Just my ramblings, take it for what its worth. Every man has a past and sooner or later you have to come to terms with that past and deal with it. Your past is what has built you, it is what makes you weak, makes you strong, makes you resilient. You have taken everything up unto this point and defeated it or used to become the man you are today. But every once in awhile it your past bubbles back to the top and you have to deal with it all over again.
I think of myself as a pretty good man, but I’m no saint. I have a rough and rowdy past, I have done a lot of things for which I am not proud, but I am better for them. I have learned from those things and pulled myself from the ashes of those fires I’ve started and strode forward as a stronger man for it. I am proud of that, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss being that man. It is a struggle I sometimes fight, when I see the way of the world today and the people in it, I long for the times when I was young. I miss being that meathead that had made his bones and had a reputation. I miss the feel of easy money in my hands and fear in my enemies. So just because I’m struggling, let me give you a few examples:
When I go out to a restaurant or a bar and I look around the room and all of the guys in it are tan, wearing shirts that are too tight to make their biceps bulge or their collars popped while wearing those stupid aviator sunglasses, I see nothing but fake ass tough guys. They are all a bunch of posers, you’re not a tough guy. You’re a pretty boy, fake ass, two bit punk who’s mouth is too big for your own good. Back in the day if you would have tried to mean mug me with your metro-sexual look I would’ve folded you like a cheap suit. You’re not an original tough guy, you are what the movies portray as tough guys. Tough guys don’t look like you, they look like me, they look old, beat up, have scars, not perfectly built and well manicured. If you want to pick out a tough guy, look at his hands, what do they look like? They are all dinged up, scarred from countless teeth, bent from broken fingers, not well kept trimmed fingernails with perfectly straight fingers. You are not a tough guy until you have fought more times than you can remember, until you tasted your own blood, hot and salty on your tongue, until your eyes have swollen shut to slits but you are still swinging, because you will not be defeated by going down easy. You’re a tough guy when you know you’re going to get your ass kicked but you don’t shy away, you swing away and give worse than you get. When you leave your enemy in a pile of rubble and limp away to fight again then you’re a tough guy. When you have the honor to fight one on one and not have your friends jump in and let the conflict end on the results, only then can you call yourself a tough guy.
Another example is the business world. I struggle with authority, I always have. Its hard for to smile pretty and nod when all you want to do is come across the table and smack the arrogant prick in the mouth. You have to play nice and be fake to achieve what is rightfully yours, where in the old world you could just take it. “Good things come to those who take them” was once said to me and I lived by that for a long time. Now I’m not a thief or bully, but I took what was mine. Things that you can’t buy, things like honor, respect, accountability. If these things weren’t offered up front, you made them pay the price and learn to give them to you. Now you have to sit through countless meetings and listen to arrogant, condescending asses that have no clue of the real world or how it works. They go to preppy little business schools and learn to fine tune their smiles and plans, but have no idea that an ounce of respect given could earn them the loyalty they so desperately need to attain to climb that corporate ladder. They speak in condescending tones and sit on pedestals handing out demeaning orders or tasks, which makes true blue guys like myself, who have seen the darker side of things not respect them. It would be so easy to just be that old guy and show them that certain people demand respect and there are penalties for not showing it.
These are thoughts that I struggle with sometimes, I really do miss being a tough guy. I miss the respect and the “honor amongst thieves”, that there was. But I am smart enough to know that I made the right decision and learned the right lessons, because if I was still that meathead, I would be unemployed or locked up. I know I’m on the right path now, I see the rewards everyday with the two women in my life, my wife and my daughter. If not for them, I would be a different man.
So even though I struggle with that old meathead, I take the lessons I’ve learned from him, and go forward. Be decisive and live with the results good, bad, or indifferent, hold yourself accountable, be honorable, show respect and demand that it shown to you through your actions, don’t roll over if you believe in something and still live by “Good things come to those who take them”, only now those things are opportunities for knowledge, classes, trainings, trips whatever you can take to make yourself more “powerful” in the new world.
So just take this for what it’s worth, it’s just my thoughts
No comments:
Post a Comment