Pride and Aspiration

Hello new reader of my new blog!



Despite the Americanisation of my blog title, I am quite excited to have finally given into the peer pressure to start one of these things. Of course, the title is Americanised because it is a piece of dialogue from The Great Gatsby, which epitomises the mind-set of the American dream. The American dream is, indeed, aptly named as, and I quote Mr George Carlin when I remind readers that, "It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it".



However, this is not a post about America, or their idiosyncratic approach to the English language. Indeed, how wearisome would that be! No, this is, more aptly, a post about aspiration and pride and the danger of losing sight of reality as a consequence. As the King James bible would tell you: "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Haughty. Hee-hee; that's rather a fun word to say. There is something almost sexual, yet somewhat jovial about it...



How often do we let ourselves believe what we want to believe instead of what is blindingly obvious? I have begun to evaluate how I spend my time and it goes something like this:



Doing what I have to do to get by: 30%
Doing what I want to do with my life: 0%
Thinking about doing what I want to do with my life: 70%



This almost structured waste of time seems to completely dominate me and I'm sure that I am not the only one. I pride myself on saying "I'm a writer", but what I have realised recently is that I spend more time aspiring to be a writer than I actually spend writing. Pride is futile; we do not need it. The American Dream is bollocks; a century or two of American literature has taught us that. Pride goeth before destruction; there are about a dozen Shakespeare plays that tell us that! I am hereby renouncing any ounce of pride from my existence, and if you had any real pride, reader, you would too. Then, we too can be p-paralyzed with happiness and enjoy a life in which we control our expectations and not be ensnared by their dangerous and wily ways.

Much love to you all, and I will see you tomorrow!
Mike.xx