Pookish Commandment One: Be Who You Are

The First Commandment is the most important and embodies all the other commandments. You must be who you are.

What is the biggest obstacle to true success? It is when we do not become who we are. We try to be someone else or be what people ‘want’ us to be. It is discarding our passion in life and doing something else because that is ‘proper.’

There are two universal attributes for any very successful person. One, they work very hard at what they do. Two, they LOVE what they do so it doesn’t seem like work. Find a passion in your life and embrace it with everything you’ve got. You only have one life and only so much time.

Why not spend your life doing something you love rather doing something you hate? If people would find something they loved to do and excel in it, 99% of the world’s problems would probably be solved.

If you do not like your life, there is one reason for it: you. Life is not what happens to you. Life is what you make of it, life is what you do. Those who think that life is something that ‘happens’ to you believe that they are not allowed to have joy and happiness due to whatever problems are dumped on them. Yet, while our era has problems just as any other era, is that a reason to sit on the sidelines of life? Do our problems today compare to our ancestors’ troubles of world wars, revolutions, plague, and recession? And if they did, is it worth giving up living life?

Anyone is free to seize life and make it what they want it to be. Why is this hard? It is because it involves change. Routines are easy. Habits are easy. Sitting there and blaming someone else for your life is easy.

What is worse is that people do not think life is to be enjoyed. Rather, they think life is to be endured. If you are having too much fun, too much happiness, then something must be wrong as you ‘ought’ to be doing more serious stuff. These ideas probably come from our parents, our family, our church, our women, and other sources. We are raised with these pre-conceived ideas that imprison us.

Who says life is not meant to be enjoyed? And who is to define that but you? Life can be whatever we want it to be. But if we sit around and think we have no control over it (due to government, feminists, etc.), we are creating our own destiny of despair. Who’s to say you have to go through suffering seven days of the week?

With all that is out there to experience and enjoy, who’s to say that your life has to be ‘hard’ or ‘serious?’ And why let anyone but you define how to live your own life?

Why are you unhappy? It is because you think you can have a better life than you have now. So are you going to sit here and blame someone else for it or are you going to go out now and change it? You can sit around all day waiting for someone to come around and recognize you, but it will never happen. Why? It is because people are too worried about themselves. And they are worried about what YOU think of THEM.

Why do women hold so much power? It is because we give it to them. Men literally shape their lives to gain female approval. Men going their own way means, at the most essential level, that YOU are going to define how life is going to be enjoyed and lived. YOU are going to set the rules for your life. YOU are not going to let your life be defined by your Mom, your Dad, your sister, your brother, your church, your grandparents, your government, your girlfriend, but only by YOU. The double edge is that if something doesn’t go right, you can blame only yourself. But isn’t it worthwhile to live YOUR mistakes rather than live other people’s mistakes?

If you give up those rules to someone else, then YOU are to blame if your life is not where you like it. This is hard. I am telling you that this is hard. We have been told our lives that people who do well in life are ‘lucky.’ “They came from the right family.” “They are different.” “They had it handed to them.” When you see someone happy, don’t go, “Oh, I wish I were like them. They must come from the right part of town and all to be happy.” That isn’t how happiness works. And the odds are is that those that are ‘happy’ are usually covering up their own misery.

Life is to be lived. Life is meant to be grabbed on to. When you do this, you no longer worry about what other people think of you. And if you DO worry about what other people think of you, then you are imprisoned by it.

Men Going Their Own Way is about breaking free from this mental prison. Be who you are. While other people live their lives worrying what other people think of them, you will suddenly notice a huge difference in your life.

You will be ACTING on life instead of REACTING to it.