Don't Write Yourself Off

If wisdom can truly be shared through written word, then I pray that what little wisdom I have come to own can be shared with you now. If not embraced outright, my hope is that at least the seed of this truth can be planted in your mind so that you, too, can come to this beautiful understanding.

Don't Write Yourself Off
What has taken me 34 years of rather unfulfilling existence to finally understand is that it's VERY IMPORTANT for you to stop writing yourself off. If you have been, stop. If you haven't been, why haven't you people done a better job of getting this message out there?

If you had gotten through to me with this 16 years ago, 12 years ago, hell - even 3 years ago, my life would have been so much different. And, since I'm not writing myself off anymore - not only would my life have been so much different, I think the world would have been better off. That's right - the WORLD would have been a better place if I had figured this out even just 3 years ago. It makes THAT much difference.

At this point, you might be writing me off. You might be saying to yourself, "what kind of egomaniac thinks the whole world would have been a better place if he had figured this out 3 years ago?" You know what, that's fine. In fact, if I were reading this rather than writing it, I might be doing the same thing. I am completely okay with you writing me off and dismissing these words as rubbish. Just don't do it to yourself.

I won't be doing it to myself, not anymore, and you shouldn't either. You probably have been for years, and it's time to stop.

- What took so long?
I don't know why it is or how it came to pass that this fundamental thing was not apparent to me sooner. It doesn't make sense to me that people who understand this haven't spread the message to every one they know. Their friends, their children - how have they not spread this message to them? - and by six degrees of Kevin Bacon, shouldn't it therefore have spread to me sooner? Shouldn't someone have pounded this into my head by now?

Once you realize that you've been writing yourself off for your whole life and then stop, you can't help but see the people around you writing themselves off every day. The waitress that wants to be painter, the office drone who wants to start his own business, the secretary that wants to open a no-kill animal rescue, that transcriptionist who wants to be a writer.... they're all writing themselves off.

The only reason they wish they had a different life is because they've been writing themselves off. The only reason you wish you had a different life is because you've been writing yourself off. It's bullshit. Stop it.

- Soccer Trophies
Maybe they came close. Maybe they all most got the message out. You know those trophy-kids? The ones that played in the soccer matches where everyone got a trophy, even the losing team? I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I think maybe this is the message they were trying to get out. They just didn't understand it well enough, or they got the message slightly confused. They thought this meant "Everyone is a Winner," but the actual message is "Everyone can do a hell of a lot better if they get out of their own way."

If a kid loses, he's not a winner. That's giving him a terribly false impression of how the world works and he's going to be torn apart by the way the world really works. This is a world where you can be a gazelle just getting a morning drink when some lion can come along and rip your throat out. Human society is NO DIFFERENT. The only reason anyone thinks human society isn't rip-your-throat-out deadly is because the lions prefer calm gazelles, sedated with a false sense of security.

If a kid loses, he's a loser. Don't give him a trophy. However, if you ever hear your child say "I'll never win a trophy. I'm not good enough." I want you to immediately slap him in the face hard enough that he'll remember it for the rest of his life. I don't care if you're in church, slap that little ...

If he's talking like that, he's learning to write himself off - sell himself short - mentally sabotage himself and maim his entire life. Don't let him learn how to do that. Don't allow him to talk himself out of trying.