediocre life is: how everybody is greedy and small and a liar, how everybody let me down. Perhaps one day, I will disappoint a child, who will then learn a painful lesson about life. We are all potential teachers.

The world is full of limitless possibilities, but my mind is too closed. I am myopic. I can�t see what is right in front of me. I wasn�t destined to succeed. I have no dreams. If only the world had less to offer. Then I wouldn�t feel so bad about not having accomplished anything.

Yesterday, I tried and failed. Today, I will try and fail. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

When I say I am proud of myself, who am I trying to fool? I am not even fooling myself. Perhaps today I can finally face the truth of my worthlessness, and stop trying to be something I�m not. Perhaps today I can stop trying to be something, when I am nothing.

How often have I looked forward to something with great anticipation, only to find that the experience I was so looking forward to turned out to be empty and mediocre? And yet, I continue to hope. I continue to look forward. When will I ever learn?

When my mind is operating at its peak, it should depress me to think that this is the best I can do, because it's not very good at all. When my mind is operating normally, I should be even more depressed.

When I was young, my optimism got me through difficult times. I �knew� that things would get better. Now I am older, there is less time, and I know better than to dream of the future. Things will only get worse from here on out.

So many of my problems stem from poor planning and miscommunication. If I would just stop making plans and trying to communicate, I would probably have a lot fewer problems.

Is my obsession with being gentle with myself an excuse to be lazy and irresponsible? Of course it is. When will I realize that I can never escape the truth? Who am I trying to fool? Am I really that stupid?

There are days when I feel that the only thing I am good for is sex. But I am not as good in bed as I think I am, and in time I will age and I will be even worse.

When I ask myself if I am okay, I usually don't know. That is why I always seek the approval of others. It is important for me to know what other people think of me, so that I can change my behavior to suit them. If I don't do what other people want, they won't like me, and I won't like myself. Today, I will do whatever other people want.

There are days when even the simplest tasks seem impossible, when even the most obvious truths escape me. Today is probably one of those days. There is nothing I can do about it.

When I tell myself, �I don�t deserve to live. I should give up. My life has been a total waste,� do I really believe it, or am just wallowing in self pity? Even worse, is this just false modesty? Do I say these things so that people will contradict me? When they do, do I tell myself they are just being polite, or do I believe their lies?

I lack the imagination and foresight to envision the future. When I look forward with dread, no matter how bad I think it�s going to be, reality is often far worse than anything I predict. This is another way in which I hide from the truth.

Sometimes I think positive, optimistically. When I lie to myself, it helps me get through the day, and it helps me get through my life to repeat this process whenever I feel myself slipping into reality. I am a coward and a fool.

When the sun is shining, the whole world is mocking me, laughing at me and my misery. When there is rain, that is the world trying to compound my agony. When it is partly cloudy, that is the world, trying to keep me off guard, so that I don�t know what to expect. It is always a mistake to think of the universe as my friend.

I have a tendency to think that people are on my side, that they support me, that they don�t make fun of me behind my back. I have nothing on which to base these assumptions, however. It is much more likely that people are as judgmental of me as I am of them. So it isn�t really wrong of me to despise them, to make fun of them, and to stab them in the back.

My body is not what it was. My mind is not what it was. In the future, my body will not be what it is now, my mind will not be what it is now, and I will have even less to look forward to than I do now. This is as good as it�s ever going to get, and if I�m not enjoying life now, I probably never will.

Often I rationalize, and explain away my character defects by blaming things on my bad upbringing, my damaged past. This is yet another way that I can avoid responsibility. I let myself get away with this because I'm not really interested in growing up. I accept that deep down, I really just don�t care.

Like most days, today will be characterized by failure after failure, and I shouldn�t let little successes here and there encourage or inspire me, as they are insignificant distractions. Today, I should accept the first failure life presents me with, and move on to the second failure life presents me with. After that, I should move on to the next failure life presents me with. And so on.

When I do something good for somebody else, do I then feel that I am entitled to some small indulgence�a pint of ice cream, perhaps, or a pint of scotch? Do I do good things for the reward? Do I do things for people so that they will like me? Am I addicted to other people�s gratitude? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Life doesn�t have to be something I actually live. Life can be something that happens while I am doing other things, like watching television or escaping into fantasy. The world won�t stop if I decide not to do anything. And it is easier not to do than to do. And the less I do, the less I can fail at.

Sometimes, I hear birds singing in the morning, and I think to myself, �This day is mine to win or lose. Perhaps today will be a winner day.� And yet I know that somehow, some way, this day will disappoint me. If I could just stop hoping, I wouldn�t be let down all the time.