The rest of my life will be lived selfishly. Ruthlessly Selfishly.
Unambiguously Selfishly.
Harshly Selfishly.
Selfishly Focused.
All. About. Me.
When I say those first 5 lines above, repeating several times just to explore how it fits and matches me, I have full realization that it fits me well. Very well. A great match. Perfect, even.
Without a doubt, the time has arrived (way past due), that the rest of my life will be lived selfishly.
For me.
Again, Ruthlessly.
A dictator of my life.
The lord and ruler of what I allow to impact me, of what I do, of everything I am.
The overseer of all my goals, inputs and outputs.
My own personal tyrant.
Maybe even my own personal despot (chuckling to myself).
As of this moment (Jan 15, 2018) going forward, my life is going to be 100 percent about me, my goals, my ambitions.
Family, friends, society, etc can just back off.
NO DRAMA TOLERATED
NO IMPOSITIONS.
NO BULLCRAP.
Just me. Happiness. Satisfaction.
There are three (at least!) aspects that I am steadfastly and strongly using to underpin my way of looking at the world:
If you are negatively impacting my life, you will no longer be part of it.
If you are not making my life better, you will no longer be part of it.
If I don’t think you will make my life better, if I think you will introduce unwanted drama into my life, you won’t even become part of it.
This goes for every single one of my relationships.
Boiling it down, the juxtaposition of myself with every other single human is some form of a relationship. Every interaction, and the -lack- of an interaction, with anyone and everyone -is- a relationship.
And to take it one step further, I also have a relationship with myself.
For years I’ve been discovering and improving this most important relationship, the relationship with myself. And to be honest, it hasn’t always gone as well as I like.
I’ve already started implementing this change in my mindset and my activities. And indeed, I will continue to strive for more, and seek new ways to become my improved self.
I’ve recently pushed past the 50 year mark. In the summer of 2018 I advance to 52 orbits around the earth.
Now, even though this should have happened decades ago, I am leveling up. Way up. Bizarrely and uncomfortably and no holds barred leveling up.
The fastidiousness and intent I am going to express, and expect from myself, is now brutal. Brutal self-honesty. Brutal self-evaluation. Brutally putting my goals in first place, and eliminating the ways I have not truly acted upon my desires.
My happiness is more important than the happiness of family, friends, acquaintances. If at anytime I am compromising my happiness to make an individual other than myself happy – then I am doing it wrong.
I am looking at myself each and every day, each and every hour. I will be constantly re-evaluating, to insure correct behavior and orienting myself to MY True North.
I am responsible for myself, my happiness, my peace, my goals, my ambitions, my way of looking at the world – and if anyone or anything gets in the way, it will be annihilated.
My life, my way of being is mine, truly, and will be lived for me. Unless I do something truly wrong, there will be NO apologies. Basically, take me as I am.
If you are going to bring unpleasantness to my life, then I do not want or need your interaction. I already have people that are not part of my life, I even have family members with whom I intentionally do not engage as the drama and bullcrap level was/is too high.
My way of looking at the world and others -is- completely in balance. My balance.
To be clear, at the very same time along with being brutally selfish, I am approaching others with:
Generosity.
Helpfulness.
Thoughtfulness.
Empathy.
Excitement.
Interest.
Sympathy.
Curiosity.
Concern.
Sensitivity.
I am a very caring person, and will continue to be such.
I dearly love and enjoy interactions with others. I am always meeting people, getting to know them. If they have needs in their life, I try to help. Especially from the technology perspective, as this is where I am most skilled. I also meet a lot of people that are struggling with issues in life. I listen, and try to direct them to something they can read or watch to help them. I care.
I encourage others to grab hold of life, and make their life better. I absolutely enjoy and relish having a positive impact on the lives of others. I without a doubt like helping others.
However…
I’m going to be way selfish in the way I approach. (You should not be surprised by this if you’ve been reading along.) 🙂
I am very discriminating, meaning not everyone will benefit the same. It is a sliding scale. EXAMPLE: I might hold the door open for the person behind me, and it does not mean that I am going to mow their lawn for free. I will choose to mow the lawn for someone based on – wait for it – MY WHIMSY. Meaning, I will do it if I want, and if I do not, do not think you are entitled. You are not.
This whole enlightenment began with a very cursory look at things that I find as frictions as I deal with people. People being everything from a random interaction with a stranger, a very very close family member, or even just good friends.
I started from the premise of what provides the least negativity, and most contentment in my life. I thought of some situations that provide insight to this:
-) I’m sitting in a really comfortable chair, sipping a great cup of coffee, reading a fantastic book. In this situation, there is only relaxment ( <– yeah, I made up that word) and enjoyment, no frustrations derived from other people. No one in the world is impinging on my contentment.
-) My mom does NOT get phone calls from me often enough. However, every single time I call her, I only get “Thank you for calling”, or “It is so good to hear from you”, or “It is great to hear your voice”. She NEVER, EVER tells me things like, “Why don’t you call me more often?” or “How come you never call me?”, etc. She simply shows appreciation, never chastising me for not calling her. And to be frank, if she did I would call her LESS. I would not, nor will I tolerate this kind of behavior. (Thank you mom!)
Another way of looking at how I will approach negativity is to let it never make it to me.
IE: I am myself. I am protected with an amazing shield that completely surrounds me – that blocks all incoming negativity in all of its many forms. The negativity hits, bounces off, and does not impact the core of me. (The SOURCE of the negativity will be eliminated as much as possible).
IE: I, myself, is my place of refuge, my place of peace, my place of contentment. Doesn’t matter what else is going on outside that circle -where I am within myself is as content and peaceful and me as much as can be. Everything else that may come at me, has to get through that steel wall of myself that cannot get through unless I allow it. I will endeavor to remove anything with the potential to negatively impact me from even being around to even attempt to impact me negatively.
IE: I, myself, am completely and totally content. Doesn’t matter what is going on around me. I am my own place of refugee. My own place of sanctity, my own place of peace. All the negativity that exists out there the chaos, no matter what it might be – it’s not part of me, its not part of my existence, its not part of what I’m embracing. Everything within myself, my area, my personal mental island, is happy, content, it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing or saying, I am good.
IE: I am an island. I, and only I, allow what I want on this island that is myself. Since I am the supreme ruler of me, my island, I can vote you off and eject you if I find you misbehaving on MY ISLAND. Immediately, and with extreme prejudice. Without ANY INPUT from anyone else.
IE: If I want to work 16 hours one day, and then the next day sit and read a book drinking coffee. THIS is EXACTLY what I will do.
IE: I will delve into what interests me, at any time, in any manner, for whatever amount of time I want, tuning out the world or trying to absorb the entire world at once. My call.
WHO I WILL LISTEN AND TAKE GUIDANCE FROM
Friends, family and acquaintances are full of advice. I will look at you, your life, your success to see if you have achieved what you are telling me I should do. If not, I will politely invite you to “go pound sand”.
Anyone that wants to offer advice need to determine the value of what they are offering. If you are someone that is offering advice to me, take a moment and consider, “Is this advice I am about to offer to John truly knowledged advice, or just my opinion?”
If you have walked the path, and have true insight, and your advice is offered for MY benefit; please, speak up. IF you have achieved, I am eager and open to learn every damn thing I can from you. I absolutely welcome and embrace excellent and well founded, truly knowledged advice.
I have over the last few years really started taking in an enormous amount of information and insight from a plethora of places which are greatly impacting the way I think, the way I am looking at the world.
The icing on the cake belong to two people. James Altucher and Gary Vanerchuk. These two people are very successful and have the necessary parameters for me to value their insight, ideas, shared concepts to a very great degree. Both of these people are very much about each of us succeeding in what matters the most for each one of us.
IF your advice is opinion, based on nothing – and you are not able to back up your opinion with fact OR your advice is more about what YOU want – then back off.
There are two types of people that constantly offer opinion and advice, and it is usually worth nothing:
- Armchair Quarterback – is an idiom that originated in the United States. It refers to someone who doesn’t participate in an action but still makes judgments about it.
- Backseat Driver – a person who interferes in affairs without having knowledge, responsibility, or authority for doing so.
I want to stress again: If your advice and or opinion is for YOUR benefit more than mine, then keep it to yourself.
I don’t mind you pointing out the incredible number of flaws I have (since I have many), but the worthiness of your opinion and/or advice is suspect until proven otherwise.
I have significantly discovered that the more I learn, the more I learn about how little I know. And brother, do I want to learn and know so much.
WHAT WILL I BE DOING THE NEXT 50 YEARS?
For the next 50 years or so, this whole project of life is going to be about me.
The areas I will focus on that I know of -right now- include:
Building my media business.
Learning to market products (primarily used books) and growing sales.
Bettering my health.
Helping others with their health, which includes writing a book about the Ketogenic way of eating that I’ve started.
Personal Communication.
Learning to draw. I can’t draw worth a damn, but I’m enjoying it when I take the time.
Knowledge – Learning from a variety of sources in a number of topics.
There were so many thoughts before I even started the draft for this post, and it escalated when I actually started. This -manifesto – started as a small germ of an idea, but as I explored and thought, it grew to fit the thoughts bubbling around inside my head.
Note: This is not an all inclusive picture of every thought of mine. Do not take it as such.
I’m interested in your well thought out responses to this post. So feel free to comment if you have something decently intelligent to add or ask.