a tale of fuckups
If I were young again, when I grew up I’d want to be a snake oil salesman. An Instagram influencer with a cute butt, or a LinkedIn Co-Founder slash CEO that writes too much about success and exploits employees to get an extra ten dollars, or maybe a bodybuilder with teeny tiny testicles and the massive muscles to compensate… anything that allows me to write dumbfuckeries (like the one you’re reading right now) in exchange of moneys. I want to share motivational, overused and unrelatable quotes on social media that give dumb people false hope for a better future.
I read some of these quotes today from this 20-something “millionaire” (take the quotation marks with a grain of pepper, maybe they actually are millionaires), sharing deeply valuable advice of “waking up and sleeping at the same time every day”, and “exercising at least THREE TIMES per week", because that’s how you get rich. No clue why the “three times” part was capitalized, maybe to emphasize it, but I know people who train even more than that and they’re not millionaires… They’re thousandaires, sure, but that’s not enough zeroes for a millionaire. Or maybe we’re counting cents, in that sense maybe they are centesimal millionaires.
Same millionaire said, and I paraphrase “I work deeply focused for 3 hours every day”, attributing his thousands of thousands of moneys to that deeply focused work… I assume millionaires don’t work 8 hours per day, because I do and I assume 5, maybe 6 of those hours are quite focused, but I’m yet to see enough zeroes in my bank account to start sharing mindful quotes on how waking up every day ten minutes before work makes you rich. Instead, I share dumbfuckeries read by 10 to 15 people, not short enough to fit in an Instagram post. Yet I still follow the laughing stock… err, the elite of the social media on Instagram and LinkedIn. They do be sharing some really funny quotes once in a while. Like this one:
A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch but on its own wings.
First of all, shame on you for assuming that bird’s gender and then saying “its own wings”. You make a gender choice, you stick with it till the end of the sentence, Susan from HR! Secondly, have you ever seen a bird? Or a branch? You really think a bird is heavy enough to break the branch? What is this, the bird version of Clifford the Big Red Dog? C’mon now Susan (not her real name), you’re a hiring manager on a professional social network. Please share something more related to why I should work for you instead of reasons why I shouldn’t. No wonder my most liked post on LinkedIn is a well-made dick joke. It really gives off the essence of the social network.
The only thing worse than these people are those who manage social media accounts for their pets and kids... I say “manage" as if it is a difficult task to put your phone down instead of taking endless pictures of your pet. I’m sure you care about it but let’s be honest, you care more about the hearts and upthumbs of random internet people than your pet. You’re using your child to get the attention your personality can’t provide you, you attention-seeking cunt, and your vanity is eating up my bandwidth! Did I say child? I meant dog. Yeah, nobody cares about your Eskimo abomination of a dog Susan (not the same Susan as above), it looks the same in all the pics so stop sharing them.
You can invest on bitcoin as much as you want, or work 80 hours per week on your startup idea after your full time job, or even exercise at least THREE TIMES per week, none of these will make you a better person. They might make you richer or poorer, stronger or sleep deprived, but they won’t change your character. You will never become like your social media influencers unless you drink from the same kool-aid bottle as they do, but they won’t give you the bottle. Because in the words of Syndrome “When everyone’s super, no one will be”.
If the rich dad’s advice from that famous book actually worked, everybody would already be rich. But I believe people should follow more fuckups instead of people who “made it". That way maybe they can learn what doesn’t work when you’re trying to make it, rather than what worked for some people. As I said in some presentation some years ago, the only good advice you can get from a lottery winner is to buy more tickets.