This is John.
John has a lot of dreams. He would like to travel to Thailand, he heard it’s beautiful and cheap there. He would like to earn more and have more time. He says, he would love to improve his English finally and look for a better job. He would like to lose weight too. He never liked his body and doesn’t accept himself fully. He would like to play the guitar he bought last year and still didn’t go beyond learning a few chords, which he can’t change smoothly anyway.
John has a lot of dreams.
But John gets up in the morning at the same hour every day. He drinks his coffee in the same mug, eats his breakfast from the same plate. He cleans his teeth with the same sleepy movements. He drives the same way to work. He meets the same people there, eats lunch in the same place sitting on the same chair. He leaves at the same time, listens to the same radio on his way. He does shopping in the familiar shop and gets mad if he can’t find his favorite products in their usual spots. He has very developing discussions with his partner about dirty dishes and lack of toilet paper. In the evening he turns on the TV to watch the same channels.
He thinks about his dreams then. About Thailand, about himself without a big belly, about a few more zeros on his bank account. He glances at the guitar and his English books. His heart beats faster, a longing smile appears on his face and he thinks how cool his life would be if it was different.
And then John goes to sleep at the same time to start a new day.
Exactly the same one.
Do you want to be like John? Here are a few tips on how to do it.
How to bore yourself to death and achieve nothing in your life?
1. Say you don’t have time and put everything off until “one day”
Remember, you don’t have time for anything. You are so busy that there is no way you can find 30 minutes a day for the guitar, sport or English. If someone tells you it is a matter of priorities and time management – laugh at him and say that he doesn’t understand. He has different job, doesn’t have kids, a dog, knows nothing about life. You REALLY don’t have time for this.
2. Don’t believe in yourself
Why should you start anything if you won’t succeed anyway? Don’t start or you will give others a reason to laugh at you. You’ve tried a lot of things before and it never worked out. You didn’t learn a new skill, you didn’t learn anything about life, the only thing you got was guilty conscience and a feeling you wasted your time. You didn’t need that at all, did you?
3. Believe that if someone succeeded, he was lucky or had connections
Your friends succeeded in business but they were always lucky and had friends in the right places. Someone 10 years younger than you earned a spectacular amount of money on stock market and bought the newest porshe while you work your butt off and still drive an old, rusty Fiat? He cheated, look at his sneaky eyes. Someone shares pictures from your dream trip to Thailand but you know he has rich parents.
Never accept a thought that they might have achieved this working hard, planning their time and money well, taking huge risk. Don’t take into consideration what they had to sacrifice, how stressed they had to be and how much of their time it consumed. It doesn’t matter. Remember, it all magically appeared in their lives and only you are not lucky enough.
4. Don’t try new things, ever
New is bad. Changes are bad. Life made you face enough new challenges, you had to change schools, meet new people, find work… You are not stupid to look for more stress yourself.
New things make you feel insecure. Make you vulnerable, you may make mistakes and we all know mistakes are forbidden. When you were a kid teachers punished you for mistakes with a bad mark, parents punished you with a slap on your butt. Don’t risk that someone will criticize you again.
Ignore all events trying to motivate you to try new things like “Do #somethingnew in June”. Choose a different goal – not to do anything outside of your daily routine for the whole month. Because, why not?
5. Get discouraged with no immediate effects
You don’t eat after 8 p.m. and do sport for the third day now and there’s STILL no change in your weight? National Geographic isn’t contacting you yet despite the fact that you have already taken a few pictures in manual mode and they are all sharp?! You can’t discuss rocket science in a foreign language even though you’ve been learning for a month now? It means it’s not for you.
You’ve heard that you need 10 000 hours to become an expert in something but it’s bullshit. You should see immediate effects and if it’s not the case – drop it. Don’t accept the thought that you might be doing something wrong or that you need more time. Patience is for the weak.
6. Accept everything others tell you
Make sure you are not able to distinguish valuable pieces of advice from the bad ones. Smile and nod when you hear your dream is surreal. It is true that you are too old to learn something new. It’s bad to try and be different. Drop all your ideas as soon as someone tells you to stop dreaming and to be happy with what you already have. You shouldn’t try to have more, you ungrateful bastard.
John has a lot of dreams. He thinks about them sometimes. About Thailand, about himself without a big belly, about a few more zeros on his bank account. He glances at the guitar and his English books. His heart beats faster, a longing smile appears on his face and he thinks how cool his life would be if it was different.
You also have a lot of dreams. If you follow the above list, you won’t make any of them come true.
Unless you want your life to be different?
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Being different is hard and getting away from the mundane and trying be different from our everyday life is even harder. We get set into our ways especially as we age and our dreams become exactly dreams and NOT goals. I hope to achieve more in my goals and thus fulfill some of my dreams.
Yes, it is often hard to do something more than our everyday routine. We’re afraid of changes, of the unknown and it stops us. Good luck in achieving more and going for your dreams!
I like it a lot! I was almost completely discouraged by people around me trying to achieve things and make their lives into these microcosmic successes. I have finally found a guide which speaks to my long suspected feeling of failure being the true success! I don’t wanna be the same different that everyone is trying to be, I wanna be the failure that no one is trying to be! Much appreciated! Love from India.
Hey, thank you for your comment! The point is not to be a failure – but not to be afraid of mistakes and not getting discouraged by them. Good luck!!