Seven Guarantees
Friday, June 05, 2009
When life gets really tough, I threaten to become a lawyer. As a kid I was groomed for law school and up until about age twenty, it seemed to be the most logical thing in the world for me to do. Being a lawyer was safe. Being a lawyer meant I could turn a profit. Being a lawyer means following a pre paved path. Being an actor equates with none of these.
“What makes you think you could get work in law? You get no guarantees kid,” my friend told me after a failed audition. At this point I had simply declared that I would quit, go home, and head straight for the LSAT exam. Why be an artist when you can be a lawyer?
And in a way, he was right. Who was I to presume that I would have anymore luck getting employed with a JD? But in a way he was equally wrong. There are some things in life which are guarantees. And though they seem pessimistic, knowing that these are truths and binding close to them can provide infinite strength.
If you are being effective, you will be opposed. Humans hate change about as much as we hate being told we’re wrong. If you have a vision for how the world ought to be and you are actively moving towards that goal, expect turbulence. Even if you’re right, people will do everything they can to stop you. They wouldn’t bother if you weren’t a threat.
People at any economic level can prove it be shallow and elitist. There are a good many folks who will claim to be morally superior because they have a humble income or ‘don’t get hung up on material things.’ The fact is they have just as many character flaws as anyone else. One of those flaws may even be pride.
At the point of a gun, everything changes. The second someone uses force on you, to jeopardize your rights, that same person has broken the social contract and therefore has given up his rights. These days it seems counter intuitive, but like physics, in life every action will have an equal and opposite reaction.
Guilt is an insidious tether. The Devil is often called ‘the great accuser.’ Guilt can paralyze us more than any other deficit. People will try everything possible to clamp the lead boot of guilt upon you. Don’t let them.
No matter who you are, your family is weird. Stop trying to have the ideal suburban family. It doesn’t exist. If your family is functional… you are blessed.
There are sheep in wolves clothing. Sometimes the people who are the fiercest bureaucrats only just have the tiniest amount of control. They turn everything into a power struggle and a fight. Don’t waste your energy worrying about them. Know that for people like this, there’s always a way to go over their heads.
You will never find a person out there who can give a good explanation why we need Daylight Savings Time. What?… Just try to find one.