Stop Living A Knock Off Life

Stop lying.

You’re not fooling anyone.

Cut the fake-it-‘til-you-make-it nonsense.

Are you living your dreams or not?

No?

Then it’s time to get a grip on reality!

Many of you front–Right? But you don’t feel good about it, do you? In fact, being try-hard only makes you feel worse, emptier than simply being yourself.

Yeah, I know.

Let’s peel back some layers.

Today’s society makes it easy for people to pretend. The proliferation of social media has made attention-seeking big business. Many believe success is just a tweet or YouTube posting away, supplanting the time-honored values of hard work and perseverance.

However, many ne’er-do-wells are left wanting. So they front, to make up the difference.

I call this living a knockoff life, which basically means settling for superficiality that approximates tangible achievement.

A shallow person believes individual qualities will assure success. He (or she) relies on looks, personality, and an exaggerated sense of self, including outrageous and degrading behavior, to draw attention hoping to amass fame and fortune.

Last year, I worked on a temporary government assignment and witnessed knockoff behavior in full effect. A typical scenario unfolded: desperate and poverty conscious women hounded a suited up (married) supervisor because, despite being average, he represented success (i.e. security). True to his repressed bureaucratic nature, the supervisor got cozy with a hyper-sexualized Latina, allowing him to realize his erotic ideal, while unwittingly becoming her coveted “money man.”

In a twisted way, these two briefly received their payoff. But reality is a hard master, and this fantasy crashed against a bulwark of immutable truth. When it comes to social interaction, fakes get found out.

People put a lot of energy into being mediocre and avoiding life’s hardships. They only buy half of the American Dream, the part about being prosperous, while conveniently overlooking essential character traits such as fortitude and self-reliance.

This isn’t surprising, truth isn’t glamorous.

Hardcore dudes stay on their grind. They’re always getting money, no matter where their ambition takes them. It’s always business. You must be this way too. Stop settling for the “look” of someone or something to pacify your fragile ego. Get the real thing!

I have a saying, “Get your mind right and your money tight.”

Any other thinking is delusional.

Later,

Gary