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Reading this book will shake your opinions and confuse the hell out of you all the way through. You'll laugh often, disagree, become pissed off and finally shake your head at the deepest most original wisdom you may have ever read. |
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“Oh, Egbert, you are so funny! I'm in stitches everytime I read your newsletter. To take an unvarnished truth and make it funny is one thing, but you are completely off the charts in driving home a point with such alacrity and humor! You hit the bull's eye and drive the arrow clean through the wall!” --L.C. |
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"I'm dumbfounded, awestruck, perplexed, befuddled. I'm a miserable bastard going through a divorce and unemployed, who at 35 doesn't know what to do for peace of mind or soul. I'm not looking for you to solve my problems - I just find your writings fascinating." --B.T. |
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"Wow, your site has an attitude. Every god damn site I go to is so politically correct, other than porn sites. You say it like it is. Thanks." --C. |
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“I totally appreciate your reminders and insights. I need the wake-up call. It's comforting. I do print them out from time to time and read them out to my mother, and she loves it too. It lets us know it's ok to be more ... human. God bless U.” --P. |
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"Did you know that you belong in the loony bin, you screwball? No one can help you anymore, you idiotic imbecile." |
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“You have unconventional wisdom that's unique to you. I'm not sure what the mainstream would think of what you have to say. I've noted when I talk to people along the lines that you lay out, they tend to get turned off or even a little pissed off. I think the reason for this is it tends to go against everything they have been taught and believed all their lives. Well, I'm going to go back and read some more of your rants as I find them quite refreshing.” --K.B. |
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"To me the ideas as published on your site are new and refreshing. I have done a lot of the other motivational stuff such as goal setting etc., and it is time to break out of that and get a life! Your approach seems much more natural and I would like to learn more about it." |
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"I have not laughed as much as I have reading the information on moneybymistake.com. Laughing is something I have needed to do right now because I have been taking life all a bit to seriously over the last couple of months. I have been able to laugh at myself and the mistakes I have made with money as I read through your website. You know what? The sun will rise tomorrow whether I have money or not and it is up to me to choose the attitude of how I will greet the day and others around me." --M.P., Australia |
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”Oh, by the way ... I really enjoyed your newsletter on 'will power'. It opened my eyes on how habits come about. I'll drink to that! You've been the highlight of my day.” --B.A. |
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Power we don’t have we call power. Power we do have we call weakness. Make up your mind, will you? “Power corrupts, but absolute power is really neat.” --John Lehman, Ex-Navy Secretary “Those carried away by power are soon carried away.” --Malcolm Forbes
pure will power
Dear Friend, Willpower is an inherent quality of every single person. You don't have to acquire it. You just need to discover your willpower. It's not at all that difficult. Chocolate for instance, is willpower pure. Have you ever sat in a movie theater, munching away at a mega size bag of popcorn? Seeing the full bag and looking at your belly, you know it is impossible to merge the two. While watching a film, however, you are able of working the magic. Almost anything fits into your stomach, plus a bag of M&Ms. The trick is not to think. Bypass your mind and you'll be amazed what you are capable of doing single-mindedly. Willpower, pure willpower gets that popcorn into your abdomen. If you can smoke, you got willpower. Obviously, not everyone can smoke a pack of cigarettes or two every day. The ability to smoke a lot is reserved for a lucky few. Habits are proof of willpower. May everyone else call them weaknesses. To me, habits are willpower in disguise. Fight them, call your habits weaknesses, make yourself wrong, feel guilty, and allow idiots to call you a sinner. That's what we do to kill what works. For most of us, our fights against habits are uphill battles and they last forever. It's frustrating and for a good reason. We are trying to get rid of something that actually works. The normal approach is to make ourselves look bad and to do everything in our power to get rid of those nasty habits. Since our habits are expressions of our greatest powers, we can't get rid of them, of course. We could decide to use our powers for noble purposes but oh, no: we invent a HIGHER power, artificially, to break our own spine and to beat ourselves into the ground. You think I'm kidding? See for yourself in the original Twelve Steps, freely modified by me, the evil one. First step: “We admitted we were powerless over our power.” Duh. Swiftly, we invent a god after our own image and bestow the powers on him that we want to get back so badly. Eleventh step: “Sought to improve our conscious contact with that self-made god, begging him to tell us what we really want and for the power to carry that out.” That's so cool! We think our power stinks and sucks, and we must filter it through a sacred sieve. Then, we can permit ourselves to apply the spiritually recycled and purified form of power. We get rid of our raw power because it's evil and then we kneel down to be blessed in return with a fuzzy kind that's prechewed and predigested for our humble souls. Give me a break! We make ourselves believe people are crap but their creations are holy. Hey, if you're worth crap, so are your ideas and creations, including--but not limited to--the anti alcohol gods and their crappy powers. Yeah, yeah, I know it works and it has saved crappy and worthless souls for 70 crappy years. But you got to admit, the AA “success” is based on a mind fart. More out of the twelve steps to God given--and approved--alcoholism: “2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” That's so cute because the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) can't define sanity. There is not a single sane person in our or in any other society, not even in the esteemed and sober twelve step community. See, sober doesn't necessarily mean sane. Anyway, “we believe that a Power greater than ourselves could” do this or that means: let us (the crappy ones) make ourselves a crappy power greater than our crappy selves. Let's bungle away and make a crappy god or two. Onwards: “3. Made a decision to turn our crappy will and our crappy lives over to the crappy care of God as we understood/made Him with our crappy minds.” That recipe worked well for our ancestors some 30,000 years ago in the bush, why should it not work for us? Of course it works, so what? It turns upstanding alcoholics into sorry sob stories and into limp wet rags. Please accept my apology! I did not mean to say that. I'm sorry. But I do mean that the filthy habits you maintain, your sins, can give you a clear idea (or a blurred one, depending on the type of your habits) of the powers you have and of their potential, should you decide to unleash that stuff in uninhibited fashion. No wonder our habits cause problems. All true strengths do. Positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Habits work, smoothly, well oiled, and efficiently. If you can do it repeatedly, all the time, and even against other people's will, it must be strength. We call it weakness only as long as we haven't figured out its use. Your lack of creativity and imagination is not at all a lack of willpower. You got plenty of it, just don't question its value. The most devastating activity individuals engage in is the fight against themselves: self-questioning. If that had any merit, your well developed self-doubt would have kept you from doing a lot of stupid things in your life. Tell me if I'm wrong, but most likely your self-questioning has stopped you from doing a bunch of fun stuff, but it has not saved you from making embarrassing mistakes. Self-doubt or self-fight--whatever you choose to call it--is not only useless. It prevents success. Now, you have identified a fine habit of yours. Your family may disapprove of it and even you may have begun to believe something is wrong with you. Screw your family for the moment and scrutinize your habit. How often do you do it every day, for how long? Do you do it randomly throughout the day, or is it triggered by certain events or key situations? Beautiful! There you have your successful pattern of willpower. Instead of transforming smoking into chewing nicotine gum, do something useful: adapt the structure of your oh so nasty habits for the purpose of desired action. What do you want to do really bad? Don't ask what you want to have. That's a worn-out question for get rich suckers and for multilevel dupes. What do you want to DO, baby? Yeah, that's it. No reason not to become an addict, an efficient this-is-what-I-want-to doaholic. Knock yourself silly. If others have the ability to find 20 – 40 seven minute segments in their day to smoke a cigarette, you can find 20 - 40 time slots per day to do what you truly desire. Don't trust me. Trust your obsessions. Your abominable habits are your compass, pointing towards happiness, success, and to your personal power resources. What's there not to like? Egbert Sukop
P.S.: Call me naïve, but the more you do what you want to do, the less interest you may find in self-destruction anyway. But hey, what do I know? I just work here. P.P.S.: If you enjoyed it, hated it, or if you are not so sure, go to Yahoo Groups and read past issues of my free money-by-mistake newsletter: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/moneybymistake/. And, while there, go ahead and subscribe also: You will receive upcoming issues via e-mail. P.P.P.S.: You think I should cough up some blog type thingy related to issues discussed here? Why not? Check it out at Google Schmoogle. |