How to achieve success and other such life advice

When my family used to go on long car trips together, my dad would make us listen to a book on tape. This book was called 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad.' At the beginning of the tape the narrator explains that this is the story of his two dads and their differing financial situations. Now, these were not two gay dads. This was not an awesome story about one family's battle against discrimination and adversity. Instead, it was a boring story about a young boy who had a poor dad, but his friend had a rich dad, and this rich dad taught the boy all about how to own a business and rake in the cash and whatnot. 

What did I learn from the entire debacle? Nothing. And yet, somehow I have still managed to end up living the high life; employed and rapidly climbing the corporate ladder (in my head). So, in order to help out all those less successful than myself, I have decided to compile a list of tips to help everyone be just like rich dad. 

1. Dress the part.
The age-old adage 'dress to impress' is an important one to follow once you are attending business meetings with international skype calls to the head office in South Korea. The ideal workplace attire would be something like David Bowie meets Macklemore, but it is difficult for me to emulate this personally, because I only own two pairs of pants. So instead I just try to wear neutral tones, and always keep my fingernails trimmed even though it has always been my dream to grow them long enough that I can file them into claws and then take off into the night sky. My hair is another story. Much like Miley Cyrus, my hair can't be tamed. It is as wild as the rugrats were in 'Rugrats go Wild' and every time I try to tie it up I miss enough of the back that I'm pretty much walking around with a jedi plait. For some reason no one ever notifies me about this so it is never until I get home hours later that I realise I have spent all day in the public eye as Obi Wan. 

Me (pictured above) attending a job interview

2. A firm handshake is a superior handshake. 
A fundamental part of employment is asserting your dominance in a business-type scenario. How better to do this than in the ¿handshake?: a widely performed gesture in the working world. It is a rule of the handshake that whoever comes out of it with a still functional hand is the winner, so grip that hand like you are Jack and Rose gripping the bow of the Titanic. If you don't feel their bones being crushed into a fine powder in your grip then you are not clasping tight enough. 

3. Retain your individuality.
The workforce is a cruel place that takes happy-go-lucky free spirited people and changes them into mindless drones. Mostly, we don't even notice that we have forgotten who we are until Mufasa appears in the clouds and tells us. So, look for anything that will keep you unique. Perhaps carry around an ear trumpet, or keep a framed photo of Yoko Ono on your desk. However, if you are born in September be sure to keep that quiet because September is the least unique month. Probably upwards of 90% of the world's population was born in September. A number of years ago I asked my mum why this was. Her response? "It's nine months after new years, if you know what I mean ;)." It was so awkward I never spoke to her again. 

In summary, no one needs to waste hours of their life listening to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. That is something I would not wish upon my worst enemy. Instead, keep these wise words in mind: Life is like monopoly. There are banks, there are houses, there are thimbles. However, unlike monopoly, life is not a game. Unless we are talking about the Game of Life because that is a game. 

Green Living

I have been a vegetarian my entire life. I guess you could say I was very forward-thinking as a baby. I guess you could also say that my parents were vegetarians and that I didn't have any say in the matter. My parents have been vegetarians for as long as I have known them. Back in the motherland, where prion diseases were rampant and at large, they had to quit their meat eating ways in order to survive. Now that they are safely in New Zealand where all of the cows are sane, they have remained vegetarian. I don't know why they never went back to eating meat, I assume it's an old-dog-new-tricks situation. 

Although this was a lifestyle choice that I did not choose, I would not change anything. Vegetarian life has presented me with a great number of benefits. Namely that I never have to eat anything that is bleeding. I have a decreased likelihood of getting the diseases associated with the consumption of animals; colon cancer, rabies, salmonella. No one ever got salmonella from vegetables, they got it from salmon. I have also never been subject to any cognitive dissonance concerning the inner 'I love animals but I love meat' turmoil. 

My grandmother once told me a story about a time when she attempted to make fish head soup in her younger days. I don't know why anyone would ever decide to make fish head soup, it seems like something people should try to avoid doing at all costs, but my grandmother has always been a real OG and lived by her own rules, so there is no telling her what to do. Anyway, she beheaded a fish and began boiling the head in a pot on the stove. As it simmered away she was suddenly stricken with unease. She could not rid herself of the disconcerting feeling that the fish head was looking at her. She stared at the fish head's lifeless eye and it stared back. She continued to stare, transfixed on that unblinking eye with its unyielding gaze. Eventually, my grandmother was unable to continue boiling the fish head and ended up disposing of it, and never making fish head soup again. 

I'm not really sure of the relevance of this story. Perhaps it simply says that I am glad I will never have to eat anything that is watching me. But I feel as though there could be more to it than that. When my grandmother thought that the fish was watching her; forced to acknowledge the undeniable truth that the fish was once a living creature, conscious of it's surroundings, able to experience pain, with an understanding of the world, albeit a limited one, she was unable to follow through with boiling its head. Maybe if there was a cow's head included in every pack of mince at the supermarket, less people would buy them. Probably just because a decapitated cows head would be really disgusting, though. 

Nonetheless, it is probably easier to cook a faceless slab of meat and not acknowledge where it might have come from than to knowingly feast on the butchered remains of Bambi's mum. Perhaps if people knew they were about to chow down on Boxer from Animal Farm or every character from Charlotte's Web, then they would be less inclined to do so. 

All in all, I know that vegetarianism will always be the life for me. If Einstein, Da Vinci, and Russell Brand chose to be vegetarian, then it must be right. Also, Paul McCartney, the eye candy of The Beatles, with his well-known slaughterhouses-with-glass-walls quote. I suppose I will never truly know if I would have been vegetarian now, had i not been raised as such. There is always the possibility that I would have had an insatiable hunger for flesh like those baby tigers that people attempt to domesticate. But instead, as fate decreed, I prefer a diet consisting solely of chickpeas and satsumas. A classic combination. 

Why do anything ever? We're all going to die anyway.

Every time I sit down at my desk and get out my textbook and my study notes and play the Vilvaldi - Four Seasons youtube video, in preparation for some serious study timez I am suddenly struck by a disturbing, yet persistent thought - why am I doing this? Is this because I want good grades? And a good job? And a life full of riches and success? Do any of those things actually matter?

No. They don't matter. Nothing does. 

The horrifying truth is that one day I will be dead, and so will everyone I know, and so will everyone they know, and so will all of their children. Even Julie Andrews will probably die one day, although I get a little bit choked up just thinking about it. 

Life is full of sad realisations; there will never be another episode of Lost, you can't live off canned beetroot, herpes is forever, but none are sadder than the realisation that life is fleeting and with each second that passes we draw closer to an unavoidable and eternal non-existence. 

I don't remember the first time I found out that I was going to die one day. I feel as though I might have always known. I was one of those sage-like guru babies that fly around the mountains and grant wishes to lost travelers. I just find it so strange how everyone just knows and accepts the fact that death is coming for us all. It should technically be the most traumatising news in the world. You'd think there would be more public outrage but there weirdly isn't. Maybe it's because there is no one to complain to. I like to complain to my parents. 'You can protect me from sunburn but you can't protect me from perpetual nothingness? What kind of parents are you?'

There is literally no point in doing anything ever, because once you are dead it won't matter whether you lived a life of happiness and good fortune or a lived under a bridge. It won't matter if you had lots of friends, or a family, because they will die too. It won't matter whether you were smart, or funny, or really good at knee boarding. Nothing matters. I could describe myself as a nihilist but I don't see the point in that either.

Some people manage to find meaning through a religion of some sorts. I hold a great deal of respect for those people because they possess the astounding ability to believe in something that is so obviously a complete fabrication constructed in order to deal with the deeply terrifying notion of death. I'm pretty sure that Freud compared religion to "childhood neurosis" and Freud knew what he was talking about because he was on crack. 

My dad once told me to "keep my options open" vis-à-vis religion. As if when I die and it turns out there was a God all along I might be able to slip through the gates of heaven with a late admission form. I just feel as though God, being all omnipresent and so forth, would definitely catch on. And anyway I don't know if I can take advice from a man who wears socks with his sandals. My dad himself can only be described as vaguely religious at best. On his annual Christmas church visit he puts a whole $20 in the collection plate. Good one dad. As if that will make up for an entire year of complete negligence and indifference towards religion of any kind. 

I guess the leitmotif of it all is that since nothing matters, I should never have to do anything that I don't want to do. Why spend even one second studying when it will all amount to nothing when you are totally dead? So put down those books, and instead spend hours staring at the ceiling in the dark contemplating the nature of existence.

It's way more fun.  ???

Santa is Dead

There comes a time in everyone's life when they are forced to face a horrifying truth. They will never again be a child. They can no longer legally bike on the foot path. They are too tall for the playground at McDonalds. It's is no longer appropriate to wrap their towel around their head like a turban in the swimming pool changing room in Year Seven and reenact the the final scene from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. 

For me, it wasn't these things that lead me to the final realisation of my lost childhood, but rather it was the fact that Christmas Day is drawing nearer, unaccompanied by the uncontainable excitement it was marked with in my youth. I remember the time of advent calendars and Christmas stockings. A time when decorating the Christmas tree was a privilege, and not just another household chore, right up there with emptying the dishwasher. We lose a lot of things in the transition into adulthood, our Christmas spirit included. We may as well all turn into the Grinch or that duck with the room full of money and the little spectacles. 

One of the things that children possess that adults lack is the childlike ability to believe in crazy things. Some children actually believe in Santa. Think about how crazy that is. First of all, why would he give away presents to all the children in the world? One of the things we learn when we grow up is that nothing in life is free, least of all those shoes with the little wheels on the bottom. But more than that, how are the children coerced into believing that Santa is able to afford presents for EVERY CHILD IN THE WORLD. There's like 2 billion children out there. And he travels the entire world in one night. That's only possible if he's in one of those superfast rockets that break the sound barrier. But he's not. He's in a sleigh. And how does that sleigh fly? It's not like Prancer and Vixen and Cupid etc, have wings. 

The whole story is preposterous. I can't believe that four-year-olds everywhere are falling for this. But even when we are old enough to realise the lunacy that our parents have been feeding us, and we discover that Santa was just them all along, that doesn't necessarily mean that our Christmas Spirit has died. Because, well, we still get presents. I can only assume that that is what it's all about. 

But when receiving presents is no longer cause for excitement, we begin to comprehend something. For me, this was very gradual. All these years Christmas has been masquerading as the funnest day of the year, under the guise of presents and Christmas lights on people's houses. But what children fail to understand is that Christmas is not more fun than all those other days in the year. It's less fun. 

Think about it. What does Christmas really entail? It's a day that promises non-stop joy, when what you really end up with is having to spend the entire day at some relatives house, listening to your parents talk to strange adults, while you sit on a wicker couch drinking off-brand Milo. The only positive thing that comes out of these Christmas's for my family is that my brother and sister and I learnt that there would come a time in this life where all we would have was each other and that we must band together and be there for one another etc etc, but that was namely because all the adults were talking and we had no one else to play Jenga with. 

Overall, I suppose I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that it is an unavoidable part of life, the moment when we realise all that we have left behind. We begin life with a beautiful picture of a world full of brightness and opportunity but as we grow older we are forced to wake up to the harshness of reality. And once we do we are not able to go back . We will never again be able see the world through the uncorrupted eyes of a child. We will never again get as excited about Christmas as we could we were young. And we will never again be able to believe in Santa Claus. 

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I mean, imagine the craziness that would transpire if billions of adults worldwide believed that there was a man associated with Christmas, and that you had to be good all the time to be rewarded. Madness. 

Kicking the Habit

Not so long ago I lived a very healthy lifestyle, I like to think. I kept hydrated. I didn't engage in any illicit drug use. I always waited for the green man to appear at the pedestrian crossings even when there were no cars in sight and everyone else was crossing anyway. I would stare at everyone crossing with disapproving looks, and they would stare back with what was probably a mixture of admiration and respect. 

But one day, this all changed. I still cared about my health, only less so. I started drinking a lot less water and becoming slightly dehydrated from time to time. I know what you are thinking; I was dancing with death. Living life on the edge. But there was worse to come. That fateful day came and I took up a dangerous habit: Second Hand Smoking. 

I never thought I would be one of those people who second hand smoked. I thought it was stupid. I thought, why would anyone do something so detrimental to their health? But that was long before I found myself tied up and gagged by metaphorical ropes that were made from second hand smoke, metaphorically.

It all began as a social activity. I was a social second hand smoker. At first, when everyone stood around smoking, I would stand twenty metres away, across the street or behind a different building, my face covered by some form of non-porous material. But gradually, I felt like I was missing out on an important part of social interactions. That is, the part where you can see and talk to other people.  So, I ventured closer.

Soon I was standing just a mere metre away from them. Usually upwind, I wasn't crazy. But that didn't stop the toxic smoke and it's diffusion. It diffused. It diffused everywhere. It diffused all the way down my oesophagus and into my bronchioles.

But I didn't care. I was a whole new person, and I crossed the street when I wanted to. I second hand smoked almost every day, sometimes more than once. I second hand smoked at home. I second hand smoked while I was walking to University. I even second hand smoked when I was sitting in the smoking areas outside bars and clubs.

Then one day, I realised my second hand smoking had to stop. This was about the time that I found myself gasping for breath on slight inclines. I developed a raspy second hand smokers' cough. And when I went for more than a few hours without second hand smoking, my hands would shake and my lungs would start to seize up. At least, I assume that's what the sharp pains in my chest were.

I didn't understand my habit. I didn't enjoy it and I knew it was bad for me. I decided I had to quit second hand smoking for good.

I went into immediate withdrawal. Suddenly, I saw my smoking friends about 10% less frequently per day, than I did when I was a regular second hand smoker. It was hard, but I knew I had to do this, if not for me then for my alveoli.

I am now almost a whole day second hand smokefree. I would be two days second hand smokefree but I accidentally inhaled some second hand smoke while lining up for the Robyn Concert, because it was raining and there weren't many places that I could stand to get away from the second hand smoke, while simultaneously asserting my authority as the front of the line.

My exploration into second hand smoking taught me something important. Second hand smoking is not as 'glamorous' and 'rebellious' as it appears from the outside. Mostly, it's just quite foggy. It's not actual fog but when your head is surrounded my second hand smoke it can look kind of foggy, and then you just get confused about the weather. And there is nothing glamorous or rebellious about being confused about the weather.

As the hours pass and I slowly regain my sense of smell, I become more certain that giving up second hand smoking is the right thing to do. Even better than quitting would have been never taking up second hand smoking in the first place so I would advise to not start such a deadly habit. Also, if you are a chronic second hand smoker, don't try to call Quitline. They won't take you seriously.