” If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” – Marc Anthony

I personally think Marc left out a few lines.

“If you do what you love, prepare for people to doubt you”

“If you do what you love, be ready to find out who your true friends are”

and if I’m being really real…

“If you do what you love, you’re going to be disliked by people who are too scared to take a chance on themselves.”

That last one is my favorite.

Why do we do that?

Why do we bash, criticize, denounce, and nit-pick people who are chasing a dream? Especially when 99% of the time it’s not even our dream that they are chasing. What do we get out of rooting against the success of others?

I will admit that I am not exempt from being a “hater”. Up until the last year or so If someone told me about a dream or passion they were pursuing I would find a sliver of negativity and add it into the mix. I’m not perfect and I’ll never pretend to be perfect. I still have to work on remaining in a positive state of mind quite regularly.

This positivity shit is hard man. Especially in this day and age where it is so SO easy to be negative.

‘I don’t like that joke/video/photo/article/whatever. I’ll just let them know how i feel in the comments section.’

That shit is so easy.

Let me ask you this.

Do you think Michael Jordan or Beyoncé leave YouTube comments?

Of course not. So why are we? I know that we aren’t all MJ’s and Bey’s. I do however think that all of us want greatness in our life. Show me a person who only wants mediocrity and I’ll show you a liar looking for attention.

I don’t know why negativity is sky-high these days. It seems like it’s cool to not like something. Be different, yeah stand out. Go against the norm.

‘ If 2 million people like this video, that means its time for me to tell her she looks like a farm animal’.

So edgy.

To me it seems pretty self-explanatory.

A lack of self-confidence and an abundance of self-doubt. If you’re not confident about the person you are or lack a sense of direction in life you feel inferior to those that do.

I used to feel so embarrassed that as a man in his 30’s I still didn’t know what I wanted out of life. I had no idea what my “dream job” was. I thought you were supposed to have this stuff figured out when you were a kid. So there I was thirty plus years old, not having a single idea on what to do with my life, seeing friends, acquaintances, classmates, old coworkers, pursing careers/lives.

I hated it. In my mind they were better than me. They have a passion. They know what they want to do. I don’t. They’re better than me.

I don’t know if it came with age but eventually I realized that these people were not better than me. No one is better than me and I am better than no one.

I came to realize that these people had just figured out their passion/dream sooner than I had. They had their ‘enough is enough’ breakthrough moment before I had the chance to have mine. Which in turn made me feel really dumb for carrying around so much animosity towards anyone I deemed more “successful” than myself.

It’s okay to not have shit figured out. That’s life. Even when you think you’re on to something you could be a million miles off course. I thought I wanted to be a fitness writer. I wrote two articles and hated it. It was boring to me. It felt like I was trying to be someone else or target an audience that I honestly have no interest in targeting. So now I just write about whatever. My next article might be about having penises for nipples. Not too sure yet.

My point is, don’t be like me.

Don’t exude hate and negativity just because you believe someone is doing better than you. Ask that person questions. Be real. Ask for advice.

Transparency goes a long way.

 

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