EPTTo begin with, I'll explain the title and it's relevance. A week ago, my roommate and I were getting stoned and having some pizza. It's kind of our ritual evey weekend, and it always leads to some interesting cultural discussions. I'm a White-ass Canadian BC boy, and my roommate is an exchange student from South Korea who's lived in Canada for about 5-6 years. I met him in high school, and we've been friends ever since. I rarely have trouble understanding him, but he has terrible English for someone who's lived in an English speaking country for so long. At one point we were discussing how many exchange students are lazy assholes (his words not mine, although he made a compelling arguement). Some of them are so bad that they literally lie to their parents that they're taking Uni/College classes, and they just spend their tuition on Louis Vuitton. At the crescendo of his rant, he made one of the funniest statements I've heard in a little while:
"Man...When you are given such opportunity, you gotta just FUCK THE BEAR!"
It may seem random, but let me translate. I instantly knew he meant to say something like, "Bare the burden", and after nearly coughing my lungs up from laughing so hard, I promised him that I would make that saying famous among everyone I knew.
It's funny, but the message is powerful. Ever since I moved off of a shitty island with shitty parents, many opportunities have literally fallen into my lap. It got to the point where I was so convinced that "everything will work out," that I wasted three weeks of my life not studying programming after my first college semester. I was told that I had a good chance of getting hired into a programming firm a year ago, even though I have almost no programming experience in the grand scheme of things. Why? Because I was lucky enough to work with a lady who's husband was a programmer, and sure enough I was at dinner parties with his coworkers who were literally asking me to apply. I thought all my shit was figured out, get the job, take night classes, get swag, fuck bitches...oops got sidetracked. I knew full well that I could've been studying those three weeks, yet I was just content to befriend these people and wait for them to land me a job. The problem is, it was never their decision. I never met the hiring manager, and as far as he knows I'm just a nice guy with one semester of Java under my belt. I know for a fact that this firm has people applying who's work experience sections in their resumes are twice as big as my fucking resume.
I did apply several weeks ago. I even managed to convince my Java teacher to give me a recommendation even though I barely knew her name, and only took one course. I took the initiative to invite many of the firm's coworkers out for drinks a week ago, and again the people their were pining for me to come join, just because they think I'm a really nice person. I'm honestly not sure if I am, but it doesn't really matter. I seem to have some 1984 shit going on in my head where I can make friends with people even if I don't like them (it was a learned trait. More on that later). A week later, and I've heard no reply. A month ago, I signed a lease for an $840/month apartment (that's about average price in Victoria), with certainty that I would be raking in a minimum of $20/hour while building my future as a programmer. Where did that certainty come from? Every time I've hit a difficult situation since I've moved here (2 years now), it all worked out in the end despite my relative inaction. I do take initiative, but it's always the easiest path that I see at the time. I could've shopped around for a cheap apartment (they are rare, but out there), yet I was happy to take the first one I saw.
It's not going to happen anymore (or as much). I know who I want to be in life, and it isn't someone who drifts through life on convenient opportunities. Despite growing up with someone telling me I was worthless, I have time and time again proven to myself that I'm not. The only obstacle to my success in the future is myself, and what I've learned over the past year is that I can win, it's only a matter of finding an appropriate medicine for particular ailment (Bruce Lee reference). In other words, I just need to FUCK THE BEAR!
Here's where you will hopefully get something out of this. If you are completely content in your life, then you don't need to hear this, but it may provoke interesting thoughts nonetheless. Before I start, I just want to once again remind you that I'm happy to discuss anything, but please keep morality out of the discussion.
Consider what it means to be you. If you are like me at all, you are a person who developed strong opinions at an early age, was regarded as smart by peers, didn't talk much, but when you did talk, you almost always had something to say. You hated small talking with anyone, and over analyzed the shit out of everything. You sometimes get so absurdly locked into your head that it felt like it was literally spinning with thoughts at times.You've found that if you apply yourself to something, you can excel or even be the best, yet most of the time you can get by easily enough with minimal effort. You wonder why you seem so different from other people in particular situations (usually social ones), and at times feel like you don't belong.
My experience in life tells me that most people on this forum will be able to relate to much of the last paragraph, but don't despair if not. It's all fluff anyway. This was more or less the picture of I had of myself up until the age of 17 (I'm 19.5 now), and when I look back on it I feel very amused. In order to explain why, I need to define "reality" for my own purposes. Think of it as both what defines "you" as your emotional, physical, and mental traits, and that "you's" perspective of the the world. I'm sorry if that sounds vague, but it's hard to not to with shit like this.
Your reality is almost entirely dictated through outside stimulus. Yes, there are factors which can't be helped. Some people are born with mutations which actually physiologically make the brain different in a big way, and there are some physical traits which can't be easily changed (yet). Barring physiological discrepancies, your brain is very much similar to mine, and my brain is very much similar to Britney Spears', or Hitler's. Rather than just making big statements, I'll try to substantiate them.
When I was 12 years old, I wanted to be a Quantum Physicist and a Cosmologist. When I was 14, I wanted to be a Police Officer. When I was 15, I saw how some people in my High School were generally liked by most people, so I decided to try and emulate their behaviour. By 17, I was friends with many people who I nearly went to blows with at the start of high school. I wanted to get into business school, but ended up having to work before taking college. I worked as a suit salesman, and I was so good at making people feel happy that my coworkers bought be a tablet when I left (it was a cheap one, but still). I met the programmer husband talked about earlier as well, and he caught wind that I took a bit of programming in high school, and encouraged me to study and join his firm (this happened quite while ago). Then I quit work and went to college to take Computer Science. If it isn't clear by now, every big decision can be traced back to some outside stimulus. This isn't anything new to you, it's probably just something you've never put words or thoughts to. You may feel resistance to this concept, but your brain always will when it's reality is challenged at the root.
I could go on for longer, but I'll skip to the more practical side of things. Your reality can be redefined at will, and is doing so all the time whether you recognize it or not. Your brain is constantly searching for outside stimulus to justify, redirect, and expand your reality. The best part about such a fluid reality is that you can rewire it for yourself. It's not fucking easy, especially at first, but you really can do anything. This concept can be expanded to just about anything that takes place in your life. Happiness is one of the most important factors to me, as I really fucked over my reality for a long time over a simple idea. Take someone who is happy just about all the time. I hate to pick on her, but my brother's girlfriend is a good example. She is deep down a very nice person, but she happens to have a number of traits which also irritate me on an amazing level. For whatever reason, I thought being happy meant I had to start acting like her, and naturally I chose being depressed. The thing is, once again your concept of happiness is largely based outside stimulus, i.e. society. It teaches you when to feel happy, by exploiting your brains ability to take pretty much anything and have it trigger endorphins in your brain, (read:psychological addiction). I used to laugh at phrases like "inner piece", but I actually grasp how they are practically applicable. No, religious people don't have a monopoly on inner happiness, they just beat us to the punch in some ways. Many of them have completely lost sight of this anyway. I don't mean to offend you if you are religious, I have the utmost respect if you can draw happiness and peace out of thin air. If I were a spiritual person in any capacity, I would be a buddhist, simply because they teach you how to draw happiness from within from the get-go. Inner piece just means that you have learned or are learning how to feel happy without the need for outside stimulus.
How does one draw their happiness from inside instead of outside? I encourage you to do your own research and find your own way. The answers are out there, the problem appears to be separating the bullshit people attach to such concepts. I would recommend meditation for starters. I can send you a link to a practical guide if you ask me. I'm telling you right now, I get plenty of benefits from 20 minutes of meditation a day, and all I do is sit in a chair and stare at the wall. Unless it's ever scientifically proven that sitting in a particular position and holding your hands in a particular way actually does something useful, I would treat it as nonsense. I can't even cross one leg on my thigh anyway. Diet and exercise are more obvious factors to look into.
I guess I should mention why this is useful for achieving goals. Basically, if you're mind isn't constantly looking for stimulus, you can spend less time doing stuff like watching videos, looking at 9gag, or playing video games that won't result in any tangible benefit to you. Since I've started actively trying to draw happiness from within, my productivity has multiplied by more than I can imagine. I still spend a lot of my time on useless endeavors, but I feel myself changing at a comfortable rate. I also find that difficult decisions are easier to make, since my brain stops trying to justify the easy decision so much and looks at the bigger picture.
I've gotta stop there, I'm hungry and I'm going to clean my room. If you agreed with anything I said, I encourage you to play with it and learn as much as possible. I'll do my best to address any questions. Feel free to ask me about particular things which you may want to work on as a person, and I may have some useful knowledge or sources I can provide. Also, if I can't quantify a statement that I made, then I probably shouldn't have made it. I apologize for the pseudo-scientific manner in which this was presented. I'm not a neurologist, and I only have a rudimentary understanding of subjects such as psychology, behaviour modification, and social dynamics. If I could give you more scientifically oriented answers, I would. As I get older, I intend to be able to.
Go fuck a bear!
P.s. It occurred to me upon editing that I may sound like a person who "has it all figured out." I didn't endeavor to do so, I just don't really know how to phrase this stuff differently. I learned much of it from a man who is incredibly certain in himself, so I guess I'm kind of echoing it from him. I don't intend to ever stop learning from others and challenging my views.
