This is the first in a series of guest blogs written by our listeners. If you’d like to let our P1 community know, in longform, what you think about an issue that is important to you, send your guest blog to tom@blowmeuptom.com.
Dear Tom,
Today you asked us to write you following the monologue you did on being the architect of your own destiny.
I was deeply touched by this call to action because I consider myself an aspiring writer. I write every day, I pay a writing coach to mentor me, I take and leave jobs and make career choices solely on how they will impact my creative output as a writer. When you told me today that it was my assignment to write to you, I was in the office at work and unable to respond. When i got home, I re-listened to the repeat hour to get the whole assignment again, and I sat down to do it.
Here is my contribution to your topic today on being the architect of my own destiny.
“You’re lucky to have this job.”
Fuck.
You.
I work for the post office. I love working for the post office. I took the job because I wanted a job that gave me a lot of time by myself to be alone inside my own head so I could think about what was important to me. When I’m out delivering mail, I’m not working, I’m getting paid eight hours a day to exercise and plot my escape. I’m hashing out my next novel manuscript. I’m planning my letter to you. I love the mental mobility that comes with working outdoors alone and unsupervised.
I’ve had jobs that abused my creativity and made me not want to do what I was most passionate about when I came home. I worked in marketing, I worked in fashion and entertainment. I worked for pennies, and I worked for more money and greater benefits than I work for now, but if I ever encountered a mental roadblock between me and the passion that motivated me, I destroyed it without hesitation.
The post office will not be any different.
Every time I hear that line, it’s like magic to me. “You’re lucky to have this job.”
Or one of it’s associated variables, of which there are many-
“How you gonna feed your kids?” “How you gonna pay your bills?” “At least you’re getting hours.”
I hear those magic words, and I go home from work that evening and I start fact checking their bullshit. The way I do that is by going online, doing a quick job search, and seeing if can find a better deal than I’ve got right now. I have an education, I can write a resume, I can shop around. If I don’t find any better options, I am content. If I see something that looks more attractive, I apply for it. Whether or not anything comes of it, I have taken my revenge.
Because that bullshit rat trap line means nothing to me. Every time I email out another resume, or even when I strike out on a job search and find nothing, to me it’s telling my employer, “you’ll miss me when I’m gone.”
I’m immune to “You’re lucky to have this job” because I’m a 101 student.
“You’re lucky to have this job.”
No, you’re lucky I still have bills to pay. I put down up to fifty percent of my monthly income directly to the principle of my student loan. At this rate I will be completely out of debt before summer. When that happens, you’re on notice. I’ll be debt free and in the black doing whatever I want. I can do math, I don’t sit around on minimum payments and wonder where my money is going. I am out to kill that fucker.
“How you gonna feed your kids?”
I don’t have any because I didn’t stick it unwrapped in the first chick in high school that paid attention to me, and I don’t plan on changing that game plan. I don’t want my fate to be dictated by the needs of a little crawling shit factory. And to everyone who says, “You’ll change your mind when you have kids!” I have some investment advice for you- There are no accidents, not in the uterus, and not at the urologist. Snip snip. That’s where the first check that doesn’t go to the student loan is going.
“How you gonna pay your bills?”
I’m not planning on having any, because I’m not buying a house I can’t afford to fill it up with crotch spawn. I love masturbating. It’s great, every time I jack off instead of dumping a load unwrapped in some girl, it’s like putting money in the bank instead of giving it to her. I’m a mass murderer, I love watching sperm die like fish out of water.
“You’re lucky to get these hours.”
I can go home when I finish my work. I don’t have to stretch my hours or get creative with the time clock to make sure I get what I need. If my week ends up being 36 or 38 hours instead of 40, it’s because it was more important to me to go home and pursue what mattered to me, because I didn’t make myself responsible to paying for past bad decisions.
My success is inevitable. I don’t know how it will come, or when it will come. All I know is that I have done everything possible to avoid quicksand. I have closed off every potential side street that can lead to failure on the road to my happiness, and I’m looking forward to permanently shutting off the only valve that could potentially flood that road. (Take me out vasectomy style!)
Whether I stay in this job for one more day or a hundred years, I have already written my destiny. Not by allowing anyone else to decide what I could do, but by deciding what I wouldn’t do. The only potential variables left are positive.
I’m looking forward to you seeing me on Maury two or three years from now, when I whip out the doctor’s note that says I’m shooting blanks on some white trash that is “110% sure” I am her baby daddy.
“Well, everyone makes mistakes.” Maury will tell the camera with that snide grin that signals his producer to trawl the green room for the next batch of broken condoms.
Not me Maury, no mistakes here. Not in this lifetime.
I’m too lucky to have that job.
Luck had nothing to do with it.
Tom, It is important that you point out to the listeners that a marriage contract is a three party contract. From inception, a man has at most 33% say so. The wife has another 33% and the Judge has another 33%.let’s face it. The judge will side with the woman because we live in a “civilized society”. Also, true you cannot control a woman, but neither can you control a judge. That means the question becomes, when, not if, does a judge dominate you. So you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are the kind of person who wants to be dominated by a male or female judge. Do you really want to live this life under a person’s thumb. The judge has the contempt power against you as oppose to you against him. The judge knew before your matrimonial case was ever filed he has the upper with you. You are only entertainment to a judge.
Jack S. you’re awesome! That was a great read, and I agree wholeheartedly with you.
…and if you have children, the percentages shift to 50% for judge / system. In custody cases courts will appoint an advocate – or act as one – in the minor’s interest. From 0-18 it will be 50-25-25. If you then get a female judge, your life is just about over. No control, no money, no choice. You’ll pay or the court will know the reason why.
Assets and payroll can be seized. Oh, and if you think you’ll bug out to another country, better never come back. These days you can be arrested upon entry to the country for failure to pay support.