A Gentleman’s Makeover

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

―Rumi―

Let’s start straight up. You are not happy with your life, and the path you ended up in. You feel like you have lost yourself, victim to the sways and winds of life. You feel like you’ve let down yourself and those around you. And you need to change, and you need to find yourself.

That has to be the most over-used excuse for procrastination created by man. It can literally be translated into “I plan to sit on my ass till the world changes around me.” It means that you have no intention of taking control over your life, but rather blame everything and everyone for your misery.

Let me start by saying the following, you don’t need to find yourself. Unless you’re on the side of a milk carton, kidnaped by some shady individuals, you know damn well where you are. THAT’S why you want to change. You are right there, standing in front of the mirror.

And that should be your first step. You need to recognize that the guy in the other side of the mirror was the guy that got you into this mess. So the first thing you need to do is change the guy looking back at you. And ironically this is the easiest test as to if you are really interested in changing. If you find it so hard to change who you are in the outside, can you really say you have any intention of changing who you are in the inside?

It’s funny how people want to change and better themselves, yet have such an aversion to an actually perceivable change. They want a change that they can hide from those who don’t want them to change, or a change that will not be judged by those around them. You might think that this is just a superficial aspect, based on pure vanity. But the reality is you will be looking at this new person every day to remind you of the change you are doing. Staying the same, not changing how you look, will simply keep you repeating the same habits and the same routines. Changing how you look will automatically change your habits.

This means you have to do a mayor change. Get a haircut, it can’t be as simple as “a little off the sides.” Grow a mustache or a beard; or shave it off. Do anything and everything with intent, no half measures. You will get people who might say that this change in appearance is not a good fit, or that you looked better before. To those people, ask them if they were happy with the man you were before. This will actually test the waters, and will expose those people who hinder your self-development.

Change is necessary to grow. You need to shed off the man who you were to become the man you will be. Define that man, the man you want to become, and aim to reach him. Start by defining who he is, and how his character is reflected on how he looks. Build him up from the ground up and then use him as your role model. And then aim to become that man.

It all has to start by changing the man looking back at you in the mirror.

The Greatest Danger You Face Is Thinking Someone Else Will Save You.

The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.

–Jordan Belfort–

Several years ago, like so many others, I had hit a low point in my life. And like so many others, I whined and bitched about the unfairness of life, about wanting to get back up, and about how bad things were; and I would rant out my lamentation to every single person I could as I played my own background dramatic theme music. That’s till I expressed my frustration to one of my mentors. It was him who looked at me and asked what I expected him to do. When I told him that there was not much he could do, his answer was simple.

So you don’t want to fix your life, you just want to complain and feel sorry for yourself?

That was the reality of my life at that moment. The truth is I had actually done little other than complain, because no matter how much others are willing to do to help you, unless you help yourself, there is nothing that can be done.

Life is not fair, it’s difficult, and it will break you. People will sometimes offer a helping hand, and try to get you back on your feet. But unless you are willing to stand up, no amount of help will be enough. That’s why it’s so difficult to help some people, and that’s why some people can’t be saved. Because after everything is said and done, the only person who can save them is themselves.

We all want to succeed, or at least that’s what we tell everyone. And yet people do so little too actually save themselves, especially from themselves. You are willing to go the extra mile to help others, but how far are you willing to go for yourself? Are you willing to go past the excuses, the lamentations, and the procrastination, to actually achieve your own self betterment?

Here’s the horrible truth. Nobody can save you, unless you save yourself. So it’s up to you. Are you willing to stay on the canvas, complaining that you could have been a champion, or are you going to stand up and go another round against life?

Make Pearls out of Problems.

Pearls mean tears.

Doris Lessing

Now days, pearls are not as valuable as before, thanks mainly to pearl farms where oysters are “forced” to produce pearls on demand. But before the existence of cultured pearls and rather realistic fake pearls, in the olden days, wild pearls were rather rare and extremely valuable. The reason was that not every oyster produced a pearl. Rather the contrary, as an oyster containing a wild pearl was a beautiful exception. Irregularly shaped with swirling colors and tones; it’s their luster, their beauty, and their rareness that make them so special. But to understand this, we need to understand what a wild pearl is.

Oysters and mollusks thrive in muck, where their hard shell protects them from a horrible habitat. They are able to withstand what their environment throws at them, with their outer rock like skin serving as their armor. But every once in a while, a miniscule parasite will slip by, threatening the oyster’s life. As a defense, the oyster will seal off the invader, turning what would have tried to kill it into a precious treasure sought by many who see its beauty and value.

As strange as it may seem, we need to learn from the oysters and the mollusks. We may have developed a hard skin as we have learned to deal with the harsh environment that surrounds us. But it’s usually that small thing, that tiny detail that slips past our defenses, that is the greatest threat to our person. So, when we deal with this threat, with this danger, we are rewarded with experience and wisdom.

As we learn from this experience and as we grow in wisdom, we start turning what would have killed us, into a precious treasure that we hold close to our hearts. What was once a threat has not turned into a treasure, what was a problem is now a pearl. It gives us value and worth beyond what we had before. And it’s only when we are willing to open up our hard skin to someone who deserves it, can we pass on that Pearl of Wisdom.

Your World Is As Big As You Make It.

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

Haruki Murakami

One of my biggest causes of procrastination when I write is when I head over to Wikipedia to look up more information about a concept. Yes, I know that Wikipedia is not a completely trustworthy source of information, but I am not going to condemn the good because of the perfect. But I digress. The reason I call Wikipedia my greatest source of procrastination is how easily a simple search turns into 20 open tabs and at least 3 hours of just browsing information.

Am I surprised? Not really. As a kid I would grab an encyclopedia (to the younger readers, this is how old people used to find information, google it up.) and just flip through it. That was my first glimpse of the largeness of the world. I learned of the Far East, and the Not So Far West. I learned of Ancient History and of Modernity. I would “travel” all over the world, and even across time and space with every book, with every entry, and I learned just how small my world was when compared to how big the world really is. And as the saying goes, a mind expanded by knowledge can never shrink back.

People assume education is what you get at school or college. Sure, we get taught about history and science at school. We are taught about art and music (or used to before the school system gutted some of those programs). But consider just how much attention you paid to your teachers, especially those teachers you didn’t like. The reality of education and knowledge is not based on what classes you take or what degree you reach or what certification you achieve. Truthfully, those are just pieces of paper you place on a wall stating that you attended classes and learned to pass tests.

Some will assume that self-education and knowledge for knowledge’s sense is a waste of time, viewing ideas different from their own as something to be crushed. I fear these people, as they already decided that personal ignorance is an acceptable way to live and will attack anyone who thinks differently just to support their personal insecurities.

Education and knowledge is what you experience and what you learn, not out of necessity, but out of genuine interest. We no longer live in a world limited by our access to a library or even a book, as today the world’s knowledge is at our fingertips. And yet some only chose to read what they already agree with, what other liked minded people recommend. We limit the information we receive, only accepting what will not offend or challenge our world.

Mark Twain once said “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” The same applies to knowledge.

You have to avoid conscientiously and willfully limiting your world, creating your own borders and limitations. Read books that challenge you, books smaller men would ban or censor. You don’t have to take any of them as true, and don’t even have to agree with them. What you do have to do is try and understand them, where they come from, what ideas and cultures lead to them. And as a result your world will grow. You have to broaden your horizon, as wide as the world itself. And when it has reached this width and extent, realize that the universe is limitless.

Beware of Being Wrong When You’re Being Right.

Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.

Friedrich Nietzsche

There is a sense of fulfillment that comes from making a stand, from challenging injustice, from fighting for what you believe in. Being right empowers you to be more as it give you the confidence to confront those who are wrong. And if the general attitude of most people is to be believed, it gives you a license to be an asshole and people seem to like being assholes.

Take a moment to consider the cynical pleasure some people get from saying “I told you so.” You could actually assume that they WANT you to fail, just to be able to do that. Yet these same people don’t understand why, when they are right and are offering good advice, others don’t pay attention or simply refuse to take this advice. Some actually get offended by the other person’s dismissal. So when the time comes around that they were right, they gloat and brag.

This is a horrible downward spiral based on vanity, ego, and a terrible attitude of superiority. Realize that if you start your advice tied to a sense of “I’m right, you’re wrong” you have no intention of helping the person. All you want to do is fill your ego, prove your superiority. That’s why you get offended when the person prefers to ignore your recommendations. That’s why you get that perverted pleasure of seeing them fail, that’s when you show how shallow you are as you voice the “I told you so.”

Worse yet, by telling them “I told you so,” you actually keep them from learning from their mistakes. If we grow from our mistakes, you want them to think how their mistake was not doing it your way. You are feeding your insecurities, your vanity, and your ego with someone else’s misery. Again, you’re just being a bad person.

If your intent is to actually help the person, help them. Don’t tell them how to do it, tell them how you did it when it was your turn. Tell them why you did it that way, and let them make their own choices. As I have said so often, nobody has a monopoly on the truth.

The reality is that they might actually figure out a better way. Maybe they got it wrong, but they will learn from their mistakes, and grow from them. Learn to offer your hand, not your judgments, to those who have fallen. They are already being critical of their own failure. What they need is someone to help them rise up, not someone who kicks them while they are down.