The Rudest Book Ever

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The Rudest Book Ever Page 2

by Shwetabh Gangwar


  So, the objective of education is not for you to become a fine, thinking person, but to become someone who earns very well. They realise that rich people have a better life; you will be treated pretty well by your family members, the society that surrounds you and by members of the opposite sex. So it’s not entirely unreasonable for them to want you to become a person of status.

  What’s utterly stupid about it is that it takes care of the status part only, not the person. In the phrase ‘a person of status’, you need the development of both. Status is a socially engineered identity that tends to replace the individual identity. So, status must not dictate who the person is. The person must dictate what to do with the status in accordance with how they feel about that status.

  Take all the high-achieving people who hate their jobs or professions. Despite money, achievements and success, they are miserable doing what they do. It happens because a sense of meaning and satisfaction does not come from status; such things are deeper and more personal than that.

  Your parents wanted to prepare you to be one of the best products for this world. In action, what they end up doing is: prepare you technically, academically and skill-wise to be the best product for the race, like a car. The human element is barely accounted for.

  The goal of most parents is for their child to become capable of achieving great success. If that goal is achieved, in their minds, they are the best parents. What’s fucked up about it is, in case you do achieve success, they assume that they have somehow prepared you to deal with the world as well—which is utter bullshit.

  Now, if you are one of those people whose parents never forced you to do anything, they didn’t push you to achieve success, or anything of that sort, they let you do whatever you wanted—I am not saying parents who push their kids are evil. What I am saying is: it is the responsibility of parents to help you grow both into a capable working person and a capable thinking one. Did they do that?

  PARENTS ARE EXPERTS IN ACTING

  Learning of any kind that involves zero investment of your thinking produces only imitation. To create ideas and better yourself, you have to take the information and apply your own mind.

  When parenting is not coming from the parents’ own mind, their own ideas and their own thinking, it becomes an imitation of whatever they have learned. What that means is, they could be playing a character of what they believe a parent is. The character could be of a strict parent, of a genius person who knows everything, or of a person who is very brave and heroic. It could be anything. But when this happens, it becomes harder for the kid to find their parent approachable and figure them out. There is love, but the relationship is between the kid and a character, not the actual person.

  There are several reasons for parents to do this.

  One reason could be: playing a role gives them the comfort of hiding all their personal trials and tribulations from you. Just because somebody is older doesn’t mean they have figured out life. In most cases, older people are children who have aged. Stop attaching maturity, wisdom, enlightenment to ageing. He is old, hence he must be wise is one of the stupidest notions we take for granted.

  Another reason is pride. In cases where the parents’ sole focus is on the kid becoming capable, the character they play also becomes the one that expects only brilliance and exceptional performances from the kid. In playing this character, the kid becomes a reflection of their ego. The kid’s emotional and personal growth is hardly ever addressed. There is love, but it is shown in demands of accomplishments and excellence. In this case, what is missing is the responsibility of helping that kid become the individual they are meant to be.

  Another reason why most parents don’t care to break out of these stupid, empty shells of characters is, they don’t even consider that the kid’s personality is getting shaped by things that hurt them, influence them and amaze them. The reason for that is, they don’t see them as people yet. They see them as kids who must be doing harmless, innocent kids’ stuff. No wonder they are shocked beyond belief when they find out their kid was doing some adult stuff. You were smoking and drinking? You are having sexual relations already? But you are so young!

  The moment a kid touches the age of thirteen, parents should break out of their stupid characters and start looking at their kid as an inexperienced adult. What it means is, they are now thinking of doing everything that adults do.

  In conclusion, parenting is largely coming from imitating whatever people learn from the culture in their surroundings. This basically means that whatever parents do is coming from a degree of cluelessness with regards to what to actually do. No wonder you enter adulthood completely clueless.

  The point of having a brain should be to minimise error, not having to deal with it endlessly. But you were never taught the mechanisms which would prepare you to protect yourself and understand the errors that produce bothersome situations, hurt and pain. You are left to deal with all of it by yourself. As a result, you’re a grown person now, on your own, having to deal with the world telling you your self-worth and net worth; adjusting your self-esteem as you make sense of rejections from people you desire; filling yourself with insecurities and ideas from comparing yourself to god-knows-what standards; and lastly, triggering negative emotions as a response to failures, heartbreaks and denial of wishes. Yes, you are doing that to yourself, the world is doing that to you, and it does that to everybody.

  So, without wasting time, let’s concern ourselves with arming you with better means, methods and mechanisms to deflect and deal with shit that has happened to you, is happening to you and will happen to you.

  CHAPTER TWO

  YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO BE SPECIAL

  Let’s be clear about something: The idea of being special excites almost all of us—to varying degrees, depending upon the individual. It’s perfectly normal. Be honest: you know you have fantasised about standing out in certain situations; played and replayed different scenarios of the same meetings and interactions in your mind with you as the centre of attention and master of the perfect dialogue. You have imagined scenarios in which you are born as somebody blessed with what you believe will make you fulfilled. You have wished that, one day, everybody around you would tell you that you are amazing, and treat you like you are amazing. And you have daydreamed about people you want to impress, please and attract instantly wanting to be your friend and lover after meeting you because you’re so impressive. Lastly, who hasn’t dreamt about having millions of dollars!

  THIS IS HOW YOU BECOME SPECIAL

  According to you, ‘specialness’ is being born special, being told you are special, being treated like you are special, and being rich. Unfortunately, all of that has nothing to do with specialness. Let’s first define what specialness is. During your childhood, there are chances you may have experienced one of these three things: a) you were told you are special, b) you were told you are not special, or c) there was no mention of you being special or un-special at all.

  If you were told by your parents that you are special, kindly rinse your mind of that idea immediately. If you were told you are not special, then, no, your parents aren’t geniuses; that, too, is completely wrong. Lastly, if there was no mention of specialness in your household, chances are you are still seeking it.

  And since all of us are seeking it in either assuming if I do this, it will make me special, or wishing if only I had this, I would have been special, you need to understand that specialness is earned.

  If you were asked, what were the moments in which you felt special, you might think of the time when people laughed at your joke, applauded some effort, or when your post on social media got more likes than usual—that would be much closer to the truth for the generation today. Such moments contain all elements of wanting acceptance and approval from others, not of specialness.

  Here’s a very simple example of specialness: I felt it when I achieved that. ‘That’, is anything that created a considerable amount of self-belief in you, and made
you believe for the first time that you are capable. We all assume we are capable, because nobody would like to believe otherwise. But it remains theoretical until you have achieved something that not only becomes a reference point for yourself in the future—I was able to achieve this, this is who I am— but also proves to yourself that you have what it takes to be capable—I believe I can achieve anything I put my mind to.

  Specialness is the badge of realisation you earn. It may seem very simple to you, but this thinking can change the course of your life. Any achievement dictates you have created or mastered something. This means that not only did you gain in terms of knowledge, but you built habits of discipline, hard work, prioritising and focusing—habits that will serve you in almost all aspects of life.

  On top of that, achievements create immense self-belief; I can do it because I have done it before is an amazing thought to have at the back of your mind, guiding you. Also, achievements are rewarded with more opportunities, and give you status in the eyes of society.

  Now, imagine setting this up in the mind of a child, instead of telling them out of bias that they are special, or out of spite that they are not. Not mentioning it at all is equally bad, as it simply avoids addressing a want already growing inside the mind of that person. No matter what you tell them, they will at some point chase after the need to feel special.

  If you can give it a definition, redirect it, and set them up to earn what they already want, you will have saved them years of confusion, embarrassment, self-imposed feelings of inferiority, foolish pursuits and a focus on weaknesses. You will instead have given them an attitude that will serve them for a lifetime.

  However, specialness cannot be achieved for life from a single event. It has the property of very soon becoming a thing of the past. A badge earned at fifteen decorates the honour you earned at age fifteen only, not twenty, or twenty-five. To feel special, you ought to be ready and feel ready for all the battles, not just one. Also, ‘achievements’ does not necessarily mean trophies won in tournaments or contests. Achievements can be personal as well; for example, learning a new language, which has the same consequences of something won on stage. It will give you knowledge, self-belief, useful habits, it will create opportunities and give you status in the eyes of people. Any achievement—personal or public—is a thing of uniqueness. Therefore, making a sandwich or an omelette is not considered as an achievement—although some may beg to differ for the sake of trolling. Even the act of making sandwiches or omelettes every day for the rest of your life cannot be considered an achievement, unless you have the written testimony of world-class sandwich experts that your sandwich is way better than any sandwich made elsewhere, in which case, your sandwich shall be referred to as the sandwich, not a sandwich, and will be inducted as an achievement.

  THIS IS HOW YOU DON’T BECOME SPECIAL

  You need to make it completely clear in your mind that others recognising you, giving you attention, a moment of their time, is not you being treated as somebody special. You translate that into specialness because you hardly ever feel good about yourself. This means you have never consciously devised a way to make yourself feel better. It’s the burden of feeling inadequate in your mind that makes normal acts of kindness from others seem like special acts, which they are not. Guys say, ‘You are special’, to girls they are trying to have sex with. The point is, if you rely on others to feel special, then that may become the norm in your life, then a habit and, after that, a crippling need. Appreciate their kindness, of course, in cases where there was no motive behind the words. And if there was one, you can appreciate the sentiment, take inspiration from it, if it’s work related, and be aware of their motives. Whatever the case may be, the right to feel special must be earned and must only be yours to give. It shouldn’t belong to others because:

  The world might not share their opinion.

  Having practical expectations from the world will make you more self-reliant and less reliant on the good words of others. This will save you from constantly trying to please people and feeling miserable when you fail.

  If you need somebody else to tell you that you are special, then you have not done anything to earn it in your own mind.

  OTHERS CAN NEVER MAKE YOU FEEL SPECIAL FOR LONG

  There are people who, despite having achieved, learned, and progressed a lot in their lives, have no sense of specialness in their minds. It happens because they did it all to prove something to somebody—it could be their parents, society, teachers. It was fuelled by pressure, competition, culture, and everything else but their own selves. Their lives to this day function on the principle that achievements and better performances are means to please those whom they have deemed gods. If they are pleased by me, then I am special.

  This is how their lives work:

  Whatever I do, I do to prove to the world that I can do it. Basically, to be accepted by the world.

  Soon afterwards, the ‘world’ is replaced by people who become the ideal models of behaviour and performance, models you look up to. Therefore—Whatever I do, I must do it better to impress them.

  The idea then becomes to please them until you become them, and have their blessing and assurance that you have become what they would like you to be.

  If you are living this life, flip the script, which means:

  Whatever I do, I do it for myself, because I want to prove to myself I can do it, recognising that whatever you do in turn impacts the world.

  Because whatever I do impacts the world, I shall and must become better, so I can impact the world for the better.

  Those who hold prizes, positions and power are sources to learn from—and nothing else. You know nothing about their lives except for their abilities. Admire the fact that they have those abilities, and leave it at that.

  When they appreciate you, single you out, congratulate you and welcome your efforts, you must understand that it is a normal, deserved reaction to your praiseworthy actions, not acts of benevolence from higher beings. You can appreciate that treatment, and make sure to in turn pass it on to others. But if you label it as something that makes you special, then that high of feeling special becomes dependent on that pat on the back, a compliment, a word of admiration to feel good about yourself. By doing that, you are silently setting yourself up to be crushed mentally the day you hear the opposite of those words, the day it’s not a pat on the back but a backhanded comment, not a compliment but an unpleasant remark, not a word of admiration but a rejection of your performance. This is a relationship between a master and servant, neither of whom is special without the other; the master relies on the servant’s presence for his special status, the servant on the master’s words of kindness.

  The truth about most people who have achieved a lot but depend on the praise of others to feel special is, you are already special. Nobody ever taught you to think from this point of view. Nobody taught you what specialness actually is. And nobody taught the same to those who haven’t achieved much either. Specialness, in essence, does not require anybody but the individual. One can simply close their eyes and ask themselves, Why am I special? What have I done in my life?, and get a clear answer. In case you feel dissatisfied, then you have the option to earn it. Nobody gives it to you, you have to take it. But that’s the hard part, earning it. It is to escape from this answer that we look for specialness in love, appreciative comments, and attention through social media or friends. It is because we know we aren’t special in our own eyes, that we at least want to be told by others that we are in theirs. Once you realise this, your specialness is taken away from the approval and acceptance of others and handed exclusively to the self. Specialness then becomes a collection of skills, and feeling special is the sensation felt on upgrading in life after having mastered a skill.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHAT REJECTIONS DO TO US

  Side note: This is an intro chapter about rejections. We are warming ourselves up for a ride. One of the most important things we are goin
g to do from now on is talk about foundational principles. What the fuck does that mean? Well, it’s basically re-considering your perceptions of things, or creating perceptions of things if you don’t have any. You get hurt about things and start doing extremely stupid shit because a lot of times you are looking at it the wrong way. Perceptions matter, my friend, the way you look at something matters a lot. If you can see things a certain way, that gives you the ability to avoid pointless suffering from it—why wouldn’t you want that! So, without further ado, let’s begin.

  Rejections are a part of life. You are going to get rejected by those you desire, and you will not always get a fair shot in the competition.

  People are motivated by various factors to make decisions to the detriment of your happiness or prosperity. The point is, on many occasions, it won’t have anything to do with you. This is a big world we live in, with a lot of people. You’re just one of them. And sadly, the world doesn’t revolve around you, which kinda leaves you with very bad odds.

  Now, because we know rejections are a part of life and happen every single day to somebody, we need to have a way of looking at rejections that helps us overcome them easily, and not be scared into a little hole by them. Our first foundational principle is: Rejections are normal. It might be very late for you to start seeing it in this way because you may have already spent a lot of years being psychologically mauled by rejections, failures and losses. Don’t worry, we will talk about everything. For now, start re-writing your perception of rejections of any kind with these three words: rejections are normal.

  Rejections are a commonly found species of ancient beasts that get everyone in all fields of life. As mentioned before, it may have nothing to do with you when it happens, but because you are a self-important, self-loving son of a gun, you think from your ego instead of your rational mind and make it all about yourself. You act as if you’re the only one it has happened to. Therefore, once again, rejections are normal—start seeing it this way. They happen to everybody.

 

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