Unscrew Yourself
If there’s anything the internet is really good at, it’s giving people some really screwed up advice. So here’s some more-
Kidding.
But, if you’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of such suggestions, here are some ways to unscrew yourself.
Screwed-up Advice #1: Quit your job
Obviously this list had to start with this. Like, OBVIOUSLY. After all, your job is what is screwing you over — big-time. Sucking the life out of you. Killing your passion. Ouch.
Yeah…. NO.
Despite what all the ‘inspiring’ stories on the internet maybe telling you, quitting your job is not going to be the best decision of your life. In fact there’s a good chance it will totally backfire — leaving you broke, bored, directionless and mostly friend-less too. That’s because mostly, it’s not your job. It’s you. You have no clue what to do with your life so you’re blaming your job. Not a good reason to quit.
Unscrew Yourself: Get better at your job.
Find ways to build better skills for your job — whatever it may be. There’s always ample scope for improvement — something extra that you could be doing. Up the ante. Raise the bar. When do you this, your job ceases to be just your job — it becomes you. It transforms you into this larger than life personality. From, “Okay yeah, he works at my office”, you get to, “Oh yeah! He’s like a crazy programmer — weird but a total genius!”. It’s pretty cool. Plus, if you still want to quit your job, you now have a good reason.
Screwed-up Advice #2. Spend more time with friends and family
Pffft! Yeah, if spending time with friends and family was the key to success, we’d be a super power by now. After all, most of us still live with our parents, many of us still live with our grandparents, our friends live RIGHT NEXT DOOR, (and by right next door I mean you can step into their homes without stepping out of your house) and our cousins just keep coming over.
We actually spend way more time than we should with people. We’re living with them, working with to them, sitting next to them on trains and standing behind them in queues, eating at the table next to them — you can’t even buy half a dozen bananas without having to haggle with the vendor and chat up the aunty you randomly bumped into. ENOUGH!
Unscrew Yourself. Spend more time with yourself
You don’t have to sit on a pillow and chant, but simply spending some quiet time by yourself — no phone or laptop — even for as little as 10 minutes a day can do wonders for your peace of mind and leave you feeling focused and refreshed after you’re done. Go for a walk by yourself, sip your cuppa in quiet leisure, or just stare outside a window. As you start doing this, pay attention to your thoughts, your conversations with yourself. It’s quite entertaining — I assure you.
Screwed-up Advice #3. Follow your Passion!!!
Yeah man! YOLO! Find out what you’re really, totally, insanely passionate about and just do it man! You gotta have passion. To hell with everything else!! Wait, what? You don’t know what you’re passionate about…? Well then — Quit your job man!!
Regardless of what you smoke, passion doesn’t just sneak up on you one day. Tinklebell simply doesn’t visit people at night, sprinkling her passion-dust on those who don’t have it. It’s not like hair — it doesn’t just grow on you when you come of age. By it’s very definition, passion is fleeting, temporary, and so are most things motivated by it. There is no ‘one thing’ that is or could be ‘your thing’. It’s insane to expect someone to keep doing one single thing for the rest of their lives and call it their passion. That’s not passion, that’s being dead.
Unscrew Yourself: Explore yourself
The truth is, most of us are made up of much more than we realize. We are also constantly evolving - our tastes, preferences, beliefs and values changing as life changes and challenges us. This requires us to keep exploring ourselves, to keep looking for possibilities and taking chances — trying out things we’ve never tried before, and learning about what works for us and what doesn’t in the process. There is no ‘my thing’ that will stay with you all your life. No moment of ‘this is it’ that will be the turning point. The only thing one can be passionate about in life is living it. And that can only happen when you stop chasing an elusive ‘passion’ and start exploring what’s in front of you.
Screwed up Advice#4: Travel the World
Yes, this comes right up there with Quit Your Job. Quit your job and Travel the World. Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? If the stuff going viral on the internet is to be believed, travelling the world is probably the best thing you can do with your life. It’s apparently super easy, convenient, totally cool and best done with no bags and no plans. Those who are able to visit exotic places and do out of ordinary things are the best kind of people — they have no responsibilities, no cares and they are totally living it up! What are you waiting for?
I’ll tell you what — you’re waiting to pay off the college loan, make the down payment on your first home, get that education loan approved, get your parents retired or pay for mom’s knee replacement surgery.
Unscrew Yourself: Pay your bills first
The Travelling American’s Dream: sleeping on a bench and eating a vada pav for lunch will just not work out for you — that is not our idea of travel, that’s just everyday life for most of us. In a developing country, travelling is a sheer luxury. That’s the brutal, honest truth. So before you get all starry-eyed, start saving — big time. Pay off your bills, your loans, save enough for all kinds of emergencies (this is India, emergencies are a daily affair), get a good source of income going, stop buying stuff to show off and then, maybe, travel.
Screwed Up Advice #5: Don’t worry/Be Happy/Aal iz well/It’ll get better tomorrow.
If every single motivational poster says that, it must be true, no? After all, if it won’t get better tomorrow, then what’s the point? And anyway why worry about shit you can’t control? Someday it will all make sense. Bad things often happen to good people. It’s life’s way of testing you and making you stronger. Believe in yourself and in your possibilities. Hope springs eternal, after all.
Well so does stupidity.
Unscrew Yourself: Things won’t get better tomorrow unless you start getting better today
Sure, at times shitty things happen for no rhyme or reason, but most of the time — you are the reason. And stuff you can’t control is exactly what you should be worrying about — or at least preparing for — because that’s what you have a mind for. What you do today is the single-biggest factor influencing how things will turn out for you tomorrow and if you don’t make better choices today, no number of motivational posters will help tomorrow.
Screwed Up Advice #6: <insert number> of things to do/see/eat/visit/jump off/hide under/ before <insert age>
Because if you haven’t, I mean what a loser! After all, don’t you know your life practically ends after 30? And of course you have to jump off something at least once in your life because otherwise you’ll never be cool. What would life be with a long list of to-dos with a time-limit? Keep your notebook handy!
Unscrew Yourself: Create
No you don’t have to stand in front of the Eiffel Tower or bungee jump off a cliff in Thailand or see the aurora borealis on a frigid night in Netherlands to get inspired. No doubt, there are many beautiful things worth seeing in the world, but what really matters, what remains with you in the end are not the things you see or visit or eat — it is the things you make. The things you create — whether a piece of code or a painting, a composition or a career, a house or history — that’s the stuff that you will look back at with the greatest satisfaction you will ever feel. There’s no bigger achievement than a creation. And there’s no list or age-limit when it comes to that.
And that’s kinda what we’ve done at Brigge. (Speak of taking your own advice.)We’ve created an app that has given us such good times and memories. And we hope it’ll stick around. You should check it out. Or download it. No pressure or anything, just saying.
Essentially, people, the world, and the internet are constantly telling you how to live your life. Some of this is well meant, some makes no sense, some works, some doesn’t, and some is downright disastrous. The point is not to take them at face value— it’s important you go out and live your life, actually do things, create stuff and do all this in the real world. So that when you do get such advice from people you can say with utter certainty — “dude, that’s screwed up”.
