Im worried that one day someone might read this and think Im plagarizing,…copying… fuck it, paraphrasing work by another person… so I’ve added a new category to credit the reason for a lot of these posts.

Have you ever relied on someone to do something, they’ve failed miserably and tried to pass it off as “Im doing my best”. Like thats meant to be the “get out of jail free” card for fucking up?

Im guilty of it, I’ve uttered those words… like it excuses the outcome because at least you tried.

When you’re young, you’re told that as long as you give it your best shot, and you know you did everything you could… your best effort is enough. When you get older, you start to realise its less about trying and more about succeeding.

So ask yourself, what does success look like to you? What is it you actually want out of life?

When I was at school, success to me was beating my best friend at every subject. I didnt have to be the number one, but I did have to beat him. Why? So I could feel superior. It didnt help that he was way smarter than me, so yeah, the scores had to be pretty up there. What did that superiority get me? Nothing really. He didnt care I beat him… he had his thing which made him feel successful.

When I got older, I thought success meant being the boss. My father is, and probably always will be the model of leadership. Straight out of the Navy into the corporate world. He wasnt a corporate executive or anything of the like, but people respected him. I wanted that too. I wanted to feel how good it feels to be in charge.

Did I ever achieve that? No. Not in any sort of recognised way. I wasnt a Manager, I wasnt ever in a position of authority. If anything I was usually in a position of “anti-authority” because I knew better, worked harder and could spot all the faults of our leadership and would undermine them, ignore them or basically just do what I wanted anyway, and take as many people as I could on the ride. If I wasnt going to be in charge, I was going to make it difficult for those who were. Corporate fucking sheep! Bleating the company line… 

Looking back, thats why I’ve probably had a lot of failure in my life. Mainly because I never trusted anyone in a leadership position because I felt I should be in one too. I wouldnt be a line toe-ing suck up though… I would look out for my team. I would keep them informed. I would treat them as equals…. and they would respect me for it.

The funny part is that in my head I knew it was self sabotaging. Where office politics requires a scalpel, I was a sledgehammer. I was Machiavelli with a Machine Gun!

I was trying to do the right thing, but I cant respect those who throw others under the bus at the first sign of trouble, or steal the credit as soon as things start going well.

It was only very recently when I realised that I dont actually want to be in charge. I am happy just being on the team. If you read my previous post I talked about sacrifice and what you’re values are.

A huge problem I see, and I guess I suffer from, is that happiness is not an equation. If you do X, to achieve Y, then Z will happen. Quite often I find myself doing X, Y never happens and Z wasnt in the realm of possibility.

In my mind though, I figured if I was doing X, it was those who benefited from it who were stopping Y from happening and I would never get to Z… and I bitched to everyone I could think of… wanting them to agree with me… about how unfair it was. I was doing my best and the goalposts kept fucking changing!

So who is this prom queen and how do I get to fuck her?

Ever find yourself standing in front of the mirror and repeating affirmations…

I am a winnner!
I am smart!
I am good at what I do!
If people dont like me for who I am then it is their loss!
I want to actualise my potential so that I can maximise my benefits in the long run!
I want the universe to give me a pony!

You ever consider that people who are happy dont need to tell everyone they’re happy. People who are confident in their abilities dont need to remind everyone or themselves about it.

A lot of these self help books actually get you to focus on what you dont have and chant that if you follow their patented 34 Step program (each sold seperately) you will actualise your potentiality for the rest of time.

That shit pisses me off. When “The Secret” was a thing… I boiled it down to “If I wish hard enough, the universe will give me a pony”. Of course, its just a lesson on focussing on your goals and eventually something will happen and you will believe you’ve achieved them.

I am actually very skeptical of any sort of self help book. I read “How to make friends and influence people” and yeah, I took away a few tips and tricks that have served me well…. and stopped me from getting fired funnily enough. Work put me through the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People… and as soon as I found the connection to religion… it lost me. I tried to use it to appear like the good corporate worker drone… but I just returned to what I knew best.. I do things the way I know how.

And that goes the same for everyone. There is no magic bandaid, one size fits all solution to whatever troubles you in life… you can only give so many fucks in this life time, so make sure you give them appropriately… thats my philosophy…

So, once again… what does success look like to you. What is it that makes you truly happy? I dont mean 5 second orgasm happy… I mean what gives you purpose? What is it you NEED in your life for you to not feel like a fuck up.

For me, part of it is writing, hence this blog. I used to write all the time when I was younger, even banged out a couple of half finished, unpublished novels. I liked it because I could get lost in those characters, write the narrative how I wanted things to go rather than deal with the real world. I had it all planned out.

I also like training people. Doesnt matter what the skill, I just like imparting knowledge on people. I like a lively debate on any topic. An intelligent discourse where either I can teach you something, or you can teach me something.

Now I could have said that success to me is that Im a published writer, which in theory I am every time I hit publish on these posts. However this isnt what drives me.

I am also a problem solver. Like most stereotypical guys, we just want to fix the problem. For me it goes deeper… I work in Software Development, but its not about building the next killer app, or punching out elegant streams of code… for me its about solving the problems of the business. Its about finding the issue, and being the guy in the room to build the solution. If somethings not working, I will take it apart like a mechanic does an engine… and find where its fucking up … and basically unfuck it. Its the single most motivating thing about my job. Writing code is boring as hell. Sitting there watching something run is mind numbing… but finding the fix to someones issue… no better feeling in the world.

In the real world, as a member of a Volunteer Emergency Service, I have to be able to problem solve… that tree fell on your roof, so how do we get it off your roof and sort your tiles. You are trapped in a car thats just been t-boned (Im guessing the other guy was trying to drive properly)… how are we going to get you out safely?

I even find myself googling Brain Teasers I love solving problems so much.

Solving a problem is like fucking the prom queen to me.

So ask yourself…

What is your “prom queen”… and what will it take to fuck her?