How to Win at Being Normal, and Never Have It All
Do you ever have those when you wake up wishing that just for a DAY (and maybe more), you could be a normal person?
You find yourself thinking how NICE it would be not to have to do all the STUFF all the time … not to have this constant THING (business! life! all of it!) hanging over you … not to have to endure the repetitive fucking cycle of putting yourself out there, of hustling, of facing up to things when it didn’t work and of having to follow through and deliver when it does.
It’s the ENDLESSNESS of it all really, isn’t it? The knowledge that no matter how much you do or how far you go you’ll NEVER BE DONE, and that every day for the rest of your LIFE you’re going to wake up with the weight of your dreams, your potential, the knowledge of what is POSSIBLE and the reality of what it takes to keep it all going, sitting squarely and heavily on your shoulders.
Of course most of the time this weight – this knowledge – this POWER – is a good thing. The very thing that drives you, no less!
But sometimes … just sometimes … you imagine a simpler life. Where you didn’t have to WORRY or even THINK so much about this stuff. Where you could just get up, go about your business of being NORMAL, then switch off at night like a NORMAL person and go to bed.
How straightFORWARD …
How NICE, really, to know that your path is already set and you just have to keep clocking on and off each day, not just to ‘what you do’, but to LIFE.
WHY CAN’T YOU BE ABLE TO SWITCH OFF LIKE THAT?!
Don’t worry – you can. You CAN be normal if you like. Try it on! See how it fits! Maybe it IS the smarter path, at least some of the time.
Here’s how:
1. On Morning Energy, and Getting Up Raring to Go:
Don’t. Don’t get up until the LAST POSSIBLE second, because why on EARTH would you deliberately avoid extra sleep, extra escape, extra time avoiding having to face up to what’s ahead of you? You wouldn’t! The best thing to do of course is dull your mind and body the night before (we’ll get to that, don’t worry) so that you can enter the day as sloooowwwllly as possible and not FULLY aware of what’s going on around you or indeed who you actually ARE.
2. Fuel
Everybody needs fuel in the morning, duh! Normal people have very specific needs; be sure not to colour outside those lines! A nice big fat pastry of some kind should do the trick. To match your nice big fat butt, obviously! If you’re being ‘healthy’ (HAHAHHAHAHHA) have a bowl of cereal instead. Grab a coffee loaded with sugar and milk to wash it down.
Bonus points: repeat something very similar to this for a mid-morning snack. Wouldn’t want to put PREMIUM FUEL in that NORMAL body, would you now?!
3. The Day Begins
As a normal person you might be fortunate enough to have the 9-5 / 8-6 / 7-7 etc, depending upon your rank (the higher up the normal ladder you go the MORE YOU GET TO WORK FOR OTHER PEOPLE! Cool huh?!), fully taken care of for you.
This puts you in a very simple and straightforward position of knowing exactly what you need to DO with your time once you make it through steps 1 and 2. PHEW!
If you don’t have a job, no fear. You will have PLENTY to do. There’ll be errands … grocery shopping … important catch ups to talk about important things such as news or what your kids ate for breakfast or how hot that new Zumba teacher is. You might not think it possible (it does boggle the mind!) but this stuff will easily take up your entire freaking life.
Sorry, did I say life? I meant day.
4. Managing Your Energy
It’s important not to push yourself too hard as a normal person. The reason is, you don’t want to accidentally realise you’re alive and that you have the power of choice. It would DISRUPT THE WHOLE FUCKING SYSTEM.
So, be sure to regularly imbibe a solid mixture of:
Sugar
Gluten
Dairy
With VERY little real food mixed through it
Daytime TV
Mindless social media
And if you do something like sit in a waiting room or go get your hair done ALWAYS read the trashy magazines. Don’t even THINK about, well, thinking for yourself or using that time to learn and grow or LIVE!
5. Do Things Just For You
It’s EXHAUSTING being normal, this is evident by the weary and hopeless looks on the faces of normal folks, and the practical reality of the fact that stuffing your mind and face with NOTHINGNESS all the time will zap you of anything even resembling normal human energy, so you should take time to build yourself up and do things for you.
If you’re a ‘healthy’ type normal person, go meet your friends for a nice long chat with a bit of bobbing around in between (sorry, what do they call it; group fitness?) where you can all pat yourselves on the back at Doing Something to be in shape, despite the fact that afore-mentioned ass IS in fact getting bigger each year.
REWARD yourself always, afterwards (and before!) with a nice ‘healthy’ (that sound was me trying not to choke) soy or low-fat smoothie. MUST ALWAYS REPLACE (TRIPLE) THE CALORIES YOU BURNED!
After this you can resume normal activities, errands, and Important Conversations at the Playground or Cafe.
Other options for doing things for you pretty much include repeating the stuff I mentioned in point #4, except this time you’re consciously giving yourself permission to treat yourself rather than just mindlessly stuffing it in.
6. Time Away From the Everyday Routine
Now I’m going to be honest with you here … and I know this is scary … but as a normal person used to knowing exactly what to do with their time and, this is going to freak you out a little. Here goes:
They WILL make you have a few weeks each year where you don’t get to come in to work or follow your daily system and watch the clock count the days till you die, and you’re going to have to think for yourself.
Normal people call these weeks ‘holiday weeks’. They tend to go places life by design folks would consider a place to go anytime of the year they feel like it, but they usually only stay a few days rather than however long they like.
DON’T WORRY: you can get through these weeks by drinking and eating everything in sight. It helps numb things, and it sends you back to your day to day normal life sufficiently ready to ‘get back to normal’.
7. When You Need to Make a Decision, or Veer From Your Daily Routine
I KNOW. This is terrifying stuff. You don’t normally have to think for yourself! WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO MAKE YOU?! That’s the whole freaking reason you’re IN this system!
But don’t worry – when in doubt, in ANY doubt, or whenever considering entering unchartered waters such as:
Buying a house
Planning a trip
What your next show to watch should be
How to eat right for you
Whether to vaccinate your kids
What your own opinion is on politics, or current affairs, or anything
Whether the rumours about sunscreen are true
What you should have for dinner
What time you should get up in the morning
What you should wear
Anything anything anything and everything at all!
There is a very simple solution that’s been long put in place for you:
DO WHAT THE OTHERS ARE DOING.
8. “Downtime”
Normal people have to endure this thing they call downtime. It means the system has kicked them out for a few hours, usually in the evening or on Saturday and Sunday, which they call the weekend. They have to differentiate these times and days because these are the periods in the week typically designated as ‘free’ time, time when you’re allowed to choose your own life.
YES it is scary stuff, but it’s okay. As with everything in the normal world there’s a system:
Firstly, for as much of the ‘free’ or ‘down’ time as possible, DO THE THINGS YOU WOULD DO ALL WEEK ANYWAY. Never mind that you don’t ‘have’ to, it’s so much easier to win at normal when you just KEEP being normal.
So:
* Do extra and unnecessary work, to keep yourself occupied.
* Sugar, gluten, dairy, TV, Facebook, mindless chat, news, etc – you know the drill. As much as possible!
* EAT MORE. When in doubt, ALWAYS eat more. You can get past a good few hours this way!
* Meet up with other people to do these activities if you like. ONLY ones like you!
* SLEEP MORE. When in doubt (and if not eating) ALWAYS sleep more. It’s a great way to numb things as well, which of course is kinda the whole point with this downtime thing.
9. Night time routine
Usually your ‘downtime’ activities should do the trick at numbing you smoothly into slumber. Sometimes though, the mind tries to remind you of what could have been and of what living is SUPPOSED to be about.
YOUR JOB IS TO SQUASH THAT SUCKER, FAST.
You can do this with:
More alcohol
More sugar / carbs
More mindless social media
Or just putting your head under a pillow and chanting furiously to yourself until the nasty voices go away and you can wake up again and begin again.
Whatever you do do NOT attempt anything thought-provoking like journaling about your dreams and goals, writing out ideas, or practicing gratitude and self-awareness. I didn’t even MENTION this in this stuff in the morning routine section as it would be the WORST THING YOU CAN DO IF YOU WANT TO DO NORMAL WELL.
10. Be Realistic, ALWAYS
And finally, know this:
Sometimes as a normal person you’re going to have LEANINGS. CRAVINGS … a desire to be different … a desire to be a REAL FUCKING PERSON who actually is ALIVE and thinks and creates their OWN pathway.
YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO DO THIS.
I know. It can be VERY tempting, the idea of living a life in which you:
Make the money you want.
In the way you want.
Doing what you want.
How you want.
With a hot body.
A life you truly LOVE.
Endless travel, fun and adventure; as much as you choose.
A lifestyle ENTIRELY by design.
And you actually wake up happy, excited, motivated for the day ahead and go to bed at night feeling SPENT in an AWESOME way not a ZOMBIE way.
I KNOW IT’S TEMPTING.
But no, no, no, NO. BE REALISTIC. Be PRACTICAL. You can NOT afford to do that. Who the hell knows what might happen?! It’s not SAFE.
It’s not. for. YOU.
But look, if you can’t seem to pull yourself away … if it continually just PULLS at you … if you’re a rebellious so and so just MASQUERADING at living the normal life and the truth is you see yourself as a #revolutionaryfuckingleader and you not only WANT it all but believe you can HAVE it all, then know this:
~ Once you go down this pathway and you see what’s possible, you can never go back. YOU WILL NEVER AGAIN BE NORMAL (although you might try). So ONLY even CONSIDER it if you’re willing to kill and DESTROY all that we just talked about.
~ You will never stop. Ever. Forever. You will run faster, push harder, go further. You will fight. You will ENDURE. You will sweat and bleed and cry and scream and you will NOT get to back away from this in fact you must move INTO it, daily. IT WILL TERRIFY, CONFRONT and EAT YOU ALIVE AT TIMES.
~ You will have to think for yourself. EVERY DAY ABOUT EVERYTHING. Some people will hate you for it. This is not a fear this is a FACT.
~ You will have to make your own decisions. EVERY DAY ABOUT EVERYTHING. Some of them – MOST of them – will fail miserably. You will KEEP GOING – forEVER – until you find the one that works.
~ You will get up earlier than everyone else, stay up later, and basically operate at a minimum of 10x ‘normal’ speed when awake. You will get more done before breakfast than most people do in a week, and by the time they’re settling in with their lunch over a nice magazine or show you’ll be spinning the world atop your finger and wondering what’s next. Make no mistake: THIS WILL REQUIRE PAIN.
~ You will need to treat your self-care like a military fucking routine. You will not be able to AFFORD being physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually out of shape and if you think you can you’re fucking kidding yourself. Success CREATES success but it also REQUIRES success.
~ You will never switch off. Ever. Forever.
~ You will spend your every waking minute creating, hustling, pushing, or else thinking about creating, hustling, pushing, or else dreaming about it. You will still not get it all done, in fact the more you do the more you realise you’ll HAVE to do.
~ You will learn to eat fast, move fast, breathe fast and even sleep fast. You will operate at a speed you previously considered not possible.
~ You will at times fall completely to pieces, full foetal position meltdown, rocking back and forth like a crazy person and CERTAIN you can’t go on. You will go on anyway.
~ You will find yourself broke, and broken, almost with complete certainty. You’ll find your BEST IDEAS fall to pieces and it’s often the most random fly-by-night ones that sneak up on you out of nowhere that work. The only way you can FIND those great ideas is you show up, every day, and you do what it takes.
~ You will show up. Every day. You will do what it takes, no matter what it takes, until it takes and THEN YOU WILL KEEP GOING. Your mantra will be “Am I dead yet? No? THEN KEEP GOING”. You will do this when things are working, and when they’re not (mostly they won’t, at first). You will do this when you feel like it, and when you don’t. You will do it when you know how, and when you don’t.
~ You will, quite simply, LIVE AND BREATHE ALL OF THIS AND MUCH MORE BESIDES, and you will do it not only REGARDLESS of how much it hurts but BECAUSE of how much it hurts.
Because when it hurts, you know it hurts for a PURPOSE.
And when you stretch, you know you’re growing.
And when you melt-the-fuck-down and then want to tear the world apart with your bare hands, you, well. You have a little normal person numbing relapse, and then you get back to work.
Your TIME will never again be ‘free’ … but yet it will be COMPLETELY free …
Your MIND will never again stop … but it will be ALIVE in a way you didn’t realise possible …
Your GOALS and DREAMS will never fully be reached … but you will LIVE THE FUCKING DREAM, and completely on your terms.
You will continue no matter how broken you are.
You will, quite simply, do what others won’t, so that you can live a life they can’t.
AND IT WILL BE THE MOST EPIC, THE MOST FANTASTIC, THE MOST WONDERFUL, THE MOST TERRIFYINGLY EXHILARATING THING YOU’VE EVER KNOWN.
We call it life.
But that’s okay.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO IT.
Go do your normal. It’s showing anyway …
And if you chose this life already? Join me. And get back to fucking work.
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