Climbing the pyramid

I'm in a class right now that's supposed to teach people how to be successful, both in school and in life. That's all it's supposed to do: teach people success. In fact, the class is called Student Success. Today I realized that only two people in my class have the potential for such success, assuming that others don't get their act together. Only two. That leaves about 28 sets of dreams dashed like so many pieces of broken china upon the hardwood floor of life. I won't detail who those two are, since they aren't relevant to what I have to tell you.

I was speaking with my professor before leaving class today and he mentioned that he was nearly done with the subject material he wanted to cover by the end of the semester, bear in mind, the semester is less than halfway over. He said that there just isn't much to teach about success. He normally teaches economics, see; and in economics, there's more to teach than just supply and demand. There's also theory. In fact there's lots of it. It's kind of like philosophy. The core of philosophy is generally 'who(are we?), what(does it mean to be?), and why(are we here?)'. Now that's just philosophy in a nutshell. Imagine the obscene amounts of philosophical theory!

Success is much more cut and dry. To be successful, you must perform and achieve your very best. If you can't or won't do that, then success will be forever beyond your grasp. More than that though, you must constantly expand on what you can achieve. Some people claim that they tend to crack if expected to perform under the constant pressure of performing at their peak. That's fine. Every company needs cubicle meat, and those are the lazy bastards that fill that very mediocre part of the ecosystem. Since life is constant competition, you must achieve more and perform better than everyone else who wants what you want. Despite what your kindergarten teacher and therapist tells you, not everyone is a unique snowflake. You wanna be a multi-million dollar singer? You want to be a doctor? You wanna be a teacher? Tough cookies! Millions of people want just what you want and may, in fact, be better qualified to get what you want more than you are.

You want success? Well you gotta get more well rounded and versatile than the competition. You also have to realize that the other people who want what you want are being your friends because they're trying to see if you know something that they don't. If you want to play your cards close to the vest, that's fine. Understand though, that if you meet up with someone who has some grand dream in common with you, you should try and see if you can pry any loose bits of information from them, also. You have to keep an eye on those who have the same goals you do. One day you may find you and them at a job interview, and if they know your weak area, you can bet that they've got it covered. That's right, the friends you make filling out a job application aren't just being friendly because you and them have something in common...he's scoping out the competition.

Also, you must realize that if you want to succeed you must smash the competition. You're kindergarten teacher may have taught you that as long as everyone plays we all always win. Anyone who's watched the Olympics, even once knows that only one person walks away with the title "Best in the world at _____". Everyone else returns home ashamed to train for another four years. So your teacher was full of bullshit, not to put too fine a point on it. In order to succeed, you must break some hearts. This means you will need to cause some hurt to others. For some of us, this might not be a problem (it might even be fun!), but many people raised in the bondage of conventional morality won't want to hurt anyone. And while it's true that we're all unique, we're not all special.

Finally, to win at life, you must know yourself. You might be thinking, 'hey I already know who I am, fuck you!' Well knowing your identity isn't the same as knowing who you are. You need to take your list of 'likes' and 'dislikes' and 'about me' sections and ask why you like or dislike them or why or how you are who you are. This tells you a little bit about your beliefs. From there, you need to ask yourself 'why' until there is nothing left to question. You also need to ask some very serious questions about yourself as a human being. This is much tougher than it sounds, since most people answer their own internal questions in a way that will avoid causing a negative self-image. I'll tell you now, if you ask yourself who you are and you like all the answers, you lied to yourself. I asked myself some very important questions about myself about a year ago ('What do I want?, What can I have?, Can I do more?' just to name a few) and I felt ashamed of myself and almost hated who I was. Now I know that I had only taken the first step on the road of success.

If someone hasn't told you already, I'm telling you now: Life is unfair. Life is made of hard work for pain when you'd rather just sit back and have a beer. I assume if you're reading this, you're looking for a profound truth. Well here it is: There is no secret to success, only a plan of action. If you want to succeed you must do nothing less than your best. You must also make sure that today's best is tomorrow's worst (in other words, constantly evolve). You also need to make sure you can do better than everyone around you. You must have the gravel in your guts to be able to smash the dreams of those who want what you want. Finally, and most importantly, you must know yourself. Now try filling up a whole semester with that and you'll see why I'm glad I'm not my teacher.