From Someone Who Doesn’t Have To Live With Its Consequences

How is it that everyone seems to be an expert on your shit?

Isn’t it funny how many professors crawl out of the woodwork when you have a problem?

Think about it.

Have you ever been in a quandary and everyone suddenly seems full of expert and friendly advice?

How every Tom, Dick and Harry and their fluffy poodle seems to be a pro on what you should do and what actions you should take in your life?

The funny thing, if you stop to think about it, is that the person giving the advice is more often than not in just a sticky of a life situation as you are. If not worse.

 

SO HOLD UP A SECOND

If you are such an expert, how come you are caught up in your own fucking bullshit?

Let’s slam the brakes on, boys and girls.

Free advice is…well, free advice.

It’s easy to dispense, costs nothing and, most important of all, in most cases has absolutely no effect on the person giving it.

It’s pretty easy for someone to hum and hee haw and hold their chin and tell you what they think you should do in your case.

However, the only person that is at stake here is you. And the only person that will be affected by any advice followed is you.

It’s your life. Your situation. Your consequences.

The person giving you the advice can just sit back, cross their legs, sip a tall, cool glass of Smartass on the rocks, and watch events unfold.

That’s spectator sport for you.

The soothsayers will not be affected by what they tell you to do.

If they would be, I can guarantee that 99% of all the advice dispensed in this world would be much more cautious, better thought out and very different.

With that in mind, let’s get down to basics.

 

TIME TO PUT SOME KICKS IN THE MIX

It’s good to be able to follow something tried-and-true, something that has been tested time and time again so we know it is truly rock solid advice.

That will at least give us a path to walk on, to a better place.

The following are 10 choices you will face in life that you will invariably regret sooner or later, if you decide to take them up.

They may sound like a good idea at the time or an easy way out of the situation that you don’t want to handle, but make no mistake.

These choices will fuck you up. No two ways about it.

Here we go.

 

DREAMS

Build your dreams with someone who shares your dreams.

People who are on the outside looking in and munching peanuts are almost always a bad choice to go to for advice.

Your dreams are highly personal to you and you alone. Believe in yourself and the power of what you can do.

Find a mentor, someone who shares your vision and who is willing to help.

You will quickly know who loves helping and who doesn’t.

Don’t try to walk on eggshells.

If you have opposition, it means you are fighting for something.

If you have haters, it means you are taking a stand.

Don’t be afraid of your dreams.

But do find someone who can show you the quickest way to get there.

Life is too short to waste in experiments, especially when someone has already charted the way.

 

FACADES

Sometimes you want to try and please everyone.

Sometimes the world deals you a hand you think you cannot take.

Sometimes the truth is something you would rather not face.

So, in order to cope with situations like these, you may think it’s a good idea to twist the truth around to suit your version of events.

In this way, you put on a mask to hide reality from yourself and to hide yourself from the outside world.

It’s a shortcut to false comfort and indeed, this ruse may hold out.

For a while.

However, it’s a question of when – not if – the whole house of cards you have built comes crashing down around you.

Facades cannot be sustained. The truth will always get you in the end.

So -overcome your fear of facing the truth.

It is best to get it done and over with.

You will be forced to deal with it one day, so it’s best to do it while problems are still small and manageable, rather than when they have grown fat and ugly while being hidden away.

Attempting to convince yourself that something is not there because you are hiding it from yourself is an exercise in futility and self-deceit and ultimately, self-destruction.

 

COMPANY

“True friends are like diamonds, precious and rare. False friends are like autumn leaves, blowing everywhere.”

I must have read this phrase decades ago, and it stuck in my mind.

Bad company will be a ball and chain in your life.

The company you keep will be the difference between failure and success.

For me, being average and the mundane is failure. I don’t want to be fucking normal. Just about everyone else is.

And the people you hang around with will determine your fate.

So, find people who are successful, willing to see you succeed and who will be happy with your success.

Just prepare to be very disappointed – such people are few and far between.

There will not be many of these in your life, but if you do find them, hold them close and never let them go.

Human nature can be severely disappointing. So choose your friends with extreme care.

 

SELFISHNESS

It’s not about you.

It never is.

If you do make it about you, you are going to die a very lonely and bitter person.

Make it about others, especially the people who truly love you in your life.

Happiness comes from helping others, not helping yourself.

Incidentally, this is also why you need to avoid bad company.

Negative people are emotional vampires and they will drain the life out of you. They will take all you give them, and ask you for more and more until there is nothing left.

However, the people who truly love you will always return the love you give them back.

And this is why you need to make it about them.

People will forget what you looked like, people will forget just about everything you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

So, even though it can sometimes be really hard to do, it’s worth the sacrifice.

It’s only what you give to others that remains long after you are gone.

 

CHANGE

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.”

Sticking to the devil you know means you are forever destined to never get anywhere in life.

Trying to get something done then running back into the shadows as soon as you get scared is futile.

Change is scary.

It always is. If you’re not scared, you’re not thinking right.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the conquering of fear.

So stand strong and weather the storm. Again, a mentor or a loved one with a strong hand to hold onto is invaluable in this process.

Don’t heed the naysayers.

Don’t mind the haters.

And, above all, conquer the fear of stepping outside your comfort zone.

The old ways may be comfortable, but they are stagnation. And stagnation is death.

You need to constantly evolve to bring out the best in yourself.

 

SURRENDER

Fear of failure pretty much castrates all attempts at success.

No one wants to fail.

But what is failure anyway?

You see, the difference between successful people and average ones is how they view failure.

The truth is – there is really no such thing as failure.

“Failure” is simply a new place with new options and new outlooks.

Edison tested over 6000 materials before coming up with a viable lightbulb!

6000+ experiments! And the guy was never discouraged once! Talk about fucking tenacity and convinction.

Seriously – what would you do if you knew that you could never fail?

What would you accomplish if you were not afraid of falling down?

After all, falling down is not failing. Deciding to stay down is.

And that decision is entirely yours to make.

Life is not going to treat you fairly. If you are going around thinking you deserve better, I have some advice for you – stay home and suck on the titty. Because that is as good as it’s going to get.

Running away is the coward’s way out.

Especially if someone else is depending on you – and the outcomes of our attempts affect those closest to us in no uncertain way.

Keep moving closer to your goal, one step at a time. No matter what.

 

PERFECTION

Strive for excellence, never perfection.

One is attainable. The other is not.

Trying to do everything perfectly will invariably result in nothing at all getting done.

Imperfect action will always, always, always be better than perfect inaction.

You need to learn how to relax and let go. Yes, basically it’s just like sitting on a toilet.

Trying to control everything and getting all your ducks in a row is not going to work.

Plan things well in a sensible amount of time. Then take a step forward. Stop. Assess the situation. Observe what you’ve done, then do the next step incorporating what you’ve learned from the first one.

You don’t need to take running leaps forward progress. You just need to take one step at a time.

As long as it’s a constant step at a time.

 

SUBMISSION

It’s easy to just let go too quickly and settle for what you have rather than fighting for more.

This holds true especially when you are tired and when your intended goal seems to be dwindling out of sight.

It’s important at this point to take a break before going at it again.

While it’s important to never give up, not taking some time out will simply mean you will dissipate all your energy on blinkered options when it would be a lot better to sit down and assess the situation.

Doing this will always offer you a fresh approach to any problems you may have.

Getting sound advice at such a juncture will be invaluable.

Just keep trying and keep evolving.

Tomorrow is always a better day.

And if it’s not, we will fucking make it one.

 

RELEASE

As a refinement on the above point, it is good to have the wisdom to recognise when you need to let go.

Tackling the problem from the same angle will always give you the same result.

Being bull-headed about it is going to result in an unstoppable tide of frustration.

The whole point here is not to give up on the problem but to change your approach to the problem.

If it doesn’t work one way, it will work another way.

Don’t give up. Don’t give yourself a way out.

Not having an exit point brings out the best in us. Because we have no other choice than work it out. Or die trying.

There is always a solution.

The secret is – how hard are we prepared to work for it?

 

PROCRASTINATION

You can always have more money but you can never have more time.

Time is absolutely the single most valuable resource that we have.

Quit wasting time.

Quit putting things off.

Don’t be seduced into thinking you can get things done tomorrow.

Get shit done – TODAY.

Otherwise, you are going to wake up one day, look back and realise you have frittered the most valuable and productive time of your life away.

 

LAZINESS

Be a person of action. It is time to get things done.

An old Chinese proverb says “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

Don’t wait for other people to do something.

Stand up and do it yourself.

Dream a dream and make it happen.

The world doesn’t owe you shit.

Take responsibility.

Make a difference.

You have the power to make your dreams come true.

And no dream is impossible – as long as you believe in yourself.

 

SO…

What do YOU think?

Do you agree or disagree?

Whatever you do, never stop rocking. The encore is always the best part.

Comments