Have you ever met a real success? An honest to God I-love-absolutely-everything-about-my-life Success, one of those? Because if you haven’t, it may be that ideas abound in your brain which are slightly twisted, off kilter, even down right wrong. If you have met one, maybe you were surprised by what you found?
"And we used to think that they were different!"
"But in truth, they looked like us".
"True. I suppose if you happened to meet one with a few less extremities, then the only difference might be a greater skill at being efficient, because a deficit in the limb department could seriously fucking well slow one down otherwise".
"However, it is highly unlikely that any significant percentage of the Embodiments of Success in life proved to be headless and therefore we can skip them without apology".
"The successful types, these ‘people’, for that is what they are, are not only inherently like us, but also inherently not that far removed from where we might be right now".
" Imagine if the only difference was that they had made a decision and stuck with it to the point of success and beyond".
"Were"
"The same as us"
"We so need to move on in life!"
"It means get over shit that isn't relevant any more. That's not who we are! We aren't a 'label', unless we want to be."
"Stray? no - waded full tilt to the point of total submersion? yes!"
"That's okay. Look we're saying that the people who are where we want to be started out just like us, it's a simple case that they did something about it, whatever it is".
"All I'm saying is that in general terms, specifics aside, most people aren't born like that, you know, succesful, happy, good relationships - they and their lives were like us at some point".
"You know sometimes it's like having a conversation with myself. Yes! exactly that. Yes!"
"I know what you mean and it would be a lame argument that glossed over such seemingly crucial defining factors as initial bank balance on start-up, -it’s easier with cash behind you, right?"
"Education - it’s easier for Public School graduates, right?"
"Upbringing - it’s got to be less challenging with the support of a loving family backing up your sense of personal worth, right?"
" True and yet examples abound of people who have succeeded big time in something they really wanted to do without any of those 'essentials'.
"Thank you. So those things that seem so essential, more than essential to those of us without them, are in fact, red herrings. In which case it has to be said, maybe being an ant isn’t so bad".
"Yes think about it. What do all ants have in common?"
"My point is that being the same as everyone else is a complete bonus because it means if we do the same as someone else we can have the same results as them, assuming again that we really do want those results and we're not just aping people without first making sure we're on our plan this time and not some swindler's plan hoisted on us".
"Why the fuck couldn't it be? "
"But if we don't think we can do it why the fuck are we talking about it?"
"You did, just then"
"How come we think we're so different to other people, so fucking special that if we do what they did, we wouldn't get the same results?"
"Perhaps it is all to do with natural urges"
"Not those kind of natural urges, you pervert".
"The sort of urges that drive you to do something, try something, go out on a limb, stuff you're drawn to, things you feel an affinity to".
"Exactly, I mean the stuff of dreams or even some peoples hobbies, that could, no should, be the stuff of life".
"Consider for just a minute that your natural urges might be better guidance than any careers officer could ever hope to offer you. A natural tendency or ability could be a huge determinant in success".
"Precisely, my perceptive , precisely".
"How many people do we know who have a job that sprung out of a passion for something, or a career that blossomed from a hobby or childhood fancy?"
"Try none"
"Right, but why is that? Why the hell don't we all take what we love doing and keep doing it?"
"A strange concept, when we don't actually want to keep it going because it is far, far removed from the life we really do want".
"Because it's really hard to step off the treadmill long enough to look at it and see it for what it really is."
"A total fallacy! We can have a life that we really want to keep going where there is no treadmill.”
“The question is does knowing this give us the strength and conviction to escape the crushing weight of conformity?"
"Well just because you know something, it doesn't mean it's a piece of piss to put it into practice. There are a million and one pressures on us not to follow our natural instincts because it suits someone else, because it suits 'society', because it suits swindlers."
"That's not what I see".
"If everyone was doing what they really loved, the way they wanted, whenever they wanted, they wouldn't be screaming with frustration in life, living lives of 'quiet desperation' as some cheerless but astute git once put it.
"But there is some invisible force which stops people living the way they want. Some ethereal bloody, slippery swindle which governs most things we do apart from the occasional break out when something inside is riled enough to overrule the pressures to conform".
"Totally".
"We know why really, because everyone does and because everyone does we keep doing it, and the longer we're here, doing it, the harder it is to stop. Because we're caught up in a swindle we never created but we all collude in."
"Time to make a stand and take stock of our own resolve and decide for ourselves that the answer is: YES!"
"Who cares, the answer is still yes! We can do it, whatever it is. So someone else wanted us to live our life their way, to their expectations, to their rules, to their plan, so the fuck what! Natural aptitude is pulling us towards something as far removed from that as it is humanely possible to be removed from.. It is pulling us towards something where we could be roaring successes, run-away superstars in our own spheres".
"Yeah and the rest of the world can choose to be terminally disappointed, angry or scandalized at our decision".
"You took the words out of my mouth!".
" No matter. What we have then is a wealth of experience of things that didn’t work, so when an opportunity comes along we can seize it, terrier-like and bite it for all it's worth".
"No time for that. Look at this - some poor bastards have strong abilities in two (or more!) areas...
"Wait for it! ...two (or more!) opposed areas and thus spend their lives flitting back and forth between the two, never really settling on either and therefore enjoy only mediocre success where run-away superstardom awaited in one".
"Then you're a lost cause".
"Not at all. Anyone who truly thinks they have no strong natural abilities is merely too caught up in the mucus of swindling self-pity to see all the great things they can do. And by great things I mean whatever they consider great for them, not what others think. If you've always secretly wanted to be a vet, or run a charity for homeless charities or be self-sufficient and farm llamas - so long as it's your dream, your plan, that is a great thing in my book and most people have way more abilities than they ever imagine. It's just all that mucus of swindle and self-pity stopping them discovering it".
"In other words if you take all that you dream of, all that you're drawn to and sandwich it between all you've learnt from experience, the world could be your oyster".
Perhaps the best news among all of these pearls of wisdom is the undeniable truth...
"Thank fuck! you cry".
"The fact that we're ploughing through all this".
"You know what, we should make up our own ‘statement wear’ that makes our stance clear on those life-swindling, interfering types who feel the need to infect someone else's success with their own foolproof formula for mediocrity. Maybe that would help to keep them at bay? Fancy going around bandying opinions and advice so swindelous that it stops droves of ordinary people from getting that Great Life they deserve and that adds to all the head fuckage we have had to contend with every day! What a bunch of assholes!"
“We should have written on our first statement wear:
"Maybe but we've been told all our lives that things work a certain way and that’s the end of the matter. The only trouble is we have been out there a while now, and we’ve looked around and realized that some people are doing things a bit differently, in truth, more like completely the fucking opposite and things are going great for them .Far from living off dog excrement and licking the bins clean, they are actually having a ball, and have plenty of everything they need, even loads of cash, (which, let's face it, is often the really sticky one)".
"Complete and utter bullshit all along. Trouble is we’ve looked around and realized that the plan we're on will lead us to the ordinary life we see around us."
"It looks really good! And if it's your thing, then it truly is. It looks comfortable and safe and warm and a damn cosy and it sees far too dangerous to upset it all. After all we're on to a really good thing here and look at some of the other poor bastards in the World."
"Me too, until I remember we think it will pan out a certain way, which in truth it will, but in even greater truth there is nothing in that panning out that we actually want!"
"If the world suddenly stops spinning because in truth you're plan might be to sit in that job for example for the next twenty years but that doesn't mean you have any control over whether that actually happens. Other people are making plans and they may or may not include you and yours. And anyway who cares if you’re comfortable if you're dead for the last forty years of your life?"
"He said it the bastard (*Name would have been changed, had it been included), he was supposed to be our and he had the gall to say his life was over, this was it, mapped out, 25 years old and no plan except to have no plan, unless you call working at something you hate for an indeterminate number of years and then retiring and working at boredom for another interminate number of years and then carking it a plan. Life was over and not only did he say it, he relished in it, was pleased it had caused a fuss to the others he’d said it to. He felt fucking righteous about it all".
"Technically a life that is over makes you a dead person doesn’t it?"
"Well the honest truth is, that being may not have been making much of an impact before and now it’s just a see-through ectoplasm of an existence."
"We've been guilty too though. We always said we’d never get old...
"Rude thing is, 40 hadn’t even hit. We’d skipped middle-age and gone straight for Pensionsville."
"... and 40 hadn’t even hit!"
"Same way everyone else did I suppose"
"We had said it for years, the same old stuff: we’ll keep on top of technology"
"We’ll be busy"
"And all of those promises had been kept - well maybe we’d slipped slightly on the technology bit".
"But then one day it hit and the memory has been lost as to how, or what sparked it, but for some reason it was so blindingly obvious that frankly it was embarrassing."
"Too right! We could be the oldest net nerds in Christendom, the busiest bastard OAP on the planet, even the guy in the cemetery with more plans executed than any other busy bastard pensioner, but what about how we think and how we feel? What about the promise that we would feel great and go after the things we wanted? None of the promises we'd made said anything about that did they? They didn’t say we’d always think the world was fantastic and that everything would turn out awesome and we’d have a ball in life and do the things we wanted and be what we wanted. Somehow that lot got missed."
"Bollocks!"
"Thing is the life force has gone."
"Perhaps it would be fair to push their faces through something satisfyingly solid like a windscreen?"
"Hell yeah. Although in the interest of balance here, many of these negative bastards are just victims of the swindle as much as we are. Hmm...is the duck in the pub relevant here?"