Creator: Matthew Kimberly, author of How to Get a Grip – No Bullshit self-help. Get a grip on yourself. Take responsibility. Do it.
Purpose: A guide for focussing on the important stuff.
Manifesto: Ten Things You Should Already Know By Now
1. What’s important today won’t matter tomorrow
Yeah, so you got a problem. Sleep on it, sunshine. Put it off. Most problems can be safely ignored. You’ll be amazed how often they sort themselves out. And the gravity of any given problem is inversely proportional to the hour of the day. At three in the morning, you’ve got an insurmountable issue. After four whisky and cokes at nine in the evening, you haven’t even got an inkling of a problem.
2. Everybody else is furiously improvising, so you can too
Show me an expert and I’ll show you a charlatan. FAKE IT ‘TIL YOU MAKE IT, amigo. 21 year old lifestyle design guru? Hell yeah! Fat, unemployed life-coach? Why not? Homeopathy professional? Whatever, bring it on! Choose your path, and then Act As If You’re Wearing A Cape.
3. Nobody thinks about you as much as you think about you
Really. They don’t. For example, I’m not thinking about you now. But I bet you are.
4. It’s OK to piss people off
But if you’re pissing everybody off, all the time, it’s time to quit being a fucking asshole.
5. Aspiration is for suckers
6. Nobody tells all the truth, all the time
So lower your expectations of people. When put in a spot, people fib. We men lie about our alcohol consumption all the time. When we’re young and say we had six beers, we probably only had three. Nowadays, if we say we only had three beers, you can be sure it was closer to six. It doesn’t mean we don’t love you
7. Life doesn’t get better – only your perception of life improves
There was a little man with a lame left leg. He lived on the outskirts of town in a tumble-down house. He had a hole in his roof, and water would come in day and night. His lame left leg meant he couldn’t go out to work, so he survived on the charity of others, who would give him scraps of food. Sometimes he would go for two days and nights with nothing to eat. One day, the town council decided to fix his roof. The little man with the lame left leg became the happiest person you have ever seen. He was so grateful to be dry that he would smile and sing for the passersby all day long.
8. Your family comes first, but not to the detriment of everything else
You want to go out with the girls? Tell your husband to make his own dinner. And gents, you don’t need permission for that once-a-year trip to Vegas, you just need to communicate it properly.
9. You’re wrong as often as you’re right
So don’t dwell on either.
10. Men should never wear wigs