by paul montero living positive A-LISTS Confessions of a Dealer Life will get you down. It will dissect every loose end you ever forgot to tie up and call
it an embarrassing, disastrous failure. It will rub your face in every one of your inefficien- cies and then douse you with a layer of shame. So why do we keep going? Lately…if you can’t already tell…I’ve had a rough time. My disorganization has
caught up with me and I’ve been forced to take a look at my habits across the board. One of the prime ones is the way I use hope as a crutch. I like hope. I’m used to it. It’s a nice feeling and it lends itself well to furthering my beloved cycle of procrastination because it calls for inaction. It allows some of us to completely immerse ourselves in the role of “victim” whenever life aims a curveball at our crotch. “Life sucks? Yeah, well. At least the pain is teaching us to become stronger, right?” Think again. Using hope as a seat cushion doesn’t make us stronger. It makes us stagnant and inept. I’ve been taking that route for years. As a professional hope-fiend, I can tell you that the light at the end of the tunnel is nothing more than an oncoming train without brakes. Most recently, I abused hope when I no longer feared the effects of antiviral meds,
and yet I still didn’t apply for a free med combo trial. You know you need a character adjustment when you pass on an offer for free life-extenders. I can’t thoroughly recall what brand of logic I was applying to the situation, but it must have been something along the lines of, “maybe if I take vitamins and drink lots of water, I won’t have to make the effort to talk to a doctor.” I am SUCH a guy. Don’t get me wrong. Hope can be a good thing. It IS a step above not caring at all. So
it’s okay when your only other option is lying down and letting the ants eat you—or perhaps when a cataclysmic event draws near, completely out of your control. But it’s not for every situation…and it’s not for everybody. Certainly not hope-heads like me who use it to get out of things like paying parking tickets on time. It makes you wonder about the real reason the words “hope” and “dope” rhyme so well. Really, who are we expecting to come to our rescue? Maybe in the past we’ve had nocturnal gnomes finish our mountain of paperwork while we drooled on our desk…
or perhaps the creditor did actually forget that we owed his company more money than we make in a year. But in reality, those problems are on temporary leave, waiting to boomerang their way back into our lives and bite us on the ass. So…what do we do? Stop waiting for a sign. Use something that’s already happened
to you as a trigger to ignite the fire under you. For me, it was a health scare—the day I found a reddish sore on my lip that I immediately assumed was herpes…or maybe stigmata. Anyway, since I’d never been tested for the former (doctors told me I didn’t need to be tested if I didn’t have symptoms…huh), I assumed the worst, of course. Tired of the nauseating trend, I refused to wait any longer. I made an appointment to see my doctor. Ironically, I still had to wait for the appointment. But by taking action, I set the wheels of progress in motion…as opposed to hoping the imaginary ones would magically fix everything. Not only did I get my lip checked out, I also signed up for a med trial. And it only took three years from the time of infection! Yay for me! It’s a simple concept, really: creating your own solutions instead of waiting for them. But sometimes we need to be reminded. Especially during hard times like these when we’re tired of receiving so little for the stress we endure. Life is still a torrent of curveballs. But to some degree, it can be used as a vehicle to elevate our spirit, our perspective and…eventually…our lot in life. So as another financially-challenged Christmas approaches, I ignore the impulse to
hope for gift money to fall out of the sky and I open my eyes to a challenge or two. Do I want to spend the season simply hoping for a better situation next year? No. I want to relish the fact that, despite the setbacks that litter my path as far as the eye can see, I be- gan making things work for me THIS year. As for hope, I now reserve that for cataclysmic events beyond my control…like tax season.
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DECEMBER 2010 | RAGE monthly 31
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