Most Men Are Wasting Their Lives. Are You?

by Steven on September 28, 2009 · No Comments

demonstrating qualities Do you often walk into a bar and begin to wonder what people are thinking of you?

Now, stop for a moment to think how it affects your ability to do what you want. Perhaps it limits you in some ways?

And do you ever catch yourself talking to a woman, and begining to think … “what should I say to her now?”..

Rather than checking into your body and sensing … “what do I WANT to say to her now?”

And then just saying it, in the most Alpha male, confident, unashamedly masculine way possible…

Do you think that limits your possibilities with women?

The reason I’m asking is because the more I look into INNER GAME, the more I realise that so many years of my life have been wasted.

Wasted in the sense that I was doing what I thought others wanted me to be doing. Not what I wanted to be doing.

I didn’t have a life. I had an act!

I was to preoccupied with what others will think. With how to fit in. And with how to stand out.

To achieve my purpose, I built up an armoury of weapons to prepare me for the social battlefield before me…

- Hit the gym to look good. Check.
- Buy great clothes to look sharp. Check.
- Make some cash to afford nice lifestyle. Check.
- Do university degrees to sound intelligent. Check.
- Get a job in a bar where even the ‘social elite’ don’t always get in. Check.

And of course, I never flaunted those attributes. Rather, I demonstrated them in subtle, clever ways, so as not to come across as “seeking approval”.

Yet, underneath the surface, that’s exactly what I was doing.

That’s why I’m so critical of ‘pickup gurus’ who tell guys that all they need to do is ‘demonstrate traits’ of a cool dude for long enough, and eventually they will just become cool dudes.

Here’s my meandering experience of that:

Demonstrating traits of a ‘cool dude’ will make you better (MAYBE EVEN THE BEST) at one thing: demonstrating traits of a cool dude.

I spend over 25 years of my life doing that .. manufacturing a shell identity which I thought would get me the praise, the respect and the acceptance from people around me.

I’d say, for 95% of my typical day my activity was underpinned by thoughts like:

- “What will others think if I do this?
- “I better do this, it will impress them”
- “Quick, they’re looking, act cool.”
- “What would XX do?”

Errgh.

Why the f*ck is another person’s opinion about you is more important to you than your own, anyway?

I fooled many people. If anything, some pretty damn well.

Whilst I bathed in the solace of their fleeting admiration and warmth, the people who were actually worth keeping in my life saw that act for what it was, and quickly moved on.

So here’s what I thought to myself this morning…

If you’re acting in a way which you think will make others accept you, like you, feel attraction for you, nod at you, smile at you, blow you, hug you, sleep with you, vote for you, wink at you -

Do you think you’ll look back at your life from the age of 60 and think…

“I stood for something .. I know who I am … that was a f*cking good life.”

Or not?

The weird thing about slowly letting go of the social armoury that I mentioned earlier is the uncanny feeling of nakedness it brings.

Whereas in the past I’d see a girl and my mind would race to,

“I look good today .. she is bound to like that. And I have some cool, pre-prepared opener on the tip of my tongue .. she’ll giggle at that one for sure…”

More and more I find that my mind runs to …

Nothing.

I have nothing. And when you realise that nothing really matters – apart from how I feel about her and the moment – that you realise the futility of having everything.

And it is in those moments, when the shields are down, when your desire for her can be told through a mere twink of an eye .. when you’re most vulnerable …

…You’re also your most powerful.

Because it is in those moments you’re living YOUR OWN life. You’re truly YOU – and not a copy of someone else.

And you are the most unique, purest expression of something so deeply greater, captivating and powerful that it makes a pre-prepared clever openers, or a nice shirt, or whatever else you thought to be important…

..as irrelevant as this very moment in the space of time if you allow it to pass you by.

Steven